Director: Roberto Rossellini
Writers: Sergio Amidei, Federico Fellini, Klaus Mann, Marcello Pagliero, Alfred Hayes, Roberto Rossellini, Rod E. Geiger, Vasco Pratolini
Photography: Otello Martelli
Music: Renzo Rossellini
Editor: Eraldo Da Roma
Cast: Carmela Sazio, Robert Van Loon, Dots Johnson, Alfonsino Pasca, Gar Moore, Maria Michi, Harriet White, Renzo Avanzo, William Tubbs, Dale Edmonds, John Whaling Allen, Dan, Roberto Van Loel, Cigolani
Film critics and historians appear prone to grouping director and cowriter Roberto Rossellini’s pictures into trilogies, even if they were not exactly intended that way. Paisan is thus the second in his so-called Neorealist trilogy, with Rome, Open City (1945) and Germany, Year Zero (1948). But not only is Paisan a genuinely standalone picture on its own, it is also composed of six separate episodes with six separate stories and casts. As the trilogy’s name suggests, the pictures are united mainly by the formal aesthetic, which in turn was imposed in the first place by conditions of low-budget financing and a country literally in ruins from war. From Rossellini to Bicycle Thieves to Jack Webb and beyond I come to the aesthetics of neorealism already in favor: shooting on the fly, casting amateurs, studying the underclasses—better without agenda, as Rossellini generally did it (though also implicitly pointing ways toward social reform).
I like the structure of Paisan almost as much as the little separate stories. The larger arc is the liberation of Italy by Allied forces, which started in 1943 and continued until it helped bring the end of the war in 1945. Just so, Paisan starts with the invasion of Sicily and advances north. The stories are not specifically about the progress of the war but rather just wartime stories involving ordinary soldiers and civilians caught in extraordinary situations. In the first a young woman whose father and brother have been missing for days, Carmela (Carmela Sazio), is drafted by invading US forces who are trying to root out dangerous nests of Nazis in a contest of urban warfare conducted at night. The movements of the US soldiers and the Nazis are complicated, information is lacking, mistakes are made, there’s no time to think, and the entire episode is all done in maybe 25 minutes. All the tales here are approximately the size of a Twilight Zone episode. The rhythms are formative but familiar.
Film critics and historians appear prone to grouping director and cowriter Roberto Rossellini’s pictures into trilogies, even if they were not exactly intended that way. Paisan is thus the second in his so-called Neorealist trilogy, with Rome, Open City (1945) and Germany, Year Zero (1948). But not only is Paisan a genuinely standalone picture on its own, it is also composed of six separate episodes with six separate stories and casts. As the trilogy’s name suggests, the pictures are united mainly by the formal aesthetic, which in turn was imposed in the first place by conditions of low-budget financing and a country literally in ruins from war. From Rossellini to Bicycle Thieves to Jack Webb and beyond I come to the aesthetics of neorealism already in favor: shooting on the fly, casting amateurs, studying the underclasses—better without agenda, as Rossellini generally did it (though also implicitly pointing ways toward social reform).
I like the structure of Paisan almost as much as the little separate stories. The larger arc is the liberation of Italy by Allied forces, which started in 1943 and continued until it helped bring the end of the war in 1945. Just so, Paisan starts with the invasion of Sicily and advances north. The stories are not specifically about the progress of the war but rather just wartime stories involving ordinary soldiers and civilians caught in extraordinary situations. In the first a young woman whose father and brother have been missing for days, Carmela (Carmela Sazio), is drafted by invading US forces who are trying to root out dangerous nests of Nazis in a contest of urban warfare conducted at night. The movements of the US soldiers and the Nazis are complicated, information is lacking, mistakes are made, there’s no time to think, and the entire episode is all done in maybe 25 minutes. All the tales here are approximately the size of a Twilight Zone episode. The rhythms are formative but familiar.
