#498: ROSSELLINI, Roberto: Paisan (1946)

ROBERTO ROSSELLINI'S WAR TRILOGY {Spine #500} OOP

ROSSELLINI, Roberto (Italy)

Paisan [1946]

Spine #498
DVD

Robert Rossellini''s follow-up to his breakout Rome Open City was the ambitious, enormously moving Paisan, which consists of six episodes set during the liberation of Italy at the end of World War II, and taking place across the country, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley. With its documentary-like visuals and its intermingled cast of actors and nonprofessionals, Italians and their American liberators, this look at the struggles of different cultures to communicate and of people to live their everyday lives in extreme circumstances is equal parts charming sentiment and vivid reality. A long-missing treasure of Italian cinema, Paisan is available here for the first time in its full original release version.

126 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

in Italian and English

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2009

Director/Writers

Story by Sergio Amidei (with the collaboration of Federico Fellini, Rod Geiger, Alfred Hayes, Klaus Mann, Marcello Pagliero and Roberto Rossellini).

Mann was the son of Thomas.

Rossellini was 40 when he directed Paisan.

Other Rossellini films in the Collection:

#497: Rome Open City (1945)
#499: Germany Year Zero (1948)

#293: The Flowers Of St. Francis (1950)
#673: Stromboli (1950)
#674: Europe '51 (1952)

#675: Journey To Italy (1954)
#463: Il Generale Della Rovere (1959)
#456: The Taking Of Power By Louis XIV (1966)
Eclipse Series 14: Blaise Pascal (1972)

Eclipse Series 14: The Age Of The Medici (1972)
Eclipse Series 14: Cartesius (1974)

The Film

Paisan consists of six episodes — moving from the Italian south to north — roughly corresponding with the Allied invasion 1943-45.

As shown approximately on the map, the episodes take place in:

1. Sicily
2. Naples
3. Rome
4. Florence
5. A monastery near Rimini; and
6. The Po valley

As Bazin says (see below), this film probably exemplifies the neorealistic genre (or just plain “realism” [see below]) as well as any film ever made.

It is shot entirely on location, and one of the few Italian films of any era that used direct sound (with a few exceptions) … a narrator introduces each segment:

