罗马，不设防的城市

1.这部电影作为一个电影史的时刻，它开启了20世纪后半叶的一个最重要的电影史现象——新浪潮运动。它再度向整个世界宣告电影在现代生活当中所居的重要位置——电影是介入者，是参与者，是阐释者，是召唤者和构造者。

2.在《罗马，不设防的城市》这部电影当中，大时代、英雄群像、抵抗运动，同时是和深切的对日常生活，对底层人的认同与体认水乳交融地联系在一起的。

1945年罗西里尼的影片《罗马，不设防的城市》清晰地标识了一个电影史的时刻,它是一部电影史上名副其实的不朽名作。

1945年是二战结束的那一年，反法西斯同盟战胜了轴心国的法西斯主义势力，人类平安地度过了一个灭顶之灾般的大劫难。这部电影在战争结束的那一年出品，用现实主义的手法展现了一幅特定的战争年代“罗马风情画”，但它不是一般意义上的风情画，它不是日常生活，它展现的是战争中的严酷场景,是战争的严酷场景当中的人的生命，人的尊严，人的信念所面临的考验。

第二次世界大战是迄今为止人类历史上最酷烈，最危险的一场战争，这场战争的独特之处是，它不仅意味着人类文明曾经面临一个极端艰难、极端严酷的时刻，而且意味着现代历史以来人类信念遭到了极度残忍、剧烈的重创。人类因秉持发展主义信念而不断地自我提升，随着技术的进步变得愈加文明。而在这场战争当中，所有最新的技术却都用来服务于战争，服务于人类对人类的屠杀。奥斯威辛和广岛成了这场战争当中的两个令人心碎的标识物。二战虽然终结，但是它给人类留下了一个巨大的债务，人类社会面临着一个巨大的议题——对战争的反思，同时是对现代文明的反思。

电影史上有一个重要的时刻——1927年。这一年的美国电影《爵士歌王》当中，声音作为一个全新的元素进入了电影艺术。使其从一种纯粹的视觉艺术变成了视听艺术。之后，电影艺术经历了一个漫长的学会使用声音，把握声音，把电影从视觉艺术转换成视听艺术的过程。很有意思的是，在电影史当中，我们一直在遭遇并且目击这样的事实，电影艺术是随着技术的改变而不断被改变的，经常是一个巨大的技术革命造成电影艺术的巨大的转折甚至造成电影史的断代。

电影史的一个奇特的情形是新的技术进步，电影的空间因此打开，但是电影艺术会经历一个奇特的堕落过程。新的技术元素在提供了巨大的可能性和便利的同时增加了很多限定。当声音进入电影，在人们艰难地学会使用声音的时候，电影的堕落表现为它迅速地再度室内剧化或舞台剧化。

当故事完全成为了室内剧、客厅剧的时候，电影也一度堕落为所谓的“优质电影”或者叫“白色电话电影”。换句话说，充满了银幕的是“布尔乔亚的生活”，是烦人琐事，是琐屑的爱情故事，是日常生活当中的微末的悲欢离合。而在战争进行的过程当中，由于种种战时动员的需要，由于各种各样的政治高压，电影就愈发成为一种想象性的逃避和远离现实的空间。

战争结束后，《罗马，不设防的城市》标识着这样一个时刻——摄影机再度破墙而出，朝向人生，朝向社会，朝向真实，朝向我们曾经经历过的严酷的历史时刻和人们仍在继续经历着的战后光复时期极端严酷的现实生存。

《罗马，不设防的城市》开创了一种可能，给电影摄影机打开了一个巨大的空间和一个巨大的世界，而不是仅仅在封闭在四壁墙当中的靠尽管非常精美但也相当单调的场面调度来完成。

作为一个电影史的时刻，《罗马，不设防的城市》开启了20世纪后半叶的一个最重要的电影史现象——新浪潮运动。它是一个在不同国别电影当中连绵不绝地传递的电影艺术运动，每一次电影新浪潮不仅会带来一场电影美学革命，不仅会刷新电影艺术表现社会，表现现实，表现人生，表现心灵的种种可能性，同时它也再度向整个世界宣告电影在现代生活当中所居的重要位置——电影是介入者，是参与者，是阐释者，是召唤者和构造者。

在这部影片当中，所有未来构成意大利新现实主义运动的元素都开始被尝试和呈现，但是这部影片自身并不典型，它仍然延续了室内剧和情节剧的特征，所以即使在影片上映的当时观者好评如潮，但也已经存在着批评意见，说它未免太过脸谱化，黑白未免太过分明。

二战结束后，随着对战争的反思，对法西斯主义在欧洲兴起的追问，随着一个全新的艺术电影运动在欧洲的兴起，一个巨大的社会变化开始出现，这个社会变化使得20世纪后半叶在现代历史当中显现出一种极为特殊的色彩基调。在这个特定的历史时期，人们形成了一种特定的道德伦理感，形成了一种特定的社会立场、社会角度和社会认同。在这个时期，不论身置社会的哪一个阶层，整体的社会文化都有一种朝向弱者、朝向底层，关注苦难中人，认同并且跟他们感同身受的伦理取向。这样一种伦理取向为苦难中人，为底层人，为社会的权力结构当中的弱者赋予了一种道德的高度，赋予了一种道德的正义性。同时它召唤整个世界、社会不同阶层的强烈的同理心，人们通过这种同理心去瞩目苦难中人以及底层社会。

20世纪是一个背叛的世纪，它是人类历史上鲜有的一次背叛：高阶层的人背叛自己的阶级朝向低阶层人，认同低阶层人，瞩目他们，并且尝试和他们站在一起。这是此后意大利新现实主义电影当中最为强有力的一种情感的力量，一种道德的力量。这种道德不是道德主义，因为它不包含着强势，不包含着压迫，不包含着任何驱使感和逼迫感，它是一种纯粹的由于同情，由于同理，由于一种强烈的试图终结社会苦难，试图去改变这个世界的一种热望所形成的一种丰沛的情感表达。

今天看来我们或许会更感动于这部影片的前半部，就是非常单纯、朴素的展开的“罗马风情画”。战争后期，当墨索里尼政权崩溃，墨索里尼的法西斯政府开始失效的时候，意大利却遭到了德军占领，故事讲述了战争即将终结的时刻，黑暗当中的意大利人以及他们的生活。影片中摄影机镜头集中地指向抵抗运动的战士们，而影片前半部最感人是战士们并不是作为英雄，而是作为普通人出现在观众面前。

