Rossellini, Roberto

Roberto Rossellini (rōbĕr´tō rōs-sĕl-lē´nē), 1906–77, Italian film director and producer. He first received international attention in 1946 with Open City, which was made clandestinely during the Fascist period and became the key film of the neorealist movement. He brought the real world into films by mixing non-actors and authentic locales with actors and studio sets. In Paisan (1946) and Stromboli (1949), he continued his striking use of locale as character. Beginning in the 1960s, Rossellini worked on a series of historical films for television, including The Rise of Louis XIV (1966). An affair with Ingrid Bergman, whom he later married, caused an international scandal that obscured the quality of the films they made together in the 1950s, e.g., Europa '51 (The Greatest Love, 1952), La Paura (Fear, 1954).

See biography by T. Gallagher (1998); study by P. Brunette (1987).

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Publication information: Article title: Rossellini, Roberto. Encyclopedia title: The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. © 2012 The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. Used with the permission of Columbia University Press. All Rights Reserved. Publisher: The Columbia University Press. Place of publication: Not available. Publication year: 2013.

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