THE ITALIAN CINEMA AND THE LEFT
On Rediscovering Roberto Rossellini-Filmmaker
By Gaither Stewart [print_link]
(Left) Rossellini directing Paisá.
(Rome) The story of Roberto Rossellini is a very Italian story, encompassing Italy in change from the Fascist period and, reaching beyond his lived life, until 2009. Though Europe is not Europe without Italy, Rossellini’s story, in the strictest sense, is not an European story either. For Italy, separated from the rest of Europe by the Alps, is, and perhaps always has been, something apart, still today considered by many North Europeans an exotic place to escape to. Yet it is also true, as is popularly said, Italy is a wonderful place to visit but hell to live in. The story of Roberto Rossellini deals with that paradox. Read Roberto Rossellini and think Italy of the past 75 years.
ITALIAN CINEMA AND THE LEFT
(Left) Rossellini in his study.
THE FILM DIRECTOR
The concept of the author’s film was diametrically opposed to the Hollywood studio system in which film companies like Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, and Twentieth Century Fox controlled as all aspects of film production. Huge corporations controlled the kinds of films that were made, as well as the directors and the actors. The start system was born. Filmmaking became big business. This was the other side of the moon from the Italian Left cinema of the neo-realist period of committed artistic filmmaking.
NEO-REALISM BORN FROM THE WOMB OF FACISM
The scarcity of American films During World War II, permitted the German cinema to monopolize the European market and the Italian cinema to grow quickly. When an avalanche of American films arrived after the war, it was evident that Hollywood had not progressed one iota. The European cinema, instead, was rich in ideas. It wanted to be heard in the world. Though the German film industry was destroyed, France and especially Italy were ready. The names of Rossellini and De Sica spread through the world. Neo-realism then exploded on the scene. No longer Hollywood studio films, but author’s films of the dozens of film directors who were to change world cinema forever.
ROSSELLINI DIAGNOSIS
CHANGING TIMES, CINEMA CRISIS
As time passed and ideas changed, TV and terrorism kept Italians at home, filmmaking costs soared, empty cinema theatres began closing, the Left parties, now power centres, abandoned their cinema artists, Italian cinema could not compete economically with the US film industry, and economic crisis wracked the Italian cinema. Cheap garbage films arrived. The cinema had less time for socio-political struggles. The battleground was cruel and elusive and few Don Quixotes were found. Moreover, also the man of the Left himself was in crisis. One wondered if the filmmakers themselves had become indifferent to their old ideals.
ROSSELLINI SEMINAR
A FAMILY OF FILMMAKERS
Looking at Islam, written in the 1970s and included in the above mentioned September 1987 number of Cinecritica, I have translated here a slightly abbreviated version of it. The article was only publicized last year in the Italian press. The purpose of his article was to explain his never realized project for a series of films destined for TV and schools and universities to show the history of Islamic thought and to ask Moslem countries for help in their production. The article has historic value. It is striking in that it could have been written today.
LOOKING AT ISLAM
By Roberto Rossellini
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European Correspondent. He also serves as a columnist with TGP. He is based in Rome.