影片的女主演之一皮娜，一个带着孩子的青年寡妇，一个和别的男人坠入情网并且即将准备结婚的女人。在朴素的皮娜心中，这个婚礼是她所期待的，但又是带有不安和愧疚的，因为在她看来她所爱上的那个男人——弗朗西斯科应该有更好的命运，而不是与她这样的一个不完美的、已经残缺了的、已经被损耗了的女人结婚。大家不会忘记她的猝然死亡，在那个极端简洁的镜头中，在她婚礼的当天被子弹击中，陈尸街上。

这个人物出场的时候不是作为英雄、作为超越者，相反，是作为一个干练的家庭主妇。她出现在一场由她引发的面包店抢面包的风波中，旁白中说这时候一切都使用配给券，用故事中另一角色的说法就是在这个今天的世界上，除了疾病之外其他都要配给。在旁白说出每天每人只配给100克面包的时候，皮娜发动了一场小小的风波，并且成功地使自己收获了颇多的面包，她的出场开始了电影严酷的但不乏温馨的时刻。

影片的前半部“战时的罗马风情画”可能是影片最迷人的地方，尤其是今天看起来，每一次重看这部电影的时候，我都会为影片的细节而赞叹，每一次重新看到那些时刻的时候都会由衷地发出会心的微笑。

影片中神父出场的时候是嘴里含着哨子在跟孩子们踢足球，他的非常活泼的小学体育老师式的角色和天主教神父的形象似乎是高度不吻合的。神父最重要的基本特征是他的温情，他的柔情，他的那样一份对于普通人的厚爱。这些东西完全的世俗而并非神圣。正是一个神职人员的世俗感，给他一种人性的光辉。

影片以法西斯党徒对神父的枪决而告结束，他通过死亡重新返回了神圣的高度，但这个神圣同样是人间的神圣，因为它是人的尊严，是信念的尊严，是在战争严酷的环境中，在严酷的人性逼问面前的对底线的固守。

神父进入家居店和抵抗运动的战士们接头的片段中，导演非常有意识地采取了一个机位，把神父的近景镜头放置在两尊雕像的前景之后，于是在画面的最前端是两尊雕像，这两尊雕像一个是罗马式的裸女，另一个是基督教的圣人。我们可以看到近景镜头当中，神父百般不自在的表情及身体语言，最后他扭扭捏捏地先把裸女转向一边，想了一会儿又把圣者也转向一边，形成两尊雕像背对背的造型关系。

导演用这样的细节让观众充满幽默和会心地去体认宗教对于神父这个角色的内在性，它不是任何的道学，同时观众会感受到欧洲文明的两种时段或两种角色形象相遇的时候，赋予这个人物的一种强烈的喜剧感。

我自己还非常喜欢的一个细节是当皮娜派儿子去找神父，这同样是一个地下组织秘密接头的时刻，孩子开始百般地拒绝，最后还是无奈地去执行母亲的命令。最有趣的是，他跟神父一起穿过教堂，神父极度自如地做他的职业的习惯动作，在圣坛上跪下来行礼，然后去亲吻圣像。那个孩子跟在他背后习惯性地做同样的动作，但是当他走出去的时候，他对神父说我根本不想在教堂里浪费时间。这是一个极端无礼、桀骜不逊、顽皮的街头少年对宗教的口出狂言和他的身体所表现的宗教习惯的反差所形成的幽默感和喜剧感。

电影用风情画式的、充满喜剧感的情节向我们勾勒出一个全民抵抗的图景，意大利人在经历了一个法西斯的暴政之后，拒绝向另一个法西斯的力量屈服，同时后一个法西斯也意味着外国侵略者和外国占领者。这样的一种富于幽默感，充满了浓郁的生活气息的感觉与一个正义的、庄严的抵抗运动英雄群像的故事结合，可以说它是罗西里尼的天才创作，但是也必须说，如果不能有那种同理心，不能分享那个时代的这样一种背叛自己的阶级，朝向底层，朝向苦难中人的认同，是不可能发现和体认这种情感的。

影片的主要故事在今天看起来相当简单甚至太过直白，甚至可以看出很多瑕疵，比如说影片中女纳粹，被暗示为是一个女同性恋。使得英雄所爱的女人最终背叛和堕落的诱惑固然是毒品和物质，同时似乎也是性。这里面携带着一种偏见性想象，如果再结合历史上纳粹法西斯迫害同性恋者，就会看到这种偏见本身的历史限定。

电影在极端严酷的戏剧性时刻，仍然插入了细微的幽默，这种幽默同时是一种电影史的自指。

平底锅一下把人击昏，这是默片时代最老的桥段。这样的情节不仅给这个悲剧性的时刻突然加上一种令人会心的幽默喜剧感，而且提示着电影史上的人们关于电影的诸多记忆。

在这部电影当中，大时代、英雄群像、抵抗运动，同时是和深切的对日常生活，对底层人的认同与体认水乳交融地联系在一起的。

这部电影的另外一个奇特之处是使用大量的街景，大量的战争场景。这些场景的相质很差，这不是因为电影足够老了，而是因为所有那些场景都是导演罗西里尼在战时偷拍下来的纪录片素材，他使用新闻快片和在极低的照度之下拍摄的素材本身就使得画面在放映当时已经具有了这种粗糙的不吻合技术指标的特质，但是导演同时用胶片的颗粒给我们一种历史的质感，给我们一种体认历史的媒介形态，这正是这部影片一个非常独特和非常重要的特征。

罗西里尼是意大利电影当中的一代大师，同时也是意大利电影史上一个迷人的也是备受争议的角色。大家可能听说过他和好莱坞最著名的影星英格丽·褒曼之间奇特的爱情故事，而英格丽·褒曼正是受到了《罗马，不设防的城市》和《德意志零年》这两部现实主义杰作的感召，才与罗西里尼相识的。

这部电影向我们证明了现实不等于现实主义，因为它不是一个流派，不是一种方法，它是一种勇气和责任，是一种去直面，去体认，去记录，去再现的勇气和责任，当你真的具有了这种勇气和责任的时候，现实本身是充满了故事和喜剧感的。

词典：

1.白色电话电影

1940年代流行在意大利法西斯政权时代的电影，专门描写有钱人家的豪华生活，因为有钱人都用白色电话而得名。内容为”享乐主义”与”逃避现实”,在二次世界大战后，因为它的脱离社会大多数人现实生活的内容，在艺术创作领域引起反弹，导致意大利新写实主义的兴起。

2.布尔乔亚

法国中产阶级的代名词，代表着中产阶级的生活方式：理智、谨慎、崇尚资本主义。

这是一部讲述被侵略者反抗侵略者的电影，作为曾经的被侵略国和受难国，也许国内观众看了会有更深的感受。

电影的背景是在上世纪第二次世界大战，德国侵略了意大利。刚开始看的时候还有点疑惑，意大利不是二战的始作俑者之一吗？怎么会被德国侵略呢？一查才知道这是墨索里尼倒台后的故事，曾经是侵略者，如今成为被侵略者，故事发生在意大利。战争的残酷从来不避弱者，不强大就会变成挨打，即便你曾经是魔鬼。魔鬼会打败魔鬼。

