Roberto Rossellini

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swo17
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#76 Post by swo17 » Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:16 am

tag gallagher wrote:Jean-Luc Godard wrote: "India is the creation of the world."

The French version of Rossellini's India Matri Bhumi came first, with superior text but identical video as the later Italian version -- until the Italians "restored" it by chopping off the last two minutes plus various shots inside, and then disguising this and, when pressed, blaming it on Rossellini. A lie! It ought to be a scandal, but no one gives a damn, particularly Criterion which keeps streaming the aborted Italian version on MUBI. I have "restored" both versions completey, restoring the color as best I can, shot by shot, and providing separate subtitles for each version. Here is an mkv of the French version, with subtitles:

https://1fichier.com/?sbajt7ze81

And here is a vid I made about the movie: https://1fichier.com/?5iqiz0rznr
Oh wow, thanks for your efforts!

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hearthesilence
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#77 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:44 am

tag gallagher wrote:Jean-Luc Godard wrote: "India is the creation of the world."

The French version of Rossellini's India Matri Bhumi came first, with superior text but identical video as the later Italian version -- until the Italians "restored" it by chopping off the last two minutes plus various shots inside, and then disguising this and, when pressed, blaming it on Rossellini. A lie! It ought to be a scandal, but no one gives a damn, particularly Criterion which keeps streaming the aborted Italian version on MUBI. I have "restored" both versions completey, restoring the color as best I can, shot by shot, and providing separate subtitles for each version. Here is an mkv of the French version, with subtitles:

https://1fichier.com/?sbajt7ze81

And here is a vid I made about the movie: https://1fichier.com/?5iqiz0rznr
DAMN. Thanks Tag!

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TMDaines
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#78 Post by TMDaines » Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:13 am

Tag, did you have an MKV of your restoration with both French and Italian audio tracks? I believe on Cinematik is a DVD version of your work that has both tracks?

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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#79 Post by tag gallagher » Fri Feb 02, 2018 10:55 am

Yes, my posting at Cinematik has both the French and Italian audio, with separate subtitles for each.
I made the mkv of just the French version in order to have a small file (1gb) to circulate here, at kg, and, ideally, everywhere in the whole world.
Except for those who understand Italian (and prefer it to French), I think the Italian version is superfluous. As I said, both versions were identical visually (until the Italian restorers went snip crazy); the French voice-over is a more interesting narrator than the Italian; and the Italian text is a lazy translation of the French: where the French uses a specific vivid word, the Italian makes a ganeric banal translation. And, of course, Rossellini made the French version first (and French, in fact, was his first language as a child).

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Altair
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#80 Post by Altair » Fri Feb 02, 2018 11:15 am

Again, I must just chime in to say thank you for making this available for all of us.

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TMDaines
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#81 Post by TMDaines » Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:34 am

tag gallagher wrote:Yes, my posting at Cinematik has both the French and Italian audio, with separate subtitles for each.
I made the mkv of just the French version in order to have a small file (1gb) to circulate here, at kg, and, ideally, everywhere in the whole world.
Except for those who understand Italian (and prefer it to French), I think the Italian version is superfluous. As I said, both versions were identical visually (until the Italian restorers went snip crazy); the French voice-over is a more interesting narrator than the Italian; and the Italian text is a lazy translation of the French: where the French uses a specific vivid word, the Italian makes a ganeric banal translation. And, of course, Rossellini made the French version first (and French, in fact, was his first language as a child).
Thanks, Tag. Invaluable as always.

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knives
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#82 Post by knives » Thu Jul 19, 2018 3:01 pm

Joan at the Stake
Trust Rossellini to turn left when everyone else is turning right. I really have never seen a Joan of Arc film like this one (though from what I hear there is some overlap with the Herzog version) which also makes it unlike any other Rossellini film I have gazed upon. It's in colour and isn't striving for filmic realism giving off a theatrical edge like the Archer's Oh!... Rosalinda. It's not just the fantasma of colour either. Rossellini really wants this to be seen in a parabolic fashion so he names characters after emotions, vices, and virtues and dresses up characters into thematically appropriate animals. This is told as an opera, but that baroque technique feels relatively modern to the rest which has the flavour of medieval theater and I imagine my knowledge (however basic) of inquisition era pays helped me a lot in getting a great deal from the film.

