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.

影片很精彩。二次大战结束前一年，墨索里尼垮台，希特勒占领了意大利，以陶里亚蒂为首的意大利共产党联合各阶级的爱国人士组成民族解放阵线与德国占领者展开了艰苦卓绝的斗争。影片就以这样一个大环境塑造了众多形象鲜明的人物。民族解放阵线领导成员工程师曼菲蒂立场坚定，意志坚强；工人弗朗西斯科品格高尚，有情有义；神父不顾个人，一切以耶苏为榜样；当过工人的碧娜爱憎分明；这些人物令人可敬。即使一些小人物也是各有特色：神父手下的修士,房东老太和她的老女仆,那个意大利人警察，都善良诚实，令人可信。即使反面人物也不落俗套，那盖世太保头子外表斯文，内心恶毒；其女干将刁钻心狠，不择手段；那意大利人警察局长是个奴性十足的坏蛋，这些人物都令人可憎。而影片歌颂谁,谴责谁,同情谁,鄙薄谁，都以独到的艺术手法描写得清清楚楚。影片最精彩的一场戏是曼菲蒂和那德国鬼子面对面斗争的那一段。德国鬼子先还貌似客气，然步步进逼，而曼菲蒂义正词严，丝毫不退，那大义凛然的气势就压倒了德国鬼子。神父见到曼菲蒂被拷打得浑身是血，已不成人样时，他流下了眼泪，当曼菲蒂断了气，他用手温柔地给阖上眼睛。他用不高的声调对那盖世太保说：“我诅咒你。”这时的他，真像是耶苏，从而，那帮德国鬼子惊怕得后退了三步。影片的这一段，最感人。 今年是反法西斯战争胜利七十周年，重看这部电影，很有意义。

巴赞说过，《罗马，不设防的城市》的问世开辟了银幕上由来已久的现实主义与唯美主义彼此对立的新阶段。不仅如此，后期的意大利新现实主义作品由于物质现实复原的机械照相式刻板手法越走越窄，成熟的创作美学成为一柄双刃剑，而作为发轫之作的本片真实再现了意大利普通群众的生活状况与英勇斗争，同时极富生活的诗意，在神话与历史的对立中实现了完美的结合，具有宣言书的历史意义。
二战接近尾声时，意大利被绑在了德国战车之上，为虎作伥，助纣为虐。当时充斥在意大利电影院里的除了好莱坞大片以外，大部分都是墨索里尼政权控制下为法西斯歌功颂德的战争宣传片，再就是少量白色电话片与书法派电影。前者以反映高雅的资产阶级生活为主要内容，后者则躲进故纸堆致力于改编文学名著。
正是不满足于这样虚假做作的作风，进步的意大利电影工作者们提出“还我普通人”、“把摄影机扛到大街上”的口号，主张拍摄表现本民族生活、情感与才能的电影，“真实”成为电影作品主要内容上的追求与审美自觉。实景拍摄、自然光照、运动镜头、非职业演员等为后来巴赞的长镜头理论提供了物质支持。在《罗》中，除神父与皮娜外全部为非职业演员扮演。这些技法的意义在于不仅发挥了电影的照相本性，还挖掘了电影的时空潜力。电影艺术形式革命推动了意大利新现实主义在内容与思想上的深入。
展示细节是真实电影美学的重要表现手段。影片一开始便通过一系列丰富的细节展现出二战后期人民生活的真实状态。神父即将出门，德国士兵闯入，对神父掏出一支枪，就在观众紧张之时峰回路转，士兵取出弹壳里的介绍信，观众方知其是弃暗投明的勇士。这说明法西斯已经众叛亲离。而在抢面包事件中，神父不得不放弃操守参与其中，警察也回归普通生产者的身份，反映出失业、贫困、饥饿、疾病、死亡正严重威胁普通百姓的生存。
维斯康蒂认为，“新现实主义首先是一个内容问题。”评论家萨尼则说，“只有把新现实主义理解为一些艺术家表现意大利人民生活与精神面貌的一个总运动，才能真正明确新现实主义的含义。”这些电影虽然反映的是普通人的生活，却揭示了千百万意大利人民的共同经历与集体经验。
大英百科全书对于意大利新现实主义的题材作了具体分析，指出其主要表现了人类对于生存的四个基本问题的思考：
1，反对战争及入侵带来的政治混乱；
2，反对饥饿；
3，反对贫困与失业造成的困境；
4，反对家庭解体和堕落。
对比好莱坞对于梦的描绘，意大利新现实主义强调不公平的社会结构以及扭曲的人际关系。新现实主义电影一般只提出问题而不给出解答，人们面临的困境都未能得以摆脱。而对民族集体经验的书写，对幸福诺言的表达，对英雄形象的塑造使得《罗》在记录历史的同时带有神话因素。
好莱坞在几十年的发展中建立了一套成熟的叙事——意义生产机制，不露痕迹地把现代社会的尖锐矛盾简约成可理解的二元对立形态，运用缝合体系等一系列的编码机制（如对切镜头）虚幻消除矛盾对立来为我们的思想情感和行为提供同样虚幻的出路，将现代社会的文化内涵融于神话的圆形封闭式结构中，因而使观众寄托着统一与平衡的令人欣慰的渺茫希望，具有了神话的性质。虽然这一梦幻性叙事机制一直受到现实主义人士的攻击，但不可否认它建立在观众观看心理的科学分析基础之上，百年好莱坞长盛不衰也验证了这一点。
司汤达说，艺术应给人们带来幸福的诺言，应使人们看到美好生活的前景，在苦难的特殊年代固然需要使人保持清醒的现实主义精神，但给人幸福诺言同样不可或缺。因此二战前后及经济危机时好莱坞电影能迅速占领全球市场。《罗》的成功之处还在于并没有排斥好莱坞的叙事方式和意义生产方式，其鲜明的倾向性仍然使得人们对未来充满希望。在片尾，目睹神父被枪决的孩子们相互扶持，悲愤地走向远方。