They’re not all as grim as the first but that first casts a pall that lasts the rest of the show. There is never a doubt in even the most comical scenes that the larger context is war, wreckage, and sudden death. Rossellini shoots in typical neorealist style—chipping in his part to authoring the subgenre—with interjections of archival footage and a prevailing semi-documentary style of cheap stark high-contrast film stock and fluid camera in motion. I somehow got a hit of Jack Kerouac out of Rossellini’s play—a highly mannered aesthetic on the one hand, forced in part by circumstances of no money, and yet an unmistakable earnestness that prioritizes the dignity and nobility of its impoverished cast of characters, amateur and professional alike.
In fact, it’s not clear at all who is more effective in their roles in Paisan—certainly the pros stand apart, more capable of nuance in service to the thoughtful and sensitive stories. Carmela Sazio, an amateur playing a woman named Carmela in the first episode, is one of the most convincing players here. Yet so is William Tubbs, the pro who plays a Roman Catholic US chaplain whose colleagues, a Protestant chaplain and a Jewish chaplain, are regarded as pagan heathens by the monks in a Catholic monastery where they must stay the night. This Catholic chaplain must try to shed some enlightenment on the benightedness of these country monks, with mixed results. Tubbs puts the complexities over in a way I’m not sure any amateur could (as Rossellini would seem to agree). At the same time, Tubbs’s ability to woo and charm the camera, as palpable as, in fairness, it is natural, ultimately feels phony in the neorealist context. The mix of amateurs with professionals provides interesting friction points in many places.
All the stories are simple enough individually, but together they contribute a sense of the complex mosaic that is war in real-time. We see lots of fog-of-war issues, the pure confusion of being on the ground in a war zone. There is also a good deal of enjoyable physical activity in these stories as well, chase scenes, people running away, snipers firing on pedestrians. Many street scenes are shot from several floors up—de facto a sniper’s vantage—where the geometry of streets and buildings and intersections lays out like a satisfying board game.
I like Paisan more than either Rome, Open City or Germany, Year Zero and not just because I prefer to see commas left out of titles. I like the anthology approach and I guess I have a natural affinity for stories that come in at the 22-minute length I’m used to by way of Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and sitcoms. And as a fan of the primitive I can’t help but like neorealism in its most basic precepts. In fact, Paisan could well be the place to start with neorealism. Later for Bicycle Thieves.
In fact, it’s not clear at all who is more effective in their roles in Paisan—certainly the pros stand apart, more capable of nuance in service to the thoughtful and sensitive stories. Carmela Sazio, an amateur playing a woman named Carmela in the first episode, is one of the most convincing players here. Yet so is William Tubbs, the pro who plays a Roman Catholic US chaplain whose colleagues, a Protestant chaplain and a Jewish chaplain, are regarded as pagan heathens by the monks in a Catholic monastery where they must stay the night. This Catholic chaplain must try to shed some enlightenment on the benightedness of these country monks, with mixed results. Tubbs puts the complexities over in a way I’m not sure any amateur could (as Rossellini would seem to agree). At the same time, Tubbs’s ability to woo and charm the camera, as palpable as, in fairness, it is natural, ultimately feels phony in the neorealist context. The mix of amateurs with professionals provides interesting friction points in many places.
All the stories are simple enough individually, but together they contribute a sense of the complex mosaic that is war in real-time. We see lots of fog-of-war issues, the pure confusion of being on the ground in a war zone. There is also a good deal of enjoyable physical activity in these stories as well, chase scenes, people running away, snipers firing on pedestrians. Many street scenes are shot from several floors up—de facto a sniper’s vantage—where the geometry of streets and buildings and intersections lays out like a satisfying board game.
I like Paisan more than either Rome, Open City or Germany, Year Zero and not just because I prefer to see commas left out of titles. I like the anthology approach and I guess I have a natural affinity for stories that come in at the 22-minute length I’m used to by way of Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and sitcoms. And as a fan of the primitive I can’t help but like neorealism in its most basic precepts. In fact, Paisan could well be the place to start with neorealism. Later for Bicycle Thieves.
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