Editing Roberto Rossellini (section)

== Career ==
In 1937, Rossellini shot his first film, ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'', which was possibly unreleased and later lost.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Forgacs|first1=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LTr8DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22dafne%22+%22rossellini%22&pg=PA172|title=Roberto Rossellini: Magician of the Real|last2=Lutton|first2=Sarah|last3=Nowell-Smith|first3=Geoffrey|date=2019-07-25|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-83871-782-7|language=en}}</ref> After this film, he was called to work as assistant director on [[Goffredo Alessandrini|Goffredo Alessandrini's]] in making ''[[Luciano Serra, Pilot|Luciano Serra pilota]]'', one of the most successful Italian films of the first half of the 20th century, and later worked on [[Francesco De Robertis|Francesco De Robertis's]] 1940 film ''Uomini sul Fondo''.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=YbB9zKvpS88C&q=francesco%20%20de%20robertis Brunette, Peter. ''Roberto Rossellini''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p. 11.]</ref> His close friendship with [[Vittorio Mussolini]], son of [[Benito Mussolini]], has been interpreted as a possible reason for having been preferred to other apprentices.

Some writers have described the first part of his career as a sequence of trilogies. His first feature film, ''[[The White Ship (1941 film)|The White Ship]]'' (1941) was sponsored by the audiovisual propaganda centre of Navy Department and is the first work in Rossellini's "Fascist Trilogy", together with ''[[A Pilot Returns]]'' (1942) and ''[[The Man with a Cross]]'' (1943). During this period he developed relationships with [[Federico Fellini]] and [[Aldo Fabrizi]]. The Fascist regime collapsed in 1943, and two months after the liberation of Rome (4 June 1944), Rossellini began preparing the anti-fascist ''[[Rome, Open City|Roma città aperta]]'' (''Rome, Open City'', 1945), with Fellini assisting on the script. Fabrizi played the role of the priest, while Rossellini self-produced, filming commencing in January 1945. Most of the money came from credits and loans, and film had to be found on the black market. This dramatic film was an immediate success. It has been called the first film of the ''Neorealist Trilogy'', the second title of which was ''[[Paisà]]'' (1946), produced with non-professional actors, and the third, ''[[Germany, Year Zero]]'' (1948), was sponsored by a French producer and filmed in Berlin's French sector. In Berlin also, Rossellini preferred non-actors, but he was unable to find a face he found "interesting"; he placed his camera in the centre of a town square, as he did for ''Paisà'', but was surprised when nobody came to watch.

As he declared in an interview "in order to really create the character that one has in mind, it is necessary for the director to engage in a battle with his actor which usually ends with submitting to the actor's wish. Since I do not have the desire to waste my energy in a battle like this, I only use professional actors occasionally".<ref>[https://www.meetup.com/es-ES/DCitalian/events/84628342/ G., Anthony. "'Free' Cinema Italiano @ NGA:"Trip to Italy" by World Famous Director Rossellini." ''Meetup''. 14 October 2012.]</ref> One of the reasons for success is supposed to be Rossellini's rewriting of the scripts according to the non-professional actors' feelings and histories. Regional accent, dialect and costumes were shown in the film as they were in real life.

After his Neorealist Trilogy, Rossellini produced two films now classified as the 'Transitional films': ''[[L'Amore (film)|L'Amore]]'' (1948) (with [[Anna Magnani]]) and ''La macchina ammazzacattivi'' (1952), on the capability of cinema to portray reality and truth (with recalls of [[commedia dell'arte]]). In 1948, Rossellini received a letter from a famous foreign actress proposing a collaboration:
::Dear Mr. Rossellini,
:I saw your films ''Open City'' and ''Paisan'', and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German, who is not very understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only "ti amo," I am ready to come and make a film with you.
:::[[Ingrid Bergman]]

With this letter began one of the best-known love stories in film history, with Bergman and Rossellini both at the peak of their careers. Their first collaboration was ''[[Stromboli (1950 film)|Stromboli terra di Dio]]'' (1950) (in the island of [[Stromboli (island)|Stromboli]], and its volcano quite conveniently erupted during filming). This affair caused a great scandal in some countries (Bergman and Rossellini were married to other people); the scandal intensified when Bergman became pregnant with Renato Roberto Ranaldo Giusto Giuseppe ("Robin") Rossellini. Rossellini and Bergman had two more children, [[Isabella Rossellini]] (actress & model) and her twin, Ingrid Isotta. ''[[Europa '51]]'' (1952), ''[[Siamo Donne]]'' (1953), ''[[Journey to Italy]]'' (1954), ''[[Fear (1954 film)|La paura]]'' (1954) and ''[[Giovanna d'Arco al rogo]]'' (1954) were the other films on which they worked together.

In 1957, [[Jawaharlal Nehru]], the prime minister of India at the time, invited him to India to make the documentary ''India'' and put some life into the floundering Indian Films Division. Though married to Bergman, he had an affair with Sonali Senroy Dasgupta, a screenwriter, herself married to local filmmaker [[Harisadhan Dasgupta]], who was helping develop vignettes for the film.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hoveyda.org/india.html|title=Rossellini's INDIA by Fereydoun Hoveyda|website=hoveyda.org|access-date=29 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828055806/http://www.hoveyda.org/india.html|archive-date=28 August 2008|url-status=usurped}}</ref> Given the climate of the 1950s, this led to a huge scandal in India as well as in Hollywood.<ref name="tele">{{cite news|url=http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080601/jsp/7days/story_9348365.jsp|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615181115/http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080601/jsp/7days/story_9348365.jsp|url-status=dead|archive-date=15 June 2008|title=The scandal that rocked Calcutta|date=1 June 2008|newspaper=The Telegraph|access-date=19 February 2014}}</ref> Nehru had to ask Rossellini to leave.{{Citation needed|date=June 2009}} Soon after, Bergman and Rossellini separated.

In 1971, Rice University in Houston, Texas, invited Rossellini to help establish a Media Center, where in 1970 he had begun planning a film on science with Rice professor [[Donald D. Clayton]].<ref name="clemson">{{cite web|url=http://www.clemson.edu/ces/astro/NucleoArchive/PhotoList/1970s/70CRosselini1.html|title=PHOTO ARCHIVE IN NUCLEAR ASTROPHYSICS|publisher=clemson.edu|access-date=7 December 2014}}</ref> They worked daily for two weeks in Rome in summer 1970, but financing was insufficient for filming to begin. In 1973, he was invited to teach at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he taught a one-semester course titled "The Essential Image."

Rossellini's final project was the documentary ''Beaubourg'', filmed in 1977 and first premiered in 1983.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/filmsofrobertoro00bond|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/filmsofrobertoro00bond/page/174 174]|quote=Beaubourg Rossellini.|title=The Films of Roberto Rossellini|last1=Bondanella|first1=Peter|last2=Bondanella|first2=Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian Peter|date=29 January 1993|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521398664|language=en}}</ref>