- Voyage to Italy
The Italian neorealist classic Open City is currently screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center in a new 4K DCP digital restoration, said to be a marked improvement on the previously distributed 35mm prints. (As of this writing, I haven’t seen the new digital version, so I obviously can’t say that it is in fact an improvement, but at the risk of inciting the ongoing film-versus-digital argument, I will say that I’ll take anything over the shoddy, barely visible print I saw a few years ago.) The film’s director, of course, is Roberto Rossellini, a stalwart of European art cinema and one of the key figures in world film. He’s an incredibly important figure who really doesn’t require an introduction, so just skip on down to my five favorite movies from his vast and varied filmography.
- The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (1966) The Rossellini film that’s least like the others, and all the more fascinating for it. His methods are essentially the same—location shooting, modest camerawork, long shots—but as the director waded into a new phase, begun after he famously claimed cinema was dead, he reoriented his approach and moved to television in search of no less than “mankind’s path in search of truth.” The resultant phase, punctuated by this masterpiece, is among cinema’s most intriguing and transformative swan songs.