This might make it sound like Rossellini has completely abandoned any sense of realism despite the films before and after it dealing with realism as an aesthetic model. I would argue on this point that realism even in this film is a primary concern and that this one's skewed version highlights and reconfigures all of the other films which more closely align with cinematic realism. Maybe the word realism is the problem here as the film doesn't align with any real world realism and honestly non of his films do. Rather truth seems to be the key to Rossellini. The reality, of course, isn't that the jurors were sheep, but the truth of the situation when pulled free of the lies of perceived reality has them as such (or rather the metaphor speaks to truth). That's perhaps why archetypes, especially Francis, haunt Rossellini's pictures. No human is purely this myth of the saint, not even the man himself who Rossellini portrayed with a wry sort of humour, but they can live through the archetype till the point where they are it on the micro level of truth. Little talked about Joan now seems like a keystone in understanding Rossellini's cinema. I suppose it is a testament to the power of the film's aesthetic that I haven't yet mentioned Bergman reprising her signature role of Joan.

To be fair on that the script puts her into a passive role most of the time observing the reality that theater exposes from the perceived one. When she is given a loosened reign to monologue and act though she does become entirely absorbing and powerful. Even more than Stromboli this film uses Bergman la diva as a signifier and symbol of all that is right in the world albeit arrogant and naive at times.

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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#83 Post by tag gallagher » Thu Jul 19, 2018 3:37 pm

http://tlweb.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/ ... gfr09a.htm

My piece on Joan of Arc -- not in the printed English book.

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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#84 Post by Stefan Andersson » Mon Jan 18, 2021 3:17 pm

Tamasa Films, France, releases the restored Italian-language version of Europe´51 on Blu (French subs only):
https://www.tamasa-cinema.com/boutique/ ... u-ray-dvd/

Essay in French on versions:
https://www.tamasa-cinema.com/wp-conten ... igital.pdf

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Olkan
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#85 Post by Olkan » Tue Nov 21, 2023 8:38 am

tag gallagher wrote:
Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:36 pm
The problem with almost all Italian films until recently is that there is no "original" soundtrack.

And the on-going never-ending problem for me as a Rossellinian is that everyone assumes that, because Rossellini was Italian, therefore the "original" version must be the Italian one. I can't tell you how many LONG arguments I have had trying to convince people that the "original" version of Deutschland im Jahre Null, shot in direct sound in German in Germany by German actors and recorded by French and German technicians, is not the Italian dubbing by Italian voices in Italy not even supervised by Rossellini. People persist in believing that the "original" version is Germania anno zero and that it is everything else that is dubbing.

Similarly with Stromboli, Europe '51, Voyage in Italy, Fear. People persist in referring to these films by their Italian titles, even though they were shot with major English-speaking stars speaking English and dubbed (or in direct sound) with these actors' own voices. People insist that the "original" is, say, Viaggio in Italia with Sanders and Bergman and Tony Burton dubbed by Italians. They insist on seeing Viaggio in Italia with subtitles and stick up their nose at the whole idea of an English "dubbing."

In Roma città aperta six of the principal players are dubbed by other voices. Thus the "original" sound is not original; it's merely the first and only soundtrack which the director created.

In the case of Stromboli, much of it was shot in direct sound and uses the actors' own voices; parts were dubbed in the studio. Same is true for Paisà. The "natives" speak Italian in the film, except for the priest (Renzo Cesano, who went on to a long career in Hollywood movies), and a few words by the husband. So the "original" soundtrack for STROMBOLI is the one Rossellini created for its Italian premiere and for distribution throughout the world. BUT a year later, he created an all-Italian soundtrack (using Bergman's own voice this time, but in Voyage in Italy, Fear or Europe 51), because in Italy you could not distribute a film with subtitles, so the only way to get it shown in Italy was by making an Italian version. Is this second soundtrack "original"? Well, it's "original" for STROMBOLI TERRA DI DIO.