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。

本文是Peter Bondanella所著书籍《The Films of Roberto Rossellini》的第三章“Roma citta apertaand 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 asGone with the Wind, Citizen Kane,orLa 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 ofRoma 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 aboutRoma citta apertaemphasizes 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, particularlyworks 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 inLa nave bianco).In stressing on-location shooting, early reactions to the film neglected to note thatthe 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 thefew 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 inRoma citta apertathus 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, andit 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 isa 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 bemore precise to say that rarely have nonprofessional actors been used so skillfully as they were by Rossellini inPaisa,De Sica inLadri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief,1948), or Visconti inLa terra trema(The Earth Trem- bles,1948). Butthis exploitation of nonprofessional actors for particular aesthetic effects is totally absent fromRoma 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 ofavanspettacoloentertainment 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 filmCampo 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, buthe 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 apertadoes 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 inLa nave bianca,nor are there many extremely long takes, the future direction of Rossellini's cinema, hints of which can be detected inUuomo 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 filmis more than a hybrid andmight 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 synthesisthat 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) thatreminds the viewer of the ideological world ofUuomo 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 forRoma citta apertaincorporates 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, entitledStorie 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 thewriter 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 magazineMarc'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 apertacontains 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 ofRoma citta apertathatRossellini'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 filmas ifit 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 withRoma citta apertaas the test case. As we shall see in the next chapter, an argument for Rossellini's originality can more easily be made withPaisa.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 asRoma citta apertaon 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 inRoma citta apertanor 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。

意大利新现实主义电影开山力作，令我感动的是电影中人物非常自然真实的细节处理，没有完美的人：神职人员浑水摸鱼，妇女哄抢面包，但也勇敢协助地下组织抗争，地下组织领袖有很多露水情缘……悬疑紧张气氛运用交叉蒙太奇手法在楼梯搜查片段营造很到位；碧娜追车被枪杀，没有开枪人的镜头呈现，她就这样随着枪声响起瞬间倒地很触目；曼佛雷迪被酷刑逼供时被钉在墙上像十字架上受罪的耶稣；三个被审问的人，失去信仰的德逃兵深知他们自己的手段，畏惧得上吊自杀，神父一旁看着曼佛雷迪顽强遭受逼供的全过程才是最可怕的。神父作为穿行与西方世界中战争与和平中最中立的角色，却成为此电影中的引线，最后忍无可忍对法西斯残忍暴戾的控诉却因自己心生恶念跪地祈求上帝饶恕；拷打室门后就是法西斯享乐的房间；红颜祸水的安排，因为感情问题曼佛雷迪被情人举报被抓，情人因此被嘉奖一套华丽服饰，最后看到自己的爱人被折磨致死晕倒后法西斯女军官收回了那套衣服说：下次还用得着；法西斯官员和施刑军官的谈话更让人记忆深刻……这些讽刺意味和一些细节安排让电影质感十足，虽然都说画面粗糙，但个人却一点也没感觉到，在刚刚二战结束，实际上在战争期间有限资源下已经着手筹拍的这样一部电影已经非常难得了。

“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。当你真的具有这种勇气和责任时，现实本身是充满了故事和喜剧感的。”

-戴锦华

作为电影新现实主义流派的开山之作，《罗马，不设防的城市》情节其实并不复杂。很类似于解放初期的我国的那些革命题材的电影，尤其结尾设伏就义的那段，当然啦，因为那是个结尾是作为此类题材电影的经典被我国广大革命电影借鉴的。
不过这部电影真的很大程度的改变了我对意大利人的看法。此前，我一直觉得这个国家或民族的人就是一群崇尚享乐的机会主义者，他们中的杰出代表就是因扎吉，我汗！在我的印象里，罗马是一座充斥着美食、性、欲望的城市，罗马人慵懒而随性、精明而狡猾、极度热爱享受！可是，影片呈现给我的却绝非这样的事实，这是一座有气度的、勇敢的、优雅的、坚强的城市。坚贞热情的皮娜、勇敢坚定的地下党、高尚不屈的神父，还有那些带编者希望的孩子们，这些人是这座城市犹存的魂！
然而，还有一些旧印象的残存，如那出卖爱情的玛利娜、自以为是的皮娜的妹妹，以及为德军效劳的意大利人等，其实我并不想谴责他们，每个人都有自己的价值观。
有时候，我觉得强调爱国主义其实挺可怕，或者民族主义。什么“master-race”“slave-race”，这就是恶果，其实二战亦然。或许，我这么讲是因为事不关己，我们没有经历过战争，不知道那是什么样的感觉，不知道那时候的绝望，所以我认为“爱国主义”没有用。
但是，换一个角度讲，国家其实也不过是一种意识形态，我们生在哪个国家就成为哪国人，然后就必须爱国，这其实是没有道理的。《无知》里的依莲娜就有同样的感觉。克氏说，我们应当摆脱一切的束缚，从自身寻找人性之光，只有这样才可能真正从根本上改变社会！
我想就是这样，充分的信任人，不需要一切人来管理人，这不是无政府主义。虽然我的确不相信“国家”“政府”，也相信它们必将终结！
随想而已，所以有点乱！