TSPDT - Roberto Rossellini

Roberto Rossellini

Top 200 Directors

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Survey of Filmmakers: Top 25 Directors (2005 poll by The Film Journal)

Irene Bignardi's 5 Best Directors

Fred Camper's Top 10 Directors

Jean-Michel Frodon's 5 Best Directors

Chris Fujiwara's Top 10 Directors

►501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

See Also

Michelangelo Antonioni

Vittorio De Sica

Federico Fellini

Jean-Luc Godard

Abbas Kiarostami

Louis Malle

Marcel Pagnol

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Jean Renoir

Martin Scorsese

Paolo & Vittorio Taviani

Luchino Visconti

Director / Screenwriter / Producer

1906 - 1977

Born May 8, Rome, Italy

Key Production Countries: Italy, France

Key Genres: Drama, Biography, Religious Drama, War Drama, Psychological Drama, Marriage Drama, Hagiography, Historical Film

Key Collaborators: Renzo Rossellini (Composer/Producer), Jolanda Benvenuti (Editor), Sergio Amidei (Screenwriter), Mario Nascimbene (Composer), Ingrid Bergman (Leading Player), Luciano Scaffa (Screenwriter), Marcella Mariani (Screenwriter), Otello Martelli (Cinematographer), Eraldo Da Roma (Editor), Federico Fellini (Screenwriter)

Highly Recommended: Germany, Year Zero (1947), The Flowers of St. Francis (1950), Europa '51 (1951), Voyage in Italy (1953)

Recommended: Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), Stromboli (1949), General Della Rovere (1959), The Rise to Power of Louis XIV (1966), Beaubourg (1977)

Worth a Look: L'Amore (1948), La Paura (1954), India: Matri Bhumi (1959), Viva l'Italia! (1961), Love at Twenty [co-directed by Marcel Ophüls, Renzo Rossellini, François Truffaut, and Andrzej Wajda] (1962), Acts of the Apostles [TV] (1969), Socrates [TV] (1971), Augustine of Hippo [TV] (1972), Blaise Pascal [TV] (1972), Cartesius [TV] (1974), Il Messia (1975)

Links: [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ Film Reference ] [ Strictly Film School ] [ Roberto Rossellini and His Italian Cinema: The Search for Realism ] [ BBC Profile ] [ Wikipedia ] [ Sight & Sound Article (2007) ]

Books: [ The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini ] [ Roberto Rossellini: Magician of the Real ] [ My Method: Writings and Interviews ] [ The Films of Roberto Rossellini ] [ Roberto Rossellini ] [ In the Name of the Father, the Daughter, and the Holy Sprirts: Remembering Roberto Rossellini ]

DVD's: [ Amazon ]

1,000 Greatest Films: Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), Germany, Year Zero (1947), Stromboli (1949), The Flowers of St. Francis (1950), Voyage in Italy (1953), The Rise to Power of Louis XIV (1966)


	"As most precisely exemplified in his early, pure neorealistic films, his camera is relentlessly fixed on the physical aspects of the world around us. Yet, as defined by his later works, which both retain and modify much of this temporal focus, the director is also trying to capture within the same lense an unseen and spiritual landscape. Thus, the one constant within all of his films must inevitably remain his concern for fundamental human values and aspirations, whether they are viewed with the anger and immediacy of a Rome, Open City or the detachment of a Viaggio in Italia." - Stephen L. Hanson (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)

	"Distinguished Italian film-maker, at his most forceful in the post-war years. Then, he took the world by storm with a series of dramatic and painful films depicting the horrifying aftermaths of war that were instrumental, together with films by Vittorio De Sica and others, in boosting the prestige of the Italian cinema." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999)

	"Rossellini was less a filmmaker than someone who observed the world through film. He had worked his way toward the idea that any situation could be made intelligible and moving by film and that "human stories" were natural illustrations of history and politics. Rossellini though that "The real creative artist in the cinema is someone who can get the most out of everything he sees - even if he sometimes does this by accident"." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)

	"A master of Italian neorealism, Rossellini created a number of passionately objective films about Italy at war (Open City, 45; Paisan, 46). He then moved on to intense character studies (Stromboli, 50) before lensing a series of stark, slowly unfolding historical essays in the form of drama (The Rise of Louis XIV, 66; Socrates, 70)." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)

	"I do not want to make beautiful films, I want to make useful films." - Roberto Rossellini