Roberto Rossellini

Filmmakers

Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini (May 8, 1906 – June 3, 1977) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and producer. His first three films as director were The White Ship (1941), A Pilot Returns (1942), and The Man with a Cross (1943) he referred to as his “Fascist Trilogy.” Rossellini was one of the most prominent directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing to the movement with films such as Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), and Germany, Year Zero (1948).

Rossellini’s films after his early Neo-Realist films—particularly his films with his then wife Ingrid Bergman (with whom he had 3 children, including actress Isabella Rossellini)—were commercially unsuccessful, though Journey to Italy (1954) is well regarded in some quarters. He was an acknowledged master for the critics of Cahiers du Cinema in general and André Bazin, François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard in particular. Truffaut noted in his 1963 essay, Roberto Rossellini Prefers Real Life (available in The Films In My Life) that Rossellini’s influence in France particularly among the directors who became part of the nouvelle vague was so great that he was in every sense “the father of the French New Wave”.

His posthumous ex-son-in-law Martin Scorsese has acknowledged Rossellini’s seminal influence in his documentary My Voyage to Italy (the title itself a take on Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy). An important point to note is that out of Scorsese’s selection of Italian films from a select group of directors (Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica, Michelangelo Antonioni) Rossellini’s films form at least half of the films discussed and analyzed, highlighting Rossellini’s monumental role in Italian and world cinema.

Certain of Rossellini’s film related material and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives to which scholars and media experts from around the world may have full access. Rossellini’s son Renzo is producing the Audiovisual Encyclopedia of History by Roberto Rossellini, a multi-media support containing all of Rossellini’s works, interviews, and other material from the Rossellini archive. The Encyclopedia for now exists in prototype form.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

Film

  • Dafne (1936) – short
  • Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1937) – short
  • Tomb of the Angels (1937) – directed by directed by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia – co-writer
  • Luciano Serra, Pilot (1938) – directed by Goffredo Alessandrini – co-writer
  • La Vispa Teresa (1939) – short
  • Il Tacchino prepotente (1939) – short
  • Fantasia sottomarina (1940) – short
  • Il Ruscello di Ripasottile (1941) – short
  • The White Ship (1941) – uncredited
  • A Pilot Returns (1942)
  • The Man with a Cross (1943)
  • Rome, Open City (1945)
  • Desiderio (1946)
  • Paisà (1946)
  • L’Amore (segments: “Il Miracolo” and “Una voce umana”) (1948)
  • Germany, Year Zero (1948)
  • L’Invasore (1949)
  • Stromboli terra di Dio (1950)
  • Francesco, giullare di Dio (1950)
  • The Ways of Love (1950)
  • Les Sept péchés capitaux (segment: “Envie, L’Envy”) (1952)
  • The Machine to Kill Bad People 1952)
  • Europa ’51 (1952)
  • Siamo donne (segment: “Ingrid Bergman”) (1953)
  • Amori di mezzo secolo (segment: “Napoli 1943”) (1954)
  • Dov’è la libertà … ? (1954)
  • Viaggio in Italia (1954)
  • La Paura (1954)
  • Giovanna d’Arco al rogo (1954)
  • India: Matri Bhumi (1959)
  • Il generale Della Rovere (1959)
  • Era Notte a Roma (1960)
  • Viva l’Italia! (1961)
  • Vanina Vanini (1961)
  • Uno sguardo dal ponte (1961)
  • Anima nera (1962)
  • Benito Mussolini (1962)
  • Ro.Go.Pa.G. (segment: “Illibatezza”) (1963) – directed with Jean-Luc Godard, Ugo Gregoretti, Pier Paolo Pasolini – anthology
  • Les Carabiniers (1963)
  • The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (1966)
  • Da Gerusalemme a Damasco (1970)
  • Rice University (1971)
  • Intervista a Salvador Allende: La forza e la ragione (1971)
  • Agostino d’Ippona (1972)
  • Concerto per Michelangelo (1974)
  • The World Population (1974)
  • Anno uno (1974)
  • Il messia (1975)
  • Beaubourg, centre d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou (1983)

TV

  • L’India vista da Rossellini (1959) – miniseries
  • Torino nei cent’anni (1961)
  • L’Età del ferro (1964)
  • La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV (1966)
  • Idea di un’isola (1967)
  • Atti degli apostoli (1969) – miniseries
  • La lotta dell’uomo per la sua sopravvivenza (1970) – series
  • Socrates (1971)
  • Blaise Pascal (1972)
  • L’Età di Cosimo de’ Medici (1973)
  • Cartesius (1974)
  • Concerto per Michelangelo (1977)