• 1. On the night of July 10, 1943, the Allied fleet opened fire on the southern coast of Sicily. Twelve hours later, the first large-scale Allied landing on the European continent had begun. Under cover of the first shadows of night, Allied patrols advance into Italian territory.
• Carmela (Carmela Sazio) is one of the exceptions. A Neopolitan, she had to be dubbed by a Sicilian. She is completely natural as the girl who keeps Joe (Robert van Loon) company in an abandoned fortress. Despite Joe’s efforts, the two are unable to communicate — and the resolution of this chapter offers an even starker example of miscommunication, in general …
• 2. The war advanced quickly through southern Italy. On September 8th, Allied cannons were trained on Naples. After crushing German resistance at Salerno, the Allies landed on the Amalfi Coast and a few weeks later Naples was liberated. Its port became the most important logistics center of the war in Italy.
• Joe (Dotts M. Johnson) is a Black M.P., quite drunk when we meet him. Pasquale (Alfonsino Pasca [Alfonso Bovino, in the booklet credits]) is a scrawny little kid who is drawn to Joe — despite the fact that, again, there is little or no real communication due to the language barrier.
• Eventually, Joe and Pasquale are sitting atop a pile of rubble. Johnson’s Joe delivers a magnificent speech:
• “Look at the skies! Look at the skies! Not a cloud in sight, and a million stars … if I had two ropes, I could swing here forever. I love this, paisan; I love this, paisan … hmm, there’s New York! New York! New York; there’s Central Park over there; and there’s a million skyscrapers with a thousand lights — to welcome me home — I’m a hero, I’m a hero, paisan — and I’ll take ya up Wall Street, up Wall Street — with a ticker-tape for me, that’s for me — the celebration for me; yeah, for me, for me — and you — and there’s City Hall over there; I’ll introduce you to the mayor — Hi, Mister Mayor — he says everything is prepared for me. Now, we’ll go up Broadway — Broadway is the biggest street in the world, and it’s my street — I own Broadway … to the Waldorf-Astoria; when we go into the Waldorf-Astoria you have to be careful — only the elite. Now, we’re in the Waldorf and look at the big seat cushions and the gold furniture. A thousand servants, all for me, to serve me because I’m a hero; I’m a hero. Now we’re gonna eat — look at the food! Look at the food! Caviar, there’s chicken, there’s turkeys, wine, whiskey, beer, champagne — everything for me! Eat as much as you want, paisan … I’ve got enough to eat, now I think we’ll go to sleep; c’mon, we’ll go to sleep…”
• Pasquale tells Joe (in Italian) not to go to sleep, because he’ll steal his boots. Joe falls asleep. The kid steals his boots.
• The denouement is heart-breaking …
• 3. A long and tragic delay at Cassino. On February 22, 1944, the Allies landed at Anzio. Rome waited anxiously. After a series of long, bloody battles, the Germans were crushed. Kesserling’s troops retreat through the streets of Rome.
• When we first meet Francesca (Maria Michi — Marina in Open City), she is flirting with G.I.s in a nightclub; soon, she is running from the police in her fur coat. She hides in a movie theatre, and when she offers the usherette money for the favor, the usherette says, “no thank you, you keep it.” Right away, Rossellini is coding the “good” and “bad” Italian girl …
• Soon she runs into a drunk Fred (Gar Moore).
• Rossellini will use a rare flashback sequence to tell us the rest of the story!
• 4. Pursued by the Allies, German troops flee through Lazio, Umbria, and Tuscany. Fighting flares up again for a while in the hills around Florence. But in early August, Eighth Army troops liberated the part of the city south of the Arno River. North of the river, Italian partisans fought German troops and Fascist snipers.
• Harriet (Harriet Medin [Harriet White in the booklet credits]) is an American nurse, who speaks Italian (finally, a bilingual American!) …
• She’s about to be transferred to Rome, but she doesn’t want to go. Her reasons become clear, presently …
• She meets Massimo (Renzo Avanzo) and, together, they go on important personal — but ultimately selfish — missions …
• 5. The “Gothic line” is an impregnable natural barrier. Every village must be wrested in bitter struggle from a ruthless and desperate enemy.
• Father Vincenzo Carrella and his fellow monks were real monks — but from Salerno, to the south, and therefore spoke in a Neapolitan dialect — so they were all dubbed in the Romagnolo dialect.
• Captain Martin (Bill Tubbs), The Protestant chaplain (Captain Newell Jones [Owen in the booklet credits]) and the Jewish chaplain (Sergeant Elmer Feldman) play themselves quite nicely.
• 6. Behind the lines, Italian partisans and American OSS officers join as brothers in a battle missing from war reports, but perhaps even tougher and more desperate.
• The most intense episode, featuring an American OSS officer, Dale (Dale Edmonds); an Italian partisan, Cigolani (Cigolani [Achille Siviero in the booklet credits]); and a German officer (Robert van Loel).
• The ending is so downbeat, that one could really get depressed.
• But narrator has not yet finished:
• “This happened in the winter of 1944. At the beginning of spring, the war was over.”

Which reminds one of Kubrick’s epilogue to Barry Lyndon (1975) {Spine #897}:

“It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor they are all equal now.”

Film Rating (0-60):

57

The Extras

The Booklet

#500: Forty-four page booklet featuring essays by James Quandt (on the trilogy), Irene Bignardi (Rome Open City: A Star is Born), Colin MacCabe (Paisan: More Real Than Real), and Jonathan Rosenbaum (Germany Year Zero: The Humanity of the Defeated).

MacCabe:

“Any simple description of Paisan would make it sound both miserable and despairing, but the verve of the stories and the sense of the camera finding realities as yet unseen actually make it one of the most inspiring and energizing of films … the film was greeted with unanimous critical acclaim in France, where Bazin chose it as the key film with which to explicate the importance of Italian neorealism as a whole.”

Commentary

None.

Video introduction

By Rossellini from 1963.

Video interview

With Rossellini scholar Adriano Aprà.

Good info.

Excerpts

From rarely seen videotaped discussion Rossellini had in 1970 with faculty and students at Rice University about his craft.

“What’s with the ‘neo-‘,?” Rossellini asks rhetorically … it’s just “realism.”

Into the Future

Visual essay about the War Trilogy by film scholar Tag Gallagher.

Excellent doc about all three films …

Extras Rating (0-40):

37

57 + 37 =

94

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