Roberto Rossellini

Roberto Rossellini with Ingrid Bergman

Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini (born May 8, 1906 in Rome ; † June 3, 1977 there ) was an Italian film director and pioneer of the Italian film school of neorealism . He is considered one of the most important directors in film history.

biography

family

Rossellini was married to the set and costume designer Marcella De Marchis from 1936 to 1942 and had two sons with her, Marco Romano (born July 3, 1937, † 1946 with appendicitis ) and Renzo (born August 24, 1941). At times he had a relationship with Anna Magnani . From 1950 to 1957 he was married to the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman . Their children together are Roberto, Isabella and their twin sister Isotta Ingrid . After Rossellini entered into a relationship with the Indian Sonali Das Gupta , who was 24 years his junior and had daughter Raffaela (* 1958), the marriage with Ingrid Bergman was divorced. Rossellini adopted the son of his new partner, Arjun (1956 to 2008), who was henceforth Gil Rossellini and who became famous as a documentary film director. Roberto Rossellini was the brother of the composer and conductor Renzo Rossellini , who contributed the music to most of his films.

Beginnings

Rossellini grew up as the son of the architect Giovanni Rossellini in a middle-class milieu in Via Ludovisi . He came into contact with the medium of film at an early age through his father, who had built the first Roman cinema. As a child, his father gave him unlimited access to the cinema. When he died, he was already working as a noise maker for the film. In the following years he acquired knowledge in all areas of film technology through practical activities.

In 1936 Rossellini made Daphne , his first short film (lost today). After the short documentary Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1938, also lost), he was assigned as assistant director to Goffredo Alessandrini , with whom he made Luciano sera pilota , one of the most successful Italian films of the first half of the 20th century . In 1940 he assisted Francesco De Robertis in the shooting of Uomini sul fondo . His close friendship with Vittorio Mussolini , son of the " Duce " and at the time head of the Italian film industry, is considered to be one of the decisive factors in his rapid career.

Fascist trilogy

La nave bianca (1941) is a propaganda film funded by the Italian Navy. The themes are a sea battle, the wounding of a group of seamen on a warship, their rescue, transfer and medical care in a hospital ship; in the melodramatic center of the plot is a seriously injured machinist and his encounter with a nurse. Together with Un pilota ritorna (1942) and L'uomo dalla croce (1942–43), the film forms the so-called “Fascist Trilogy” Rossellini. During this time he also became acquainted with Federico Fellini and Aldo Fabrizi .

Neorealistic trilogy

During the Second World War he began the film Rome, Open City (1945), which was a great success and was to establish its international reputation. Using scraps of film he had bought up, he captured a dramatic plot in Fascist Italy at outdoor locations. Initially planned as a documentary about the execution of an anti-fascist clergyman, the project quickly expanded into a feature film. With Aldo Fabrizi in the lead role, a differentiated drawing of morality between inhuman terror and human love that was firmly established in belief, apart from all national affiliation, was achieved immediately after the actual event. Due to its closeness to everyday life and its technical and dramatic improvisation, the film became the work of Italian neorealism par excellence. In Paisà (1946) Rossellini shows the liberation of Italy from fascism from the south to the Po Valley in several locally determined episodes . In doing so, he developed the concept of neorealism further: he brought in extras from the surrounding area that he knew how to use skillfully. Fellini later confessed that while working with Rossellini he had learned to deal with people in film technology during this time. An important contemporary document from post-war Germany is the film Germany in the year zero , which he shot in 1948 in bombed Berlin on original locations with amateur actors. The fatal continued effect of a social Darwinism propagated by the National Socialists is vividly illuminated using the example of a boy who, influenced by his teacher, decides to kill his sick father.

Bergman trilogy

His relationship arose during the filming of Stromboli (1949), the story of a woman who (in order to escape the internment camp) marries a fisherman who lives on a remote volcanic island and is desperate because of the intolerance, narrow-mindedness and violence of her surroundings Ingrid Bergman . Enthusiastic about Rossellini's films, she had previously written to offer him her collaboration with the words: “Dear Mr. Rossellini! I saw your films Open City and Paisà and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, has not forgotten her German, whose French is not particularly understandable and who only knows 'ti amo' in Italian, I am ready to come and make a film with you ". Since Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman were still otherwise married at that time, their relationship in Hollywood turned into a scandal that appeared even more offensive after the birth of twin daughters Isabella and Isotta. Also with Ingrid Bergman, Europe '51 followed in 1952 .

In Reise in Italien (1954) Rossellini developed another neorealist concept. At the beginning of the 1950s he had already noticed that neorealism could not be absorbed in filming forever in destroyed cities. In Naples and Pompeii , against the backdrop of everyday life, Rossellini shows Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders as an estranged British couple. Already agreed on the divorce, the two recognize their love for each other at the last moment, in the face of a couple exposed as a plaster cast in Pompeii and bound at the moment of death. In France, the work, which was conspicuous for its realistic depiction and restrained musical commentary, soon became the manifesto of a new cinematic age. With the appearance of Reise in Italy , all films have aged ten years, according to Jacques Rivette .

Late work

Rossellini then turned to India . In the ten-part series for the Italian and French television L'India vista da Rossellini , he developed his image of the subcontinent. India, Mother Earth (1957), which moves into a completely new genre between documentary and feature film , is considered more authentic and valuable than these preliminary studies .

From the beginning of the 1960s until his death, Rossellini made almost exclusively television films with historical themes, including a. about the unification of Italy as well as the life stories of Socrates and Louis XIV. Rossellini showed himself to be a veteran. Only towards the end of his work did he regain the artistic strength of his early works.