电影的导演是罗伯托·罗西里尼，是意大利新现实主义电影的发起人。新现实主义主张“把摄影机扛到大街上”，通过拍摄真实场景体现故事的现实性与真实性，而该电影作为开创新现实主义电影的奠基之作，导演通过记录手法拍摄战争中罗马市民的艰苦，在观看的过程中观众也能体会到电影的真实，不管是场景的布置还是演员的表演。该电影获得首届戛纳电影节的主竞赛单元。八卦一下，导演有过一任妻子，她的名字叫英格丽·褒曼，就是因为这部电影，她为他着迷。

该电影讲述了二战期间，德军侵占了罗马，为了保卫国家和追求自由的生活，罗马的群众通过自己的方式向侵略者抗争的故事。被德军侵占下的罗马，建筑物伤痕累累，人们生活艰难。地下反抗组织领袖的工程师曼菲蒂为了躲避德军的追缉躲藏到朋友弗朗西斯科家中，善良的未婚妻皮娜在弗朗西斯科不在家的情况下接收了曼菲蒂，然而德军还是发现了曼菲蒂的踪迹，到弗朗西斯科家中进行逮捕，弗朗西斯科被捕，追在警车后面的皮娜最终中枪身亡。曼菲蒂躲过一劫，却被女友告密，而协助他的神父也被捕入狱，最后曼菲蒂被折磨致死，神父也被枪杀，看到男友被折磨致死的场景女友大受打击也最终倒下。

除了主角，电影还有众多形象鲜明的人物，比如那个为了生活参与到食物疯狂抢夺中的修士，比如那个虽然饥肠辘辘却坚持守职护送妇女回家的警察，比如那些虽然还是孩子却勇敢作战的孩子，比如那个下死命令折磨俘虏、冷酷无情的德国军官，等等。战争中，善良的人们努力苟延残喘着，残酷的恶魔疯狂的屠戮着。

个人最喜欢的镜头是将镜头从折磨人的囚室移到德国军官享乐的房间，一墙之隔，右边是冷酷没有人性的人间地狱，左边是美酒佳肴、声色犬马的人间天堂，右边是被各种刑罚折磨的男友，左边是享乐醉生梦死的女友，右边是看着同伴被折磨致死的神父，左边是纵情享乐的德国军官。一边是天堂，一边是地狱，天堂里住着恶魔，地狱里住着可怜人。恶魔不能毒害反抗者的灵魂，只能毒害他们的身体。

电影的最后，神父被执行枪决，在广场的外边，一群孩子围观者，他们是一群小战士，他们尊敬这位神父，看见神父被杀的场景，我想，反抗的种子会深深种在他们的心里。

神父被杀前说，“好死并不难，好活才最难”，战争中，活着真的是一件很困难的事，但死却是一件极其容易的事。

新现实主义这个流派一直被认为处在古典电影和现代电影之间。

关于古典电影也是一个有争议的问题：古典电影和现代电影的分界。我认为有两个层次的分析方式：第一个是从影片本身来讨论，影像、叙事和表意的关系。影像是否一定要通过叙事才能达到表意的层次？如果是这样的话，那么电影基本是古典的。如果影像、叙事和表意层面形成了不同的维度互相触发的关系，比如影像不通过叙事，自己就升华为影片的表意，或者跟叙事发生复杂的纽结来表意，这就在一定意义上突破了古典电影的维度，进入现代电影的领域。

《罗马，不设防的城市》原则上来说不能认为是这样的电影，但是它在影像方面以风格的方式宣告了新时代的开始。

罗西里尼一直在说什么是新现实主义？第一点是试图以人的原本状态还原人，第二点是离开制片厂的僵化方法，不断创造。他离开了摄影棚和制片厂，街头巷尾的访谈中找到了作品的结构，只不过他作品完成后还是非常情节剧化的。

有人曾经总结，新现实主义电影要展现的，就是在各种压力下不断形成并继续形成的存在本身。具体到各个导演和电影人，在认知方面就有很多差别，意大利新现实主义流派异彩纷呈。我们经常一元化表述历史，但是新现实主义电影的魅力，恰恰就在于它们其实是很有复杂性的。

巴赞借用阿姆代·埃弗尔对“新现实主义”的定义来阐述他对罗西里尼的评价，“新现实主义的基本含义首先就在于不仅与传统戏剧体系相对立，而且通过肯定一定的现实整体性而既与文学又与电影中的现实主义的各种习见特点相对立”[1]，在电影领域发生的新现实主义首先与文学、戏剧性区分开来，它组织电影结构的方式不再与传统、经典的文学艺术结构相同。

它的表现主要体现在电影的场面调度与对人物形象的处理方式上。

首先是场面调度，巴赞认为，新现实主义与现实主义主要的区分，就在于导演对场面调度的自觉意识，现实主义作者的现实性体现在他处理的是现实的题材，而新现实主义作者则体现在他对现实的整体性的把握，表现在电影的画面上来说，就是具有新现实主义特性的电影会将现实场面的整体性呈现出来，“新现实主义影片允许我们的意识活动从一个事实转到另一个事实，由一个现实片段转入下一个片段”[2]，在新现实主义电影中，情节以事件的形式出现，并且场景具有整体性。罗西里尼的电影中没有文学的因素，也没有“美”的因素，他只是将事件以场景的形式展现出来。所以场景的意义不是事先给出的，而是事后由观众自身悟出来的。就像是生活当中经历事件那样，我们进入一个事件的整体，所有的事情发生但是意义（暂时）暧昧不明，事件结束，我们才通过反思，重新结构出事件的（有限的）意义来。

其次是对人物形象、动作的处理方式，巴赞认为“新现实主义的本意就是拒绝从政治的、道德的、心理的、逻辑的、社会的或您所想到的任何其他方面解析人物及其动作”[3]，简单来说，就是一种“反-赋形”（de- figuration）的处理方式，新现实主义电影不愿意将人物处理为可以以几个形容词便定义了的人物，罗西里尼不愿意将自己的人物与他们所处的环境分割开，人物的出现必定是融合在环境中的。巴赞认为，罗西里尼对人物的处理方式，就是直接展现人物的运动：“举止姿态、动作变化和形体运动就是人的真实存在的本性”[4]，他不以事件的发生指向人物的性格（正如经典文学艺术当中惯常做的那样），而是认为人物的姿势、运动本身就是人物的真实本性，在他的电影当中，人物做出动作不是为了表现某个意义，但是他们做出这些动作却暗含了某种意义，这些动作被融合放入整体的场景之中，不以意义为先导，而是如世界、事件呈现在我们面前那样，我们游荡于多重意义与意义晦暗不明的胶体之中，用巴赞的话来讲就是：“罗西里尼的世界是纯动作的世界，这些动作本身并无重大意义可言，但是它们为突然揭示自己的含义做了准备，竟然出乎上帝预料。”[5]

[1] 安德烈·巴赞，《为罗西里尼一辩——致〈新电影〉主编阿里斯泰戈的信》，选自《电影是什么？》，崔君衍译，商务印书馆，2017-9, 338.