In the case of the history movies made for tv, obviously subtitles were not an option. The films were co-produced by French, Spanish, sometimes German, Roumanian, Egyptian, etc tv companies. The idea was for each language-market to prepare its own edition. For none of these films was there anything that could be called an original soundtrack. To repeat: the whole idea of the projects was that there would not be an original soundtrack. So in these films, Rossellini's actors each spoke their own languages. As I said, during the shooting of PASCAL, Pascal spoke French and everyone else spoke Italian. In the case of AGE OF THE MEDICI (which was intended for American tv), since Americans cannot tolerated dubbed-looking English, almost all the (Italian) actors spoke English during the shooting to minimize the sensation of dubbing, and then everyone was dubbed in English (I don't know whose voices were used). Then a second dubbing was made for Italian tv (again, I don't know whose voices were used). Yet in the U.S. one sensitive intelligent internet critic proudly proclaimed he had of course watched it in the original Italian and of course had not consorted ever for a second with the despicable English "dubbing." Which makes as much sense as watching Citizen Kane in an Italian dubbing and refusing to watch it in English.

In the case of THE MESSIAH, which was financed entirely by Americans, the film was shot in English -- they even set up a school to teach everyone good English -- but with only a scratch track; the actual English soundtrack would have been dubbed later. But the Americans disagreed with Rossellini's script and so this English version never materialized. In this sense, the film was never finished. But an Italian dubbing was made, and also a French one, and also a German one, and I don't know how many other dubbings. These are all dubbings. Which is the "original" soundtrack?

Well, in all cases, my position is that the original version of a movie is the one in which most of the talking is done in the same language in which it was shot and by the voices that belong to the bodies we see on the screen.
Mr. Gallagher, can you clarify that a little bit more?

If in Italy you could not distribute a film with subtitles, did the 35mm prints of "Roma cittá aperta" and "Paisà" for theatrical exhibition in Italy never have subtitles for the scenes where German and English are spoken?

On Criterion Blu-ray the soundtrack for the first one is:
Italian/German LPCM 1.0

For the second one is:
Italian/German/English LPCM 1.0

The characters have key conversations in German and English for several minutes in front of the camera, not occasional dialogues of a few seconds that might not need to be subtitled. Has Criterion mixed languages and in the original Italian prints only Italian was heard?

If the Italian theaters had the same soundtrack that Criterion has included, then subtitles would have been used in many scenes.

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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#86 Post by tag gallagher » Tue Nov 21, 2023 9:13 pm

On PAISÀ in Italy there were Italia subs when people spoke English. I do not know of any other Italian movie with subtitles, but maybe there were others and I just do't know.
In Roma città aperta there are no subtitles when people speak German (which is rare).
Yes, Italians had the same audio as Criterion. There is an edition, PAISAN, intended for U.S. in the 1940s, where much
Italian is dubbed into English.
The Rome Cineteca has 5/6ths of PAISA as first previewed at Venice Festival, after which it was shortened by 20 minutes or so. I don't beieve this has been issued comerciallly anywhere, but who knows! It is only 5/6ths because the print was exported to Germany where the sixth (Po) episode was deleted.

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Olkan
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#87 Post by Olkan » Wed Nov 22, 2023 7:41 pm

tag gallagher wrote:
Tue Nov 21, 2023 9:13 pm
On PAISÀ in Italy there were Italia subs when people spoke English. I do not know of any other Italian movie with subtitles, but maybe there were others and I just do't know.
In Roma città aperta there are no subtitles when people speak German (which is rare).
Yes, Italians had the same audio as Criterion. There is an edition, PAISAN, intended for U.S. in the 1940s, where much
Italian is dubbed into English.
The Rome Cineteca has 5/6ths of PAISA as first previewed at Venice Festival, after which it was shortