DVD Pick: Rossellini's War Trilogy (Criterion Collection)

In 1940s Italy, filmmakers began making gritty movies in a style that had enormous impact on filmmaking all over the world. The movement became known as Italian neorealism, and one of its pioneers was Roberto Rossellini. Three of his movies are usually cited as key exemplars of the style: Rome Open City (1945), Paisan (1946) and Germany Year Zero (1948). Collectively called the War Trilogy, all deal with World War II and its immediate aftermath.

For years, Paisan was hard to get on any home video medium, so not many people saw it. Image Entertainment produced a DVD version of Germany Year Zero in Italian, but it felt inauthentic since all the characters are Berliners. Image also put out Rome Open City on DVD, but with poor picture quality. But now Criterion has released a three-disc DVD set containing all three movies with good picture quality and the Germany Year Zero dialogue in German. Accompanying the feature films is a rich selection of extras.

The hallmark of the Italian neorealist film is that the sympathetic characters are down-to-earth, everyday people who live drab, hardscrabble lives in difficult economic circumstances. Many scenes resemble 1940s newsreel footage, but the realism is almost entirely in the visuals. The stories are often melodrama, the acting is not necessarily naturalistic, the voices may seem disconnected from the pictures, and the music can be overbearing. Nevertheless, Italian neorealist movies can achieve great emotional power, as shown by the War Trilogy.

Set in 1944, Rome Open City is a low-budget propaganda piece done with great artistry. The Eternal City is under German occupation, and the sympathetic characters are associated with the resistance. Well-known actors appearing in key roles include Anna Magnani as the earthy fiancée of a Marxist and Aldo Fabrizi as a courageous Catholic priest. Modern-day sensibilities may be offended that two cruel Nazi characters are depicted as homosexuals. The film is mostly in Italian, with some dialogue in German.

Paisan is about the 1943-44 liberation of Italy as seen in six episodes, each with its own separate story and group of actors. The setting moves south to north, from Sicily to Naples to Rome to Florence to a monastery in the Apennine Mountains to the Po River delta (near Venice). The average episode runtime is roughly 21 minutes. The artistic quality varies, but the film gradually builds in power, and the sixth episode is very strong. Americans play important roles throughout, so there's almost as much English spoken as Italian.

Berlin Year Zero is set two years after World War II, and the film will always be remembered for its 1947 location shots of the great German city in ruins. Rossellini's main concern here was for the children, and the movie's central character is Edmund Köhler, a boy of about 12. Edmund struggles to help his family through the hard times, but because of his Nazi upbringing and the influence of a pedophile, he does something appalling. The film, which is short and straightforward, is in German.

There are so many extras accompanying the three feature films that it seems best to limit the discussion here to pointing out some of the highlights.

If it's Italian neorealism you're interested in, be sure to watch the insightful 31-minute English-language video essay "Into the Future," in which Rossellini scholar Tag Gallagher analyzes the War Trilogy. Also, in the booklet packaged with the DVDs, read James Quandt's 8-page essay "Myth and Manipulation," which addresses Rossellini's mix of realism and artifice in the three films. For a good discussion of how urban settings are used in the War Trilogy, watch the 25-minute English-language visual essay "Rossellini and the City" by author Mark Shiel.

To learn more about the man who directed the War Trilogy, watch the 66-minute documentary "Roberto Rossellini," which discusses his life and body of work. For a look at Rossellini around the time he made the first film in the trilogy, there's the 52-minute documentary "Once Upon a Time … Rome Open City." Both documentaries are mostly in Italian, but with some English and French. Both mention his tumultuous romantic relationship with Anna Magnani and the scandal of his affair with Ingrid Bergman. Also on the DVD set is the slide show "Roberto and Roswitha," about his German girlfriend Roswitha Schmidt, and this offers a plausible explanation as to why he chose to make Berlin Year Zero.

The only audio commentary is the reasonably good 1995 English-language one by film scholar Peter Bondanella on Rome Open City.

Below I have listed details for the three-disc Criterion Collection DVD set containing Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy.

Release Date: January 26, 2010
Number of Discs: 3
Rome Open City Runtime: 1 hr. 43 min.
Paisan Runtime: 2 hr. 6 min.
Germany Year Zero Runtime: 1 hr. 13 min.
Feature Films Not MPAA Rated, Black and White, Aspect Ratio 1.33:1
Rome Open City in Italian and German Monaural
Paisan in Italian and English Monaural
Germany Year Zero in German Monaural
English Subtitles for Italian and German Dialogue in All 3 Films
Audio Commentary on Rome Open City by Film Scholar
Video Intro to Each Film by Rossellini (3 to 4 min. each)
Once Upon a Time … Rome Open City (52 min.)
Film Critic Adriano Adrà on Rome Open City (12 min.)
Rossellini and the City (25 min.)
Film Critic Father Virgilio Fantuzzi on Rome Open City (5 min.)
Film Critic Adriano Adrà on Paisan (17 min.)
Q & A: Rossellini at Rice University (13 1/2 min.)
Into the Future (31 min.)
Italian Opening of Germany Year Zero (3 min.)
Roberto Rossellini (1 hr. 6 min.)
Letters From the Front: Carlo Lizzani on Germany Year Zero (23 min.)
Film Critic Adriano Adrà on Germany Year Zero (12 min.)
Directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani on Rossellini's Films (8 min.)
Roberto and Roswitha (Slide Show)
48-Page Booklet Containing 4 Essays