[2] 安德烈·巴赞，《为罗西里尼一辩——致〈新电影〉主编阿里斯泰戈的信》，选自《电影是什么？》，崔君衍译，商务印书馆，2017-9, 340.

[3] 安德烈·巴赞，《为罗西里尼一辩——致〈新电影〉主编阿里斯泰戈的信》，选自《电影是什么？》，崔君衍译，商务印书馆，2017-9, 338.

[4] 安德烈·巴赞，《为罗西里尼一辩——致〈新电影〉主编阿里斯泰戈的信》，选自《电影是什么？》，崔君衍译，商务印书馆，2017-9, 342.

[5] 安德烈·巴赞，《为罗西里尼一辩——致〈新电影〉主编阿里斯泰戈的信》，选自《电影是什么？》，崔君衍译，商务印书馆，2017-9, 342.

没有绝对主角，也不按照事件的因果关系编排情节，叙事线索的缺失容易导致失焦，几年前跟着戴锦华的52倍人生看了《不设防》，不出所料没撑下去…应该是被集中在影片前半段的大量“补白”材料劝退，现在回看才明白这其实正是风格所在：时逢意大利之春，不论出于人道主义的感召、左翼政党的宣传需要、拍摄器材受限、战争中臻于成熟的纪实美学选择或其他动机，电影创作者们扛起摄影机上街捕捉生动或琐屑的日常，以期对活动于较大范围中的人群进行全景式的观照（例如《不设防》的罗马、《战火》中向意大利北方推进的游击队战线、《德意志零年》的西柏林），日常事件或因作者的精心设计而成为某条叙事锁链中的功能性组成，或因其在特定情景中大量发生而具有时代标记物的价值，或因作者凭个人喜好筛选记忆而使之成为影片中私人珍藏，对日常的记录便使电影获得叙事价值之外的时代气候或自传性，意大利新现实主义创作者偏重前者。

《不设防》将罗马设定在战时戒严期间，外景并不算多，室内发生的暗中接头与传信事件组成影片前半段的“补白”材料，暗藏在弹壳中密信的内容、皮娜突发的死亡、一周两次哄抢面包、被关押时未说出口的话、哪怕是孩子们炸汽油车的行动以及随之而来的大排查，从所谓古典叙事的维度来看，这些事件或悬念都与高潮段落的拷问情节无关，但只有这些材料才营造了罗马戒严期间隔墙有耳般的压抑氛围，平民呼吸着的正是这种危机四伏的政治空气。

尽管影片由大量战时日常事件以及看似客观的纪实镜头组成，这仍然是一部不折不扣的褒贬明确的政治片，什么真正导致了民族解放委员会首脑与神父计划的败露，什么就是影片批判对象，首当其冲是敌对势力法西斯，其次借儿童之口说出的祸水红颜也在影片中落实，由玛丽娜承受政治污名。导致首脑被捕的并不是大排查因为他们成功被游击队援救，实际上是对物质生活的向往诱使玛丽娜背叛情人，背叛，或者说对党派的不忠才是影片的批判对象。

罗西里尼对宗教的态度也是消极的，神甫画了十字转身去和妇女争抢面包是一处简单的讽刺，此外，皮娜在片中不时流露出对苦难的绝望，因自毁的欲望难以自抑，便向神父寻求告解，神父认为眼下的苦难是罪有应得的惩罚，我们应祈祷上帝的宽恕。这一套教义当然没有起效，深陷困惑中的皮娜转而向丈夫诉苦，丈夫以战后终将到来的春天成功宽慰了皮娜，此处对照似乎表明，相比上帝的允诺，我们更应以党派的允诺为心灵良药，寄希望于实际的解放。在以神父为主视角的拷问情节中，罗西里尼为神父设置了两难困境：当你眼看同僚遭受拷问，你是否还能坚持仁爱？党同伐异的斗争中，谁也不能独善其身，在这一刻，神父必须在政党和天主间做出选择，这仍然关于政治片的核心，即忠诚与否的问题。当曼法迪被拷问致死，神父脱口诅咒敌军，此举便宣告了上帝所在的阵营。

在如何处理曼法迪死亡声明的问题中，法西斯军官将其定性为普通人埃皮索普而非民族解放委员会的英雄曼法迪死去，目的是防止英雄的死亡激起同僚的斗志，篡改事实也保证法西斯版本的叙述能继续作为历史的典范。相对的，这也是意大利之春中在自由主义与左翼政党组成的联合政府的号召下，《不设防》所做的最重大的政治询唤，即为优胜者重写英雄的历史。

本文是Peter Bondanella所著书籍《The Films of Roberto Rossellini》的第三章“Roma citta aperta and the Birth of Italian Neorealism”。我因为电影课而接触这篇文章，整体上里面有很多个人喜欢的内容，所以想记下来。但因为不知记到哪去，所以暂时放在豆瓣。找到合适的地方了再移走。

以下加粗部分表示对个人而言是重点或者挺有趣/insightful。

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In spite of the many precursors film historians have cited as antecedents of Italian neorealism during the fascist period, and especially during the early 1940s, the birth of Italian neorealism is historically and emotionally linked forever with the astounding international success of Rossellini's portrayal of life in Nazi-occupied Rome between the fall of the fascist regime in September 1943 and its liberation in June of the following year. Unlike the fate of almost all other neorealist films, which seldom had a respectable showing at the box office and were rarely smash hits, Roma citta aperta was the largest grossing film in Italy during the year it first appeared, and critical reactions in France and the United States, as well as box-office successes there, were equally positive. In addition, the fact that Paisa was screened abroad almost simultaneously with Roma citta aperta helped to create a consciousness among film critics that something new was brewing in Italy (neorealism) and that this new aesthetic phenomenon was largely the creation of an obscure Italian director named Roberto Rossellini.

