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Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]

Posted By: Someonelse
Date: 17 Jun 2012 20:58:00
Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]

Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition]
DVD5 + DVD9 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:31:13 + 02:13:37 | 4,23 Gb + 6,70 Gb
Audio: Italian AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitles: English, Spanish
Genre: Comedy, Drama, War | Italy

Roberto Rossellini is one of the most influential European postwar directors, having lead the charge of Italian Neorealism and provided inspiration to the French Nouvelle Vague. This, of course, doesn't meant that he is a household name, nor does it mean that many of his most important films have been available on DVD in North America. Thankfully, with some forthcoming Criterion discs and this new Lions Gate Roberto Rossellini 2-Disc Collector's Edition, the Rossellini library is starting to get its due, though some of what is coming is not particularly his most well-known efforts.

DVDBeaver

Disc 1 (DVD5): Dov'e La Liberta…? (Where Is Freedom?) - IMDB, 91 mins, 1954
Rossellini's darkly comic satire showcases the great Italian comic Toto as a barber who is imprisoned for murdering his wife's suspected lover. After twenty years, Salvatore leaves the prison walls to find the world he once knew gone. His wife is dead, he encounters one deceitful person after another, and his family and friends are even more disloyal. Salvatore realizes he has no choice but to find a way back to prison where he feels certain he will be happier.

Disc 2 (DVD9): Era Notte A Roma (Escape By Night) - IMDB, 134 mins, 1960
In this emotional war drama set in Nazi-occupied Rome, a beautiful bootlegger (Giovanna Ralli) gives sanctuary to three escaped POWs - an American pilot, a Russian sergeant and a British major. By taking them in, she tragically jeopardizes the safety of her Communist lover while the confinement of the trapped prisoners brings their uneasy alliance to a boiling point, symbolizing the chaos of the world around them. The film is a fascinating blend of Rossellini's early Neorealist films and the more contemplative approach of his later works.

Such is the case of this set. The Robert Rossellini 2-Disc Collector's Edition, part of the Lions Gate Director's Series, features two little seen or discussed films from the 1950s. The first is Dov'è la libertà…? (Where is Freedom?) from 1954. A dark social comedy, Dov'è la libertà…? stars Italian screen icon Toto as Salvatore, a man pleading his case before a judge in a Roman court. Salvatore has spent twenty-two years of his life behind bars, and after only a short time of being on parole, he was arrested again, this time for trying to break back into jail.

Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]

As Salvatore explains, prison life had an order built on a mutual need amongst the imprisoned to survive their incarceration with as little hassle as possible. Ten or more men to one cell meant forming a miniature society, one where the quiet barber muddled through by keeping order and helping the others keep a fresh perspective. Salvatore himself was sent down the river for killing a man who tried to force himself on his wife, a crime of passion he is ready to put behind him.

Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]

Unfortunately, the march of time has passed him by while being away, and he is surprised to find the world is not as trusting of him as he is of it, nor as honest. On the outside, Salvatore bounces from one bad situation to another, getting involved in a crooked marathon dance, the flirtations of the selfish daughter of a boarding house landlady, and even his former in-laws, who prove to be the least trustworthy of the bunch. And don't even ask what he finds out about his late wife! With each set-back, Salvatore loses a little more of his faith in humanity, making him long for the moral order of prison life and inspiring his reverse jailbreak.

Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]

Dov'è la libertà…? is a quietly satirical film, avoiding broad jokes and relying on a sort of common sense comedy. For as irrational as Salvatore's actions seem on paper, his point-of-view makes perfect sense, particularly as it is explained by Toto. With his expressive eyes and hound-dog face, the actor's weary bafflement comes across as totally logical. He's a little like a latter-day Buster Keaton, with maybe a smidgen of Marty Feldman and Peter Sellers thrown in. There's just something about his exasperated expression that makes you want to believe him even as you laugh at him for being so gullible. How can society be so out of tune with a man so down to earth?
DVDtalk
Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]


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Era notte a Roma (Escape by Night) came six years later, in 1960, and it's a heavier production, getting back to the political drama that had first distinguished Rossellini as a director in movies like Paisan and Roma, città aperta. In Era notte a Roma, three nuns barter with rural peasants to lower the price of the goods the peasants are selling in return for the holy ladies taking three Allied fugitives away from their farm. This hodgepodge trio–a Brit, an American, and a Russian–have been on the run from a prisoner of war camp, and though the intention is to drop them off in the countryside between their farmland sanctuary and Rome, events conspire to force them all the way into the city.

Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]

Once in Rome, they are hidden in the attic of the most daring of the nuns, Esperia (Giovanna Ralli), who it turns out isn't a nun at all, but a savvy black marketeer. Esperia is already inadvertently in the political soup, as her fiancé (Renato Salvatori) is a deserter from the Italian army who is now part of the anti-German underground. Though Esperia initially wants the soldiers gone as quickly as possible, her stance softens as she gets to know them, and in the months leading up to the Allies liberating Italy, she and the others will go through various forms of Hell trying to keep the guys safe.

Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]

Much of Era notte a Roma is shot like Rossellini's early Neorealist pictures, using real sets and naturalistic techniques to lend the film an almost documentarian feel. A lot of it also borrows from wartime melodramas made in England and Hollywood during the war, including back-alley espionage and sinister, limping villains. There is even a hint of unspoken romance between the British officer (Leo Genn) and Esperia. All of it is handled smartly, however, and Rossellini keeps his eye squarely on the bigger questions that are at the heart of the script. He doesn't shy away from asking why the Italians took so long to resist and how Fascism was able to hold sway. He also understands that violence comes with consequences and taking a man's life is never as easy or heroic as it looks in other movies. Ultimately, Era notte a Roma is asking how far each individual is willing to go in order to do the right thing and even how one decides what that right thing is.

Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]

Esperia is the center of the film, and Giovanna Ralli is fantastic in the part. At times she's as fiery and forceful as Anna Magnani, and at others as contemplative and tearful as the more emotional performances of Rossellini's wife, Ingrid Berman. Of all the characters, Esperia is the only one who goes through any great change, from self-serving and apolitical to an angel of mercy. She also suffers the greatest loss and harbors the darkest secrets. Rossellini chooses to give her the final moments of the film, and in her cathartic, painful weeping, the true weight of what we have just watched lands on us with a mighty thud. In some ways it's hopeful, but it also forces us to ask whether the price it cost to get there was worth it.
DVDtalk
Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series [2-disc Collector's Edition] [ReUp]


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Robert Rossellini is a thoughtful director whose considered approach to cinematic storytelling pioneered the Italian Neorealist style. The two films on the Roberto Rossellini 2-Disc Collector's Edition come from 1954 and 1960, when his narrative technique had swung more toward classic Hollywood, but that doesn't make the work any less potent. Dov'è la libertà…? is an affecting social satire elevated by an expressive performance by Toto, and Era notte a Roma is a wartime melodrama with tension and thrills and a powerful turn by the beautiful and intense Giovanna Ralli. The DVD quality could be better, but nevertheless, the Roberto Rossellini 2-Disc Collector's Edition is Highly Recommended.
DVDtalk

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