Roberto Rossellini – Più di una vita, RECENSIONE DI ROSSELLA POZZA
Roberto Rossellini – Più di una vita
Ilaria De Laurentiis, Andrea Paolo Massara, Raffaele Brunetti
Italy, Latvia 2025
86 min
Synopsis
The story of the most controversial filmmaker’s rebirth. First extolled then harshly criticised, at the age of 50 Roberto Rossellini wrote his will and left for India with 100 kilos of spaghetti in his luggage. That was the beginning of an exciting new chapter in his life, obsessed by knowledge and fascinating by newly invented television, which his colleagues were snubbing. A new revolution awaited the world of cinema, but that was not all…
COMMENTARY
A fascinating and unconventional journey into the mind and the world of a genius, built entirely with largely unreleased materials, mostly from international archives, Roberto Rossellini, più di una vita offers an unusual portrait of the director, untethered from the clichés he himself shied away from and which have carved his legend in stone. Television interviews, debates on the radio and lectures reveal the figure of a revolutionary, irreverent and contradictory artist: as the title reads, more than a life.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
The film presents Roberto Rossellini in a new light, dispelling the clichés that surround the legend and freeing him of the labels that he felt constrained him during his lifetime. This story brings us closer to the genius of the director and to a man with an elusive personality. A film from the archives about R.R., revolutionary, irreverent, contradictory, direct, just like he was in real life. The film moves along a twin track: on the one hand, materials from the archives that present R.R.’s public and historical image, on the other the narrating voices, his and those of the people who lived by his side in his last twenty years. We are led into an intimate and visionary dimension, which gives life to a new, surprising, real, intimate and emotional language.
Directors
Ilaria De Laurentiis
She dedicated her entire career to film editing. After graduating from the CSC in 1987, she worked primarily with documentary films, winning international acknowledgments. In 2003 she founded the B&B Film production company.
Andrea Paolo Massara
Born in Switzerland in 1985, he works in cinema and nature, as an environmental guide and screenwriter. He wrote the documentary The Rossellinis (2020) by Alessandro Rossellini, which was nominated for a David di Donatello.
Raffaele Brunetti
A documentary filmmaker and screenwriter, producer and founder of B&B Film. As an author and producer, he has worked on every aspect of documentary filmmaking. In 2005, he conceived the Italian Doc Screenings, a showcase for Italian documentaries.
Cast and Crew
Editing:
Ilaria de Laurentiis
Music:
Mattia Leonardi, Ruggero Catania
Producer:
Raffaele Brunetti
Production:
B&B Film, Rai Cinema, ZDF/Arte, VFS Films
Co-producer:
Uldis Cekulis
Italian Distribution:
Fandango
Cast:
Sergio Castellitto, Kasia Smutniak, Isabella Rossellini, Tinto Brass, Vinicio Marchioni, Pierluigi Gigante, Bertrand Chaumeton, Jean Herman, Silvia D’Amico, Beppe Cino
RECENSIONE DI ROSSELLA POZZA:
Grande Film: meritato il Premio del Pubblico della XX Edizione della Festa del Cinema di Roma. Geniale la struttura: solo ed esclusivamente materiale di repertorio (in parte inedito), nessuna voce narrante (alcuni testi di lettere o dichiarazioni, quelli originali, vengono recitati magistralmente da Sergio Castellitto, Kasia Smutniak, Isabella Rossellini, Tinto Brass, Vinicio Marchioni, Pierluigi Gigante, Bertrand Chaumeton, Jean Herman, Silvia D’Amico, Beppe Cino). Mirabile la scelta degli elementi significativi, che in soli 86 minuti ci danno un ritratto completo di un gigante del cinema e della cultura mondiali. Un punto di vista anche originale e nuovo, che riscopre un Rossellini poco noto ai non addetti ai lavori. Un Rossellini che si stanca di essere osannato come autore dei capolavori del neo-realismo italiano che ha ispirato i cineasti di tutto il mondo e si vuole distaccare dal sistema cinema che si stava consolidando tra la fine degli anni ’50 e l’inizio degli anni ’50: Un Rossellini innovatore, sperimentatore, che accoglie l’invito della televisione, lo strumento nuovo. Un Rossellini maestro rivoluzionario, con la direzione del Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. Perfino un Rossellini pilota di auto da corsa (con “navigatore” il suo fido direttore della fotografia Aldo Tonti). Ed una chiave di lettura del personaggio: per Rossellini cinema, cultura, relazioni sentimentali erano un tutt’uno, inscindibili. E quindi tutti i sodalizi artistici con l’altro sesso, sono finiti, irrimediabilmente, anche in sodalizi meta-artistici. Ed era facile trovare i set dei film di Rossellini brulicanti di suoi figlioletti che giocavano insieme, avuti anche da tre mogli diverse. Un mito, inarrestabile.
VALUTAZIONE SINTETICA: 8.5