The film's plot, put together by a team of scriptwriters that included Rossellini, Federico Fellini, and Sergio Amidei, is deceptively simple. A Marxist partisan leader named Giorgio Manfredi who is being hidden from the Germans by a printer named Francesco enlists the assistance of a partisan priest, Don Pietro. The next day, just before Francesco is to be married to his pregnant fiancee, Pina, she is gunned down by the Germans when they arrest Francesco. Manfredi is the object of an intense manhunt by the Ger- man Gestapo, led by an evil and effeminate Nazi, Major Bergmann. The major is assisted by his lesbian agent, Ingrid, who uses drugs to obtain information about Manfredi from Marina, a dancer and Manfredi's old girlfriend. The somewhat incredible link between such different figures as Manfredi, Marina, Francesco, and Pina is effected by the fortuitous script invention that depicts Marina as a close friend of Pina's sister. Manfredi, Don Pietro, and an Austrian deserter from the battlefield of Monte Cassino whom the priest has been hiding are all captured by Bergmann after Ingrid induces Marina to betray them in return for drugs and furs. The deserter hangs himself; Manfredi refuses to talk under torture, while Don Pietro looks on in dismay, and dies from the brutal treatment he has received; the next morning, the priest faces a firing squad while the young boys from his parish witness the event.

For a film, such as Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, or La dolce vita, to transcend its status as a work of art and become a social phenomenon that seems to exemplify the cultural atmosphere of its time, a series of fortuitous circumstances and favorable timing are always required. This is true in the case of Roma citta aperta; the history of the creation of this film reveals a bit of the serendipity that seems to happen only in the movies. However, a popular mythology has grown up around the film that is mis- leading and, in some aspects, false. A good deal of the mythology surround- ing this work is associated with its "realistic" qualities, and as the first important neorealist film, much of what has been written about Italian neorealism has often used the film as a springboard for defining this phe- nomenon in film history, sometimes with quite confusing results.

Conventional wisdom about Roma citta aperta emphasizes the film's technical novelties and practically ignores its relationship to the cinema of the fascist period, in which Rossellini received his training. Thus, the legend arose that Rossellini decided to employ "authentic" locations because Cinecitta's studios either were destroyed by bombings or werefilledto capacity sheltering refugees. In fact, there are important precedents for on-location shooting during the fascist period that have already been discussed, particularly works by De Robertis and Alessandrini that certainly must have influenced Rossellini. Of course, Rossellini himself in his own prewar fascist trilogy often employs authentic locations (especially in La nave bianco). In stressing on-location shooting, early reactions to the film neglected to note that the majority of the film's sequences actually take place in interiors. But even more important, the lack of studios at Cinecitta did not result in the use of "real" interior settings. Rossellini merely constructed four completely conventional interior sets for the most important locations in the film- Don Pietro's sacristy, Gestapo headquarters, the torture room, and the living room where the German officers relax - in a vacant basement of a building on Rome's Via degli Avignonesi. As Federico Fellini has recounted the story, the location of these interiors played a major role in the reception of Italian neorealism abroad, for it was on the same street (number 36) that a cele- brated Roman brothel operated by Signora Tina Trabucchi was located. One night while shooting was taking place, an American soldier named Rod Geiger, presumably exiting from Signora Trabucchi's establishment, staggered drunkenly across the street and tripped over the electric cables supplying current to Rossellini's crew. Steadied by a solicitous Fellini, Geiger watched the production, became fascinated by the film, and eventually convinced Rossellini to sell him the American rights for only twenty thousand dollars. Even Rossellini's discovery by the man who became his first American producer was a serendipitous affair, the stuff of which myths are made.

The documentary quality of the film's photography has always been one of the benchmarks of traditional definitions of neorealism. Here, conven- tional wisdom has always been closer to the mark. To be sure, the grainy character of the film(as well as the few brief segments of actual documentary footage inserted by the editor into the fictional story) certainly reminded viewers who saw the film when it was first released of the kinds of pictures they associated with the newsreels. The scarcity of film stock forced Ros- sellini to buy 3 5-millimeter film in bits and pieces on the black market, causing him to use stock of different quality and provenance. In addition, the variance in the lighting was often striking; Rome was still suffering from the deprivations of the war, and the electric current experienced drastic and unexpected fluctuations. But even in this regard, the facile association of the film's photographic style with realism cannot always be sustained. Perhaps it is more accurate to state that in 1945, such a photographic style seemed realistic because audiences associated black-and-white film photog- raphy with "real" events. Today, however, most audiences associate realism with live television broadcasts in color. Few contemporary audiences will be struck by the realism of the photography in the Rossellini film. On the contrary, the perspective of almost half a century reveals clear expressionistic elements in some of the photography and the lighting in crucial sequences, such as the torture scene. The definition of the so-called photographic realism in Roma citta aperta thus depends in some measure on our personal experience and knowledge of cinematic history. Much the same may be said of the post-synchronization of its sound track. Because of a lack of funds, Rossellini was obliged to shoot without direct sound (developing silent footage cost some sixty lire per meter, whereas developing synchronized footage cost hundreds of lire more). Another result of the financial situation was Rossellini's avoidance of daily rushes, another cost-cutting measure. Although it is true that the lack of sound during shooting gave the director more freedom of movement with his camera, which many traditional critics see as a factor in the film's heightened realism, dubbed sound in afilmstudio certainly does not create a direct link to the world "out there," which was supposed to be the neorealist's aesthetic goal. Post-synchronization of sound became almost the norm in Italy for several decades as the result of neorealist practice, and it has been only recently that some directors, such as Bernardo Bertolucci, have moved back toward the international commercial market and synchronized sound. It is difficult to maintain that post-synchronization is realistic. In fact, both Pasolini and Fellini, to mention only two Italian directors who have always dubbed their sound tracks, have declared that they do so precisely to avoid any hint of naturalism or realism in their works. However, in dubbing the sound after the shooting, Rossellini was able to heighten the authenticity of the sound track by having his Germans speak German and his Italians speak Italian, something that must surely have struck many American viewers as realistic when Hollywood's com- mercial cinema often handled this problem quite differently - by having foreigners speak either a kind of Oxford English or a heavily accented English to distinguish them from the Americans.