Rossellini was significantly influenced by Catholicism , which was particularly evident in his late work. Only in faith could he imagine complete freedom.

Roberto Rossellini died of a heart attack at the age of 71.

Aftermath

François Truffaut said of Rossellini: “Roberto taught me that the subject of a film is more important than the originality of the title, that a good script has to be on twelve pages, that it is necessary to film the children with more respect than anything else that the camera is no more important than a fork, and that you have to say to yourself before every shot: 'Either I am making this film or I am perishing.' "

Motorsport

Rossellini was active as an amateur racing driver in international motorsport in the 1950s. In 1953 he contested the Mille Miglia on a privately registered Ferrari 250MM , but retired from the race.

Filmography

• 1941: La nave bianca
• 1942: Un pilota ritorna
• 1942/43: L'uomo dalla croce
• 1945: Rome, open city (Roma, città aperta)
• 1943/46: Desiderio - directed together with Marcello Pagliero
• 1946: Paisà
• 1948: Germany in the year zero ( Germania anno zero )
• 1947/48: Amore
• 1948: The machine that kills the wicked ( La macchina ammazzacattivi )
• 1949: Stromboli ( Stromboli, terra di Dio )
• 1950: Francis, the juggler of God ( Francesco, giullare di Dio )
• 1952: Europe '51 - with Ingrid Bergman
• 1952: The Seven Sins ( Les sept péchés capitaux ) - Director of the 4th episode ( L'invidia )
• 1952: where is the freedom? ( Dov'è la libertà? )
• 1953: We Women ( Siamo donne ) - Director of the 3rd episode
• 1954: Amori di mezzo secolo (episode: Napoli 1943 )
• 1954: Journey in Italy ( Viaggio in Italia )
• 1954: Fear ( La paura ) - based on the novel of the same name by Stefan Zweig
• 1959: India, mother earth ( India, matri bhumi )
• 1959: The False General ( Il generale Della Rovere )
• 1960: It was night in Rome ( Era notte a Roma )
• 1961: Viva l'Italia
• 1961: Uno sguardo dal ponte
• 1961: The Fearless Rebel ( Vanina Vanini )
• 1961: Torino nei cent'anni
• 1962: Die Carabinieri ( I carabinieri ) (co-author; director: Jean-Luc Godard )
• 1962: The Duce - Caesar Benito Mussolini ( Benito Mussolini )
• 1962: Black Soul (Anima nera)
• 1963: Rogopag (episode: Illibatezza )
• 1964: L'età del ferro
• 1967: The seizure of power by Louis XIV ( La presa del potere da parte di Luigi XIV )
• 1967: Idea di un'isola. Sicilia
• 1969: The story of the apostles ( Atti degli apostoli )
• 1970: Socrates ( Socrate )
• 1971: La forza e la ragione: Interview with Salvador Allende
• 1971: Rice University
• 1971: Blaise Pascal
• 1972: Agostino d'Ippona
• 1973: Descartes ( Cartesius )
• 1973: L'età di Cosimo de 'Medici
• 1974: Concerto per Michelangelo
• 1974: The World Population
• 1974: Anno uno
• 1976: The Messiah (Il Messia)
• 1977: Beaubourg, center d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou

Motorsport statistics

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
1953	Roberto Rossellini	Ferrari 250MM	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
				DNF

literature

• Peter Brunette: Roberto Rossellini. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 1996, ISBN 0-520-20053-5 .
• Tag Gallagher: The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini. Da Capo Press, New York NY 1998, ISBN 0-306-80873-0 (a bio and filmography);
  French: Les Aventures de Roberto Rossellini. Essai biographique. Éditions Léo Scheer, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-7561-0017-X .
• Alfons Maria Arns: The trauma of "Nazismo" - Roberto Rossellini and Germany. In: tenors, tourists, guest workers. German-Italian film relations. Cinegraph - Hamburg Center for Film Research (ed.). Munich: edition text + kritik 2011, pp. 93–106
• Paolo Licheri, Rossellini: dal grande al piccolo schermo. Per una Televisione tra divulgazione e spettacolo , Liguori Editore, Napoli, 2016 ( ISBN 978-88-207-6412-8 ; eISBN 978-88-207-6413-5).

Movies

Ivo Barnabò Micheli (director): Roberto Rossellini: Days of Adventure , 104 min., WDR / RAI , BRD / Italy 1988.

Web links

Commons : Roberto Rossellini  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• A tribute to the 30th anniversary of Roberto Rossellini's death. Archived from the original on February 18, 2013 ; accessed on March 13, 2018 . 
• Roberto Rossellini in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Literature by and about Roberto Rossellini in the catalog of the German National Library
• Georg Seeßlen : Prophet of Modernity . In: Die Zeit , No. 18/2006 - on the director's 100th birthday.
• English-language essay on the work of Roberto Rossellini

Individual evidence

1. ^ The adventures of Roberto Rossellini at Google books .
2. ↑ The marriage was concluded as a glove marriage in Mexico. (Statement from Isabella Rossellini in the documentary "Ingrid Bergman - in memory" about her mother Ingrid Bergman on the DVD Indiskret )
3. ^ Statement by Isabella Rossellini in the documentary Ingrid Bergman - in memory of her mother Ingrid Bergman on the DVD Indiskret .
4. ↑ Reclam's film guide quoted in mediaculture-online ( memento of the original from September 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
5. ↑ Joachim Gatterer / Jessica Alexandra Micheli (eds.): Ivo Barnabò Micheli. Poetry of opposites. Cinema radicale , Folio Verlag, Vienna-Bozen 2015, p. 122.