Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious:
The Making of 'Mary Poppins
Celluloide (1996)
Italian director Roberto Rossellini was known as cinema’s father of neorealism, thanks primarily to his movie Rome, Open City. Filmed soon after the end of World War II, Rossellini’s depiction of Rome under Nazi occupation unsparingly utilized a people and landscape still scarred by recent events. The documentary-like style of the film not only confused contemporary critics, but also led Otto Preminger to opine that the history of the cinema could be divided into two eras: one before and one after Rome, Open City.
Based on Ugo Pirro’s novel, Celluloide focuses on Rossellini and scriptwriter Sergio Amidei's efforts to maintain the grittiness of their film against the producer’s desire for a bit of escapism. On top of the constant pressure to secure funding, Rossellini also must contend with the demands of his lead actors, a lack of film equipment (including celluloid) and an unreliable power supply. Fortuitously, his crew's purloining of electricity from an adjoining G.I. dance hall introduces a potential knight in khaki armour.
This biopic was a longtime pet project for director Carlo Lizzani and his affinity with the subject is evident from the film’s idiosyncratic opening. Elsewhere, Lizzani incorporates sequences of Rome, Open City into his film as the characters of Rossellini and Amidei describe what they intend to film. For the most part, this unique merging of study and subject matter is refreshingly effective, though the inspiration for Rome, Open City’s most famous shots is a bit twee.
Regrettably, despite Lizzani’s passion for Rossellini’s landmark film, Celluloide is dulled by too many scenes of angry white men shouting at each other. It takes the introduction of Lina Sastri as Anna Magnani to belatedly inject some life into the film. Incidentally, one of Lizzani’s first jobs in cinema was working as a scenarist on Germany, Year Zero, the third installment of Rossellini’s Neorealist Trilogy.
as Roberto Rossellini
as Sergio Amidei
as Maria Michi
as Anna Magnani
“An entertaining book by Ugo Pirro, 'Celluloide' tells the story of the beginning of neorealism in enormous detail, including the filming of Open City. The problem is that the account is heavily fictionalised, with invented conversations and so on, and in the absence of a single note, source, or reference to an interview, the book cannot be taken as a definitive account of the period.”
Peter Brunette (Roberto Rossellini)
Similarly, in Millicent Marcus’ essay 'Celluloide and the Palimpsest of Cinematic Memory: Carlo Lizzani's Film of the Story Behind Open City', the author notes that while Tag Gallagher’s book 'The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini: His Life and Films' often cites Ugo Pirro’s 1983 novel as a source, he also calls attention to a variety of instances where Pirro’s version of events is either deficient or inaccurate.
“Amidei, far from being the hovering commissar Pirro portrays, was rarely on the set (Vito Annichiarico [who portrayed Il piccolo Marcello] never saw him there)”
Tag Gallagher (The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini: His Life and Films)
"Celluloide is not a remake of Rome, Open City. You never see a sequence being filmed, you always stop at the moment you intuit a scene or while the actors are being made up. I would never allow myself, nor would it be in good taste, to redo a sequence by a great like Rossellini."
Carlo Lizzani (director)