Perhaps the most persuasive of the many stylistic elements traditional definitions cite as typical of Italian neorealism is a reliance upon nonprofessional actors. As we have seen in our survey of Italian cinema during the fascist period, however, there was nothing original in this. Perhaps it would be more precise to say that rarely have nonprofessional actors been used so skillfully as they were by Rossellini in Paisa, De Sica in Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief, 1948), or Visconti in La terra trema (The Earth Trem- bles, 1948). But this exploitation of nonprofessional actors for particular aesthetic effects is totally absent from Roma citta aperta. The entire cast of the film had extensive experience in the entertainment world. Aldo Fabrizi (Don Pietro) and Anna Magnani (Pina), both of whom were catapulted to international fame with the success of the film, had extensive experience in the entertainment business, not only in the music hall form of avanspettacolo entertainment roughly equivalent to America's vaudeville, but also in film roles together, where the particular chemistry of their artistic personalities had already achieved commercial success in Mario Bonard's comic film Campo de fiori (Campo de' Fiori Square, 1943). Marcello Pagliero (Manfredi) had already directed afilm of his own. Harry Feist (Major Bergmann) was a dancer, as was Maria Michi (Marina), who probably landed her part not because she had been working as an usher at the Barberini Cinema but, instead, because she was scriptwriter Sergio Amidei's mistress. Even minor roles, such as those played by Nando Bruno (the sacristan) and Edoardo Passarelli (the policeman), were filled by actors who came from the variety hall. Rather than basing his film on nonprofessional acting performances, Rossellini relied upon the consummate skills of seasoned professionals, but he cast his troupe in unaccustomed roles, placing figures normally associated with comic roles in situations that would call for tragic or tragicomic actions.

The hybrid system of casting marking Rossellini's production offers an insight into the director's aesthetic intentions, for "hybrid" style might well be taken as the most appropriate description of Rossellini's manner, following the dictionary definition of the term that explains the word with synonyms such as "medley," "mixture," or "combination." Roma citta aperta does not completely abandon or reject traditional cinematic style or generic conventions and replace them with an absolutely original neorealist style or neorealist cinematic conventions of Rossellini's invention. For ex- ample, Rossellini's editing is, as Brunette has pointed out, for the most part " 'classic' - that is, illusionist, meant to be as invisible as the traditional Hollywood variety" because it serves primarily to underscore the narrative line and to increase emotional involvement. There is very little of the montage we associate with Eisenstein and that Rossellini employed so skillfully in La nave bianca, nor are there many extremely long takes, the future direction of Rossellini's cinema, hints of which can be detected in Uuomo dalla croce. Instead, Rossellini introduces a number of novel elements into a conventional context, and their power depends precisely upon the viewer's interpreting them against the backdrop of traditional cinematic practice. Moreover, the ideological and ethical message of the film is more than a hybrid and might best be described as a philosophical compromise wherein views of extremely different political groups are telescoped into the small cast of characters in the film in an uneasy synthesis that would not endure for long in the turbulent world of Italian domestic politics. Perhaps Ros- sellini's greatest achievement in this film was to fuse the narrative structure of his hybrid creation with the ideological compromise in the film's script so that each complemented the other harmoniously, as our discussion of the film will demonstrate.

Rossellini's portrayal of Italian life under German occupation reflects a stark juxtaposition of good (the Resistance forces) and evil (the perverted Nazis and their much less offensive Italian allies) that reminds the viewer of the ideological world of Uuomo dalla croce, where Bolsheviks were identified with barbarism and Italians were defending Western civilization. Now the Nazis replace the Bolsheviks, but unlike that earlier film (where Sergei and Irina were clearly sympathetic figures), the Nazis embody unmitigated evil with no redeeming virtues whatsoever. Rossellini treats the most important German figures as he had depicted Fyodor earlier. It is not enough for him that Bergmann is a moral monster. He is also portrayed as an effeminate homosexual, and his assistant Ingrid is a viper-like lesbian who seduces Marina with drugs and furs to obtain information about Manfredi. The tone of the work is thus far more indebted to Rossellini's message of Christian humanism than to any programmatic attempt at cinematic realism. The positive characters who fight the Nazis are joined by their belief in what Francesco calls an impending "springtime" in Italy and a better tomorrow. Pina, Francesco, Don Pietro, and Manfredi are all united by this faith in a brighter future, while Marina and Pina's sister Lauretta are mesmerized by the superficial values of cafe society and the consumer goods proffered by the Germans with whom they associate. Marina is cor- rupted not because of Ingrid's blandishments but, rather, because she lacks faith in herself and, therefore, is incapable of loving others. Marxists and Christians alike adhere to Rossellini's Christian credo best embodied in Don Pietro's last words before he faces a firing squad: "Oh, it's not hard to die well. It's hard to live well." In fact, as a detailed analysis of the torture sequence reveals, the iconography of Manfredi's death associates him with the crucified Christ.

Rossellini effects a kind of "historical compromise" between Catholicism and Marxism within the partisan ranks, but this should in no way be construed as a falsification of the historical facts. Italian Communists have done their best to picture the anti-Nazi Resistance as a purely communist phenomenon, but the truth is much more complicated, with contributions coming from all segments of Italian society, including perhaps the most significant from members of the royal armed forces and the police, whose actions are usually only grudgingly recognized by both the Catholic and the Marxist elements within the Resistance.

The script for Roma citta aperta incorporates these very real ideological and historical tensions that, in turn, embody authentic forces within the fabric of Italian society. The fact that the script was so crucial to the making of the film also undercuts another of the myths about Italian neorealism and Rossellini's stylistic contribution to it — that of improvisation. There was little about the film that was not argued out and written over and over again, and the slow evolution of the script says a great deal about the ideological perspectives of the various scriptwriters involved. Rossellini's original idea, entitled Storie di ieri (Stories of Yesterday), was to treat the events leading to the execution on 4 April 1944 of Don Giuseppe Morosini, a Catholic priest active in the Resistance. Before speaking to Rossellini about this particular idea, Sergio Amidei, an extremely talented scriptwriter of well-known communist sympathies, had begun another script on the black market. After discussing the two concepts, the two men decided to include Amidei's material in a new episodicfilm about the Nazi occupation of Rome. Subsequently, a Neapolitan journalist named Alberto Consiglio suggested a story about a partisan priest named Don Pappagallo, and after a producer was found, Consiglio (who was never credited for his work) combined his fictitious character with Don Morosini to produce the outline of what finally became Don Pietro. Before the liberation, Amidei had read about another striking incident, the savage machine-gunning of a pregnant woman in Viale Giulio Cesare as she ran after her husband, arrested during one of the German dragnets. This figure evolved into Pina, and Pina's death would become the single most dramatic moment of the film. It was apparently Amidei who insisted upon the addition to the script of a Marxist partisan, Manfredi, to ensure, at least to his satisfaction, that there would be one model hero reflecting his own ideological position. All accounts of the pro- duction of the film unanimously agree that the writer who shaped the figure of the priest in the final script was none other than Federico Fellini, who was a close friend of Aldo Fabrizi. Rossellini first met Fellini when he approached Fellini to ask him to convince his friend Fabrizi to take the role of Don Pietro. Fellini had begun his career as a cartoonist and gag writer with the Roman humor magazine Marc'Aurelio, and after an apprenticeship with the magazine, he had turned (as so many other writers connected with it did) to scriptwriting for the cinema, particularly film comedies. Fabrizi's performance, requiring an almost perfect balance between comic timing and serious tragic dignity, owes a great deal to Fellini's contributions to the script. And it was definitely Fellini's inspiration to insert the frying-pan gag into the action, a slapstick routine typical of his writing for earlier comic films. It was a mark of Rossellini's intelligence that he succeeded in blending the talents of two completely different men within a single screenplay: the apolitical Fellini, who had comic wit and a sure awareness of how to ma- nipulate the audience's emotions, and the leftist intellectual Amidei, who had a sounder understanding of how to set individual incidents within a broader political context. When Rossellini accepted Fellini's comic inter- pretation of Don Pietro and, in the final editing, juxtaposed this sequence of hilarious slapstick comedy from the variety theater with the moment of darkest pathos in the film - the sequence in which Pina is killed - the team of scriptwriters and director succeeded in producing one of the most moving moments in the history of the cinema.

