Bondanella P. The Films of Roberto Rossellini

Cambridge University Press, 1993. - 180 p.The Films of Roberto Rossellini traces the career of one of the most influential Italian filmmakers through close analysis of the seven films that mark important turning points in his evolution: The Man with a Cross (1943), Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), The Machine to Kill Bad People (1948-52), Voyage in Italy (1953), General Delia Rovere (1959), and The Rise to Power of Louis XIV (1966). Beginning with Rossellini's work within the fascist cinema, it discusses his fundamental contributions to neorealism, a new cinematic style that resulted in several classics during the immediate postwar period. Almost immediately, however, Rossellini's continually evolving style moved beyond mere social realism to reveal other aspects of the camera's gaze, as is apparent in the films he made with Ingrid Bergman during the 1950s; though unpopular, these works had a tremendous impact on the French New Wave critics and directors. Rossellini's late career marks a return to his neorealist period, now critically reexamined, in such works as the commercially successful General Delia Rovere, and his eventual turn to the creation of didactic films for television. Emphasizing Rossellini's relationship to cinematic realism, The Films of Roberto Rossellini also explores in depth the aesthetic dimensions of his working method.Rossellini and Realism: The Trajectory of a Career.
L'uomo dalla croce: Rossellini and Fascist Cinema.
Roma citta aperta and the Birth of Italian Neorealism.
Paisa and the Rejection of Traditional Narrative Cinema.
La macchina ammazzacattivi: Doubts about the Movie Camera as a Morally Redemptive Force.
Viaggio in Italia: Ingrid Bergman and a New Cinema of Psychological Introspection.
Il generale Delia Rovere: Commercial Success and a Reconsideration of Neorealism.
La prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV: Toward a Didactic Cinema for Television.Chronology.