1945 · A · 1h 45min
Marina and a German officer stumble into the scene while intoxicated; she faints when she sees that the Germans have tortured Giorgio to death rather than treat him well as she had been led to expect. Realizing that she was responsible for this, she passes out. The Gestapo chief and the collaborator decide that she is now useless to them and arrest her, taking away the fur coat they had given her as a bribe.
Drama | Thriller | War | Foreign Language
Original Title Roma città aperta
Director Roberto Rossellini
Music Renzo Rossellini
Stars Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, Marcello Pagliero
Release Date 24 September 1945 (Rome International Film Festival)
Country of Origin Italy
Language(s) Spoken Italian | German | Latin
Sound Mono | Colour Black and White | Aspect Ratio 1.37 : 1
During the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944, the Resistance leader, Giorgio Manfredi, is chased by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a way to escape.
Rome, Open City (Italian: Roma città aperta, also released as Open City) is a 1945 Italian neorealist war drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini and co-written by Sergio Amidei and Federico Fellini. Set in Rome in 1944, the film follows a diverse group of characters coping under the Nazi occupation, and centres on a Resistance fighter trying to escape the city with the help of a Catholic priest. The title refers to Rome being declared an open city after 14 August 1943. It forms the first third of Rosselini’s “Neorealist Trilogy”, followed by Paisan (1946) and Germany, Year Zero (1948).
Open City is considered one of the most important and representative works of Italian neorealism, and an important stepping stone for Italian filmmaking as a whole. It was one of the first post-war Italian pictures to gain major acclaim and accolades internationally, winning the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival and being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar at the 19th Academy Awards. It launched director Rossellini, screenwriter Fellini, and actress Anna Magnani into the international spotlight.
In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 films to be saved, a list of 100 films that “have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978.”
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Synopsis
In occupied Rome in 1944, German SS troops are trying to arrest the engineer Giorgio Manfredi, a communist and a leader of the Resistance against the German Nazis and Italian Fascists, who is staying in a rooming house. The landlady warns him in time of the Germans' arrival, so that he can elude them by jumping across the rooftops. He goes to the home of Francesco, another Resistance fighter. There he encounters Pina who lives in the next apartment. Pina, Francesco's fiancée, is visibly pregnant. She first suspects Giorgio of being a cop and gives him a rough time, but when he makes it clear he is not, she welcomes him into Francesco's apartment to wait for him. With Pina's help (she is also part of the Resistance), Giorgio contacts Don Pietro Pellegrini, a Catholic priest who is helping the Resistance, and asks him to transfer messages and money to a group of Resistance fighters outside the city as Giorgio is now known to the Gestapo and cannot do it himself.
Don Pietro is scheduled to officiate at Pina's and Francesco's wedding the next day. Francesco is not very religious, but rather would be married by a patriot priest than a fascist official; Pina, on the other hand, is devout, but wrestling with why God would allow such terrible things to happen to people. Her son, Marcello, is a somewhat reluctant altar boy. He and his friends have a small role in the Resistance planting bombs. Pina's sister Laura stays with her, but is not involved in the Resistance; in fact, she works in a cabaret serving the Nazis and Fascists. She is also an old friend of Marina, a girlfriend of Giorgio who has been looking for him, but with whom he is splitting up. Marina also works in the cabaret and as an occasional prostitute.
The local SS commander in the city, helped by the Italian police commissioner, suspects that Giorgio is at Francesco's apartment. They conduct a huge raid, pulling out all the people and arresting dozens of men. Giorgio gets away, but Francesco is thrown in a truck with other arrestees. Seeing him being taken away, Pina breaks through a cordon of police and runs towards him, but is shot dead. The priest, who was in the building to hide weapons, under the guise of praying for a dying man, holds her in his arms and prays for her soul. The truck drives away in a convoy with military vehicles, but outside of town it is attacked by Resistance fighters, and many of the captives escape. Francesco makes it back into Rome and reconnects with Giorgio. Together they go to the priest, who has offered to hide them in a monastery.
Marina betrays her former lover in exchange for drugs and a fur coat. Using information given by Marina, the Gestapo and Italian police capture Giorgio and the priest, along with an Austrian defector, on their way to the monastery. Francesco is saying goodbye to Marcello, and sees them get picked up and gets away. The defector, fearing torture, hangs himself in his cell. The Gestapo try to get Giorgio to betray his comrades, but it is in vain. He does not respond to sweet talk, so they torture him intensely; they want to break him before word gets out that he was arrested, so they can take the Resistance by surprise with the information they hope to extract from Giorgio.
They also try to use Don Pietro's influence on Giorgio to convince him to betray his cause, saying that he is an atheist and communist who is the enemy, but Don Pietro responds that anyone who strives to live a righteous life is on the path of God whether they believe in Him or not. They then force Don Pietro to watch Giorgio's torture. When Giorgio dies without revealing anything, Don Pietro blesses his body and commends him to God's mercy (last rites and sacraments cannot be given to someone who has died). Giorgio's refusal to yield shakes the confidence of the Germans, including the commander, who had boasted to the priest and the collaborating woman that they were the "master race", and no one from a "slave race" could withstand their torture.
Don Pietro still refuses to crack, so he is taken to be executed early the next morning before his parish can learn of his arrest and respond with a protest. However, the parish altar boys/Resistance fighters show up to where Don Pietro is being executed, and they begin whistling a tune which Don Pietro recognizes. The Italian firing squad is lined up to execute Don Pietro, but some deliberately miss him. The German officer in charge of the execution squad walks over to Don Pietro as soon as he realizes that the Italians will not kill a priest, and executes Don Pietro himself.
At this, the altar boys and Resistance fighters grow silent, bow their heads in grief, and slowly walk away. As the kids make way back into the city, a final shot of the city of Rome and St. Peter's Basilica can be seen clearly in the background.
"A world cinema landmark, but that dusty, respectful word does not do justice to a film that has not lost its power to surprise and even shock"
Kenneth Turan, L.A. Times