Rossellini never avoids the hints of tension between the two forces within the Resistance that would be locked in a struggle for power in postwar Italy that has continued to this day. Manfredi, for example, expresses mild dis- approval of Pina's religious marriage, but she notes that it is better to be married by a partisan priest than by a Fascist official at city hall. In another scene, a leftist printer pointedly tells Don Pietro that everyone is not lucky enough to be able to hide in a monastery. Even more significant in this regard are the proposals that Major Bergmann makes to both Don Pietro and Manfredi after he has captured them both. To Manfredi, he offers to spare the members of his party if he betrays the more conservative, Catholic members of the Resistance, but Manfredi rejects his proposal by spitting on him, an action of defiance that results in his renewed torture and eventual death. To Don Pietro, Bergmann argues persuasively that the Communists are the sworn enemies of the church, who will destroy all organized religion if they take power. Don Pietro replies that all men who fight for justice and liberty walk in the pathways of the Lord.

As befits a film whose main actors came from the music hall theater and film comedy, Roma citta aperta contains a great deal of authentic humor, but the humor is placed within a profoundly tragicomic vision of life that juxtaposes melodramatic moments or instances of comic relief and dark humor to the most tragic of human experiences that reconstruct a moment in recent Italian history. The church, and Don Pietro in particular, are the object of much of this humor. When the sexton, Agostino, says he cannot loot a bakery because he works for the church, Pina sarcastically informs him he will have to eat his cake in Paradise. When Don Pietro visits a religious shop over Resistance headquarters, he is offended by the proximity of a statue of Saint Rocco and one of a nude woman; first he turns the nude around (giving the saint a beautiful view of the woman's backside), and then after reconsidering the problem, he decides that the saint should not be subjected to temptation and turns his face away from the nude as well! When Fascist soldiers arrive to search the workers' apartments on Via Casilina to look for concealed partisans, Manfredi and others manage to escape because the Italian troops are preoccupied with trying to peer up the skirts of the women on the staircase. It is important to note that these troops are Italians, pictured throughout the film as likable but bumbling and in- effectual clowns, in contrast to the superefficient Germans, who would never act in such an unmilitary and undisciplined manner. This generally comic and sympathetic portrait of Italian officials continues when a tolerant Italian policeman observes Pina and other women looting a bakery. Rather than doing his duty, the man sadly remarks he wishes he were not in uniform so that he could join them. The film's humor takes on a decidedly somber and negative tone when it is directed at the Germans. As German soldiers enter a restaurant where Manfredi is eating, we immediately fear that he is about to be arrested, but this suspense is alleviated by our discovery that the Germans have only come to butcher a live lamb and to eat it, and our fear (as well as Manfredi's) is dissolved by the humorous quip of the res- taurant owner, Flavio — he says he forgot that Germans were specialists in butchering!

The entire film revolves around Rossellini's adept shifting of perspectives from a comic to a tragic tone, and nowhere is this more evident than in the film's most famous sequences, involving the search of Pina's apartment building and her subsequent death as she races after Francesco being carried away in a truck. The event occurs on the day of their wedding; thus, the promise of a new springtime in Italy that Francesco described to Pina earlier will end in tragedy and death. But this tragedy is introduced by a slapstick comic scene worthy of the best vaudevillian traditions. As the Germans and the Italian troops under their command inspect the building, Don Pietro and Marcello (Pina's son, now dressed as an altar boy) arrive at the apart- ment complex supposedly to give the last rites to Pina's father, but actually to locate and conceal weapons and bombs kept in the building by one of Marcello's friends, a crippled young man named appropriately Romoletto ("Little Romulus"). Romoletto represents a mirror image of the partisans but in a comic key, and his earlier appearances in the film generate laughter when he repeats Marxist political slogans without really understanding their significance. In spite of Rossellini's often-cited aversion to dramatic editing, a feature of his later, mature style that will be discussed in subsequent chapters, here he skillfully builds suspense as he cuts back and forth between the priest's search for the weapons and his subsequent descent to the dying man's room, on the one hand, and the menacing ascent of the suspicious Fascist officer and his troops, on the other. When the soldiers finally enter the room, Don Pietro can be seen peacefully administering the last rites to Pina's father, who is wearing a beatific smile, with Marcello at his side. Only after the danger is passed and the priest frantically attempts to revive the moribund sleeper do we understand that to calm the old man (who was terrified when he awoke and saw a priest ready to administer the last rites to him), Don Pietro had knocked the man unconscious with a frying pan, which now reveals a huge dent in it when examined by Marcello. The contraband weapons were hidden underneath the old man's bed only a moment before the arrival of the Fascist soldiers.

Comic gags disappear thereafter, for in defiance of the soldiers around her, Pina runs after the truck carrying Francesco. Immediately prior to the shooting that ends her life, Rossellini's camera shifts to the interior of the truck to capture the scene from Francesco's point of view, and the fact that we share it increases the dramatic impact of the scene. We hear a loud burst of machine-gun fire, Marcello races toward his mother screaming, and Pina is shown lying in the street, her face turned in the agony of death and her right leg bared to a garter belt, an image underlining the obscenity of her untimely demise. In the next sequence, and completely without rhetorical or sentimental emphasis of any kind, Francesco's truck is ambushed by partisans in one of the very few exterior sequences Rossellini employs in the film. As Francesco escapes, we suddenly realize that Pina's death was completely meaningless, like so many occurrences in wartime.

The scenes situated at Gestapo headquarters in Via Tasso are justly considered among the most moving of the entire film, and they, too, are constructed around the juxtaposition of different moods and cinematic techniques. And in these sequences, contrary to the traditional belief that sets are of little importance in neorealist films, the very structure of the set itself heightens Rossellini's drama. From the central office in which Berg- mann interrogates his prisoners, there are two doors opening out onto entirely different worlds. One door leads into a torture chamber inhabited by ghoulish Nazis whose fingers are stained with the blood of their victims and who nonchalantly and indifferently light their cigarettes with the same blowtorch with which they scorch Manfredi's chest. The other plunges us into a completely different, decadent atmosphere where German officers play cards, drink brandy or champagne, listen to piano music, and chat pleasantly, oblivious to the human suffering on the other side of the wall.

