Friday, November 24----The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the veritable New York City institution and one of the most important film archives in the world, is presenting the first comprehensive American retrospective of the work of master filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, on the anniversary of the centenary of his birth. The Retrospective will feature all of Rossellini's ground-breaking films, as well as several lesser known titles and works from his later career for film and television. The series began on November 15 and runs through December 22 at the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters and The Celeste Bartos Theater at the Museum.

Many of the titles are being presented with spanking new prints, including the new MoMA restoration of PAISAN, the director's second great neo-realistic classic from 1946. The program is co-organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Museum of Modern Art Department of Film; and James Quandt, Senior Programmer, Cinematheque Ontario, presented in collaboration with Cinecittà Holding (Rome).

Roberto Rossellini (1906–1977) was a seminal artist of the art of film, who pioneered the highly influential neo-realist movement that put Italian cinema on the map in the years following World War II. His classic films of that period, ROME OPEN CITY (1945), PAISAN (1946) and GERMANY YEAR ZERO (1947) are inestimable classics that continue to enthrall audiences worldwide.

They are also among the films that have most greatly influenced a host of other directors, including Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard and Martin Scorsese. Over his 40-year career, Rossellini’s films seem to take several broad turns, from his Neorealist masterworks about war and its immediate aftermath to the extraordinary melodramas he made with Ingrid Bergman to “didactic” works made for television about men whose ideas altered the course of western civilization (Jesus, Socrates, Blaise Pascal). The director's films are characterized by their inflection of “actuality” (shooting on location and casting everyday people alongside professional actors), recognition of the mystery of human behavior, belief in spiritual transcendence, and the desire to stimulate audiences’ curiosity.

The exhibition will screen several of Rossellini’s early films such as the earliest extant work, the short film UNDERWATER FANTASY (1938), as well as early features THE WHITE SHIP (1941) and THE MAN OF THE CROSS (1943), filmed during the German occupation of his beloved Rome.

The series will feature Rossellini's collaborations with his two favorite actresses, Anna Magnani and Ingrid Bergman, who also figured prominently in his celebrated love life. His complete filmography with Bergman, with whom he produced five films and a scandalous love affair that was denounced on the floor of the US Senate, will be screened, including such landmarks as STROMBOLI (1949), EUROPA 51 (1952) and VOYAGE IN ITALY (1953).

The Retrospective also include a sidebar program entitled ROSSELLINI ON PAPER, a fascinating exhibition of film posters, family photographs, and personal ephemera and correspondence, drawn from the Martin Scorsese Collection, Wesleyan University Cinema Archives, and the collections of Dave Kehr and the Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Film. The exhibition surveys the graphic presentation of his work internationally, and provides a rare glimpse into his creative process and off-screen life. Among the highlights in this exhibition is correspondence with Ernest Hemingway and Howard Hughes , as well as an early letter to Ingrid Bergman, whom he subsequently married, outlining his plans for their work together.

The series kicked off on the evening of November 15 with a screening of ROME OPEN CITY (1945), the powerful neo-realist classic that was an international sensation in its day and has secured the director a permanent place in cinema history. The film was introduced by Rossellini’s daughters, Ingrid and Isabella Rossellini.

On Monday, December 4, Tag Gallagher, author of The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini: His Life and Films (1998, Da Capo Press, New York), will present an illustrated lecture on Rossellini's life and his continuing influence as one of the titans of world cinema.

Sandy Mandelberger
FilmNewYork Editor