80 years of Rome, Open City: tracking down Roberto Rossellini’s locations today
Shot on the streets of the Italian capital at the end of the Second World War, Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City was made under precarious conditions but created an earthquake in film history with its unvarnished realism. Eighty years on, we went in search of the locations.
- Spoiler warning: This article gives away key plot details
Premiering 80 years ago, Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1945) is one of the great screen depictions of life at the tail-end of World War War II. The first in his trilogy of neorealist war films, followed by Paisan (1946) and Germany, Year Zero (1948), Rossellini’s celebrated drama features some of the most famous imagery in Italian cinema. With its focus on ordinary people, location shooting and use of many non-professional actors, it helped to kickstart Italy’s 1940s neorealist movement, the impact of which was felt around the world.
Rome, Open City takes place during the Nazi occupation of the capital. Resistance fighters are battling with both the occupiers and the remaining Italian fascists. The SS are searching for resistance leader Luigi (Marcello Pagliero), who is on the run. Briefly escaping to the home of friend Francesco (Francesco Grandjacquet), Luigi meets Francesco’s pregnant fiancée Pina (Anna Magnani). But how long will it be before his presence puts them, along with contact Don Pietro Pellegrini (Aldo Fabrizi), in danger?
Rather than filming in a studio, Rossellini’s masterstroke was to get out into the streets and show life in all of its rawness. Just as he would do later for Berlin in Germany, Year Zero, Rossellini rummaged around the bomb-blasted remains of Rome, filming his drama amid the still-volatile backdrop of the newly Allied-occupied capital. What resulted was some of the most authentic war-torn visuals of a city ever committed to film.
Here are five key locations from Rossellini’s Rome as they stand today.
Spanish Steps
Rossellini opens his drama with some very obscure shots of the Spanish Steps – far from the picturesque role the location would later play in films such as William Wyler’s Roman Holiday (1953). This shot is taken from Via dei Condotti, with the dark silhouette of the church Trinità dei Monti haunting the skyline.
German soldiers are then seen marching through the Piazza di Spagna, with the lower part of the steps seen behind them.
Piazza di Spagna
In the next sequence, the soldiers are shown to be conducting a raid further into the Piazza di Spagna. This shot shows a jeep driving past 48 Piazza di Spagna with Via Frattina on the right.
The raid is being conducted on some flats above what was once the office of the Arthur Bolliger removal company. The buildings are numbers 49 to 50 Piazza di Spagna and are today occupied by a number of clothes shops.
Chiesa di Sant’Elena
Much of the film’s Resistance activity is directed from a church: the Chiesa di Sant’Elena. Here we see the churchyard outside. The adjoining flats have since been updated.
The church is seen various times throughout the film, but in particular when a group of conspirators are arrested. This shot shows Francesco walking down Via Avellino, adjacent to the building.
Francesco lags behind while others from the group walk ahead on Via Casilina. This is the road where they are subsequently arrested. The railway lines to the left are still running today though are now separated by a fence.
Earlier in the film, several shots showing the front of the church also make an appearance. The road is incredibly busy today in comparison to its appearance in the film, but the church is still mostly as it was.
Via degli Avignonesi
This street location may seem an unusual choice to visit, considering the many other options from Rosselini’s film. In a brief shot, a jeep is seen speeding up to a building on Via degli Avignonesi.
Its occupants get out, allowing for shots looking in the other direction on the cramped street.
But the main reason to visit the street is because it was the make-shift headquarters for Rossellini and his film – a vital lynchpin for the production considering that Cinecittà Studios had been damaged in the war and were, at the time, requisitioned by the Allied forces. To commemorate Rossellini’s innovation, today the street displays a plaque in his honour.
Via Raimondo Montecuccoli
The film’s most famous sequence concerns the raid on a building on Via Raimondo Montecuccoli. Several other scenes, however, are also filmed on this street. This shot, for example, looks down the street, though the empty side seen on the left has been heavily developed since the time of filming.
This shot is taken directly outside the entrance of number 17, the specific building used for the exteriors of Pina and Francesco’s flat.
In a dramatic sequence, several soldiers arrive to raid the building. This shot looks directly down the road, showing the building at its end, which is still standing today.
In the film’s most famous visual, Pina runs from the building, chasing the truck that is carrying her husband away. This shot is taken looking north up the road.
After Pina is shot, Rossellini films several closer shots of the pavement outside the building.
The scene clearly left its mark on the area, with several walls around the street having Magnani-themed graffiti. Such is the cultural influence that Rossellini’s film still exerts.