Only Bergmann moves effortlessly between these three different locations, and his physical movements between them, viewed most often from Don Pietro's perspective, who remains in the central room and peers through each door, accentuate the emotional and moral distance between the two individuals. Ironically, while we are privileged to see every little detail of the horrible drama that is unfolding, Don Pietro's spectacles have been broken during his capture, and the point-of-view shots nominally from his perspective are much clearer than if he had actually viewed them himself.

Manfredi's torture is one of the most horrifying scenes in the history of filmmaking, and yet, Rossellini achieves an enormously emotional impact upon his audience without ever showing the viewer the actual events of his torture. Instead, we see detailed close-ups of the anguished reactions of a myopic Don Pietro who can hardly see the scene himself. Voice-overs convey the screams from the other room, and like Don Pietro without his glasses, we experience the torture of Manfredi through the power of our imagina- tion. Even in this scene tragedy mixes with black humor. While Manfredi's agony moves the priest to tears, a German soldier quietly sharpens his pencil and awaits Bergmann's orders. When Manfredi dies, without revealing the names of his compatriots, Rossellini frames this Communist partisan leader as if he were photographing the crucified Christ, employing the traditional iconography familiar to us all from numerous works of art. The final touch to this picture of moral degradation is provided by a drunken Marina, who strolls from the salon where Ingrid is entertaining her, unaware that the ex- lover she has betrayed is being tortured to death in the next room. She is draped in the luxurious fur coat that she has received as her reward, but as she peers into the room with Hartmann and sees Manfredi, she screams and faints. Ingrid's only reaction is to scold Bergmann for his failure, reminding him that she did not think it would be easy to break Manfredi and then coolly picking up the coat Marina has dropped, with the callous remark: "For the next time. "

During Manfredi's torment, Rossellini introduces the viewer to another German officer, Major Hartmann, who listens to the piano with Bergmann and Ingrid in the adjacent salon. There, Bergmann declares to Hartmann that the Germans are a master race and that the Italian under interrogation would eventually betray his cause. If he did not, then Italians would not be inferior to Germans and the war to defend the master race would have no meaning. Hartmann, reckless with too much liquor, argues with Bergmann, telling him that during World War I, the Germans supposed that the people they fought were lesser men, and yet, at that time French patriots died under torture without giving in to their interrogators. Here, at long last, Rossellini seems to be saying, is a German with a conscience. However, the next morning after Manfredi's death, when Don Pietro is sentenced to die by a firing squad, it is the same Major Hartmann, now sober, who commands the Italian troops assigned to perform this gruesome task. And when the superstitious young Italian draftees refuse to shoot a priest (yet another instance where Rossellini portrays Italians as likable but ineffectual and nonpolitical), it is Hartmann who delivers the coup de grace with his pistol with little hesitation and certainly with none of the self-doubt that char- acterized him when he was drunk. In Rossellini's Manichaean moral uni- verse, it seems a German can have a conscience only when intoxicated.

After having manipulated the viewer's emotions throughout the film with such skill, Rossellini does not conclude his film on a completely negative note. Not only does the torture scene contain the iconography traditionally associated with the crucified Christ, but the tone of the last sequence is triumphantly associated with the concept of Christian resurrection and re- birth. Romoletto, Marcello, and the other children observe Don Pietro's execution (no adult witnesses are present besides the soldiers), and as they leave the scene, Rossellini pans after them, Italy's future, placing the children against the backdrop of the dome of St. Peter's Cathedral. Passing from an image of tragic despair to another full of promise for the "springtime in Italy" Francesco foretold earlier in the film, Rossellini creates a vision of hope with this first of many symbolic images associated with children that characterize so many of the neorealist classics.

It should be clear from this analysis of Roma citta aperta that Rossellini's film succeeds precisely because it combines a number of new stylistic ele- ments not normally associated with commercial cinema with what one critical interpretation labels "bourgeois illusionist cinema," a style reflecting a total and unquestioning mastery of a system of representation built up by bourgeois film culture from D. W. Griffith on. It is a system of representation whose fundamental intent is to make the audience suspend its disbelief, and enter the world of the film as if it were the real world; the audience is encouraged to read the time and space of the film's actions as homogenous, unified, 'real': the emphasis on 'reality' at the structural level leads to a masking of the process of production of meaning.

The negative tone of this particular interpretation has been echoed by other critics who have embraced a modernist aesthetic associated in the theater with Bertolt Brecht and in the cinema with Jean-Luc Godard and film theorists influenced by both Brecht and Godard. When Rossellini's neorealist works first appeared, he was seen virtually as the creator of an entirely new realistic aesthetic. Currently, in some critical circles, his reliance upon tra- ditional devices of melodrama - identification with the film's central char- acters, manipulation of the audience's emotional responses to dramatic situations, an edifying conclusion offering hope of improvement, the use of children to evoke a sentimental response in the viewer - has been cited as proof that Rossellini and neorealism in general were politically conservative, if not reactionary, and that little of any consequence was achieved by what has traditionally been defined as a revolution in the history of the cinema with the critical triumphs of Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti (not to mention a host of lesser figures).

The truth lies somewhere between these two extreme critical positions. The early praise of Rossellini for creating an entirely new film aesthetic can certainly not be sustained with Roma citta aperta as the test case. As we shall see in the next chapter, an argument for Rossellini's originality can more easily be made with Paisa. Rossellini's innovations in the first part of his neorealist trilogy lie in his unique understanding of how the boundaries of traditional cinematic narrative could be stretched in a direction that would bear fruit in his subsequent works. But to say that early assessments of this film were overblown is not to admit the validity of the strictures brought against Rossellini of late — that he failed to adopt a modernist aesthetic similar to one espoused by Brecht or Godard and that he did not aim to change society with his films. To deny the evident emotional power of a masterpiece such as Roma citta aperta on the grounds that it breaks a set of modernist rules few writers in the history of literature and even fewer directors in the history of the cinema would accept reflects the kind of politically correct thinking that has become part of so much contemporary academic writing. Neither exaggerating Rossellini's originality in Roma citta aperta nor belittling the emotional impact of what must be defined as a hybrid brand of cinema combining the codes of the traditional narrative cinema with some bold innovations does justice to the creative force that emerges in Rossellini's masterpiece and almost unassisted moves Italian cinema in a different direction for the next decade.

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后续：

教授说这篇文章干货很多，但行文过于all over the place（thesis在章节的近乎中间才出现）。个人觉得说的很对。