Roberto Rosselli's Paisan
Roberto Rossellini will forever be remembered as the Italian filmmaker who pioneered neorealism, initially making film shorts for the Fascist government during the war and then breaking through internationally in 1945 with the remarkable Open City, which was filmed on location in real houses and apartments. Rossellini is probably best known to American audiences for his scandalous affair with Ingrid Bergman and their subsequent marriage, but it should be noted that this groundbreaking director also introduced Federico Fellini to filmmaking and served as his early mentor.
Released in 1946,Paisan is Roberto Rossellini's episodic tale of the American advance into Italy during WWII, chronologically divided into six vignettes that begin with the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 and conclude with liberation in 1945. Although fictionalized, the six stories appear much like newsreels that give us pictures of the different regions of Italy as each episode moves northward up the western coast. Much of the reason Paisan retains a newsreel quality to is due to the neorealistic style of shooting with natural light and using local unprofessional actors. Working with Rossellini as one of the writers, Federico Fellini explains why this was the chosen film style:
"Neorealism was the natural way in Italy in 1945. There was no possibility of anything else. With Cinecittà in shambles, you had to shoot at the real location, with natural light, if you were lucky enough to have film. It was an art form invented by necessity. A neorealist was in reality any practical person who wanted to work."The slices of life that Rossellini portrays contrast greatly with the idealized propaganda films commonly served up as newsreels during the war. Many of the episodes are dark in both tone and in lighting, so don't expect upbeat endings for each vignette. Instead, each episode presents a far more accurate picture of how the war played in the Italian communities, where the local people are far more concerned about surviving and re-uniting with family than they are with political and national affiliations. Each story in Paisan is separated by off screen narration and accompanied with an Italian map to show where the next vignette will take place.
The first episode shows suspicious Sicilians encountering the American troops, only beginning to trust them when one Italian speaking American makes some small talk before asking about the Germans. The main focus of the story revolves around a New Jersey soldier (Robert Van Loon), who attempts to establish a relationship with Sicilian girl Carmela (Carmela Sazio) without being able to speak any Italian. Moving up the coast to Naples, the second story introduces a African American soldier (Dots Johnson) who gets drunk, has his shoes stolen by a street urchin, and tracks the boy down, only to discover that he is an orphan and probably needs the shoes worse than he does. Although individual stories are not credited to specific writers, this one bears elements that we will later see in Fellini's La Strada during a short street scene of performers busking for money.
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