A révisiter? Mélodrame, néoréalisme et Rome, ville ouverte de Roberto Rossellini

Rome, Open City (1945) is perhaps Roberto Rossellini's film that was most successfully with the general public. This study investigates the role that melodrama played in this success, and questions some clichés. The first concerns the legend according to which this film was largely improvised, while today we know that it was instead carefully written. Not only did a screenplay exist, but it oozes with melodrama, which certainly reaches its climax during the famous shooting of Sora Pina, splendidly played by Anna Magnani, but it permeates the entire screenplay and blends skilfully both with elements of commedia dell'arte and with the melodramatic tradition of previous Italian cinema. Secondly, this study questions the supposed incompatibility between the categories of melodrama and that of realism, and focuses the ethical problems raised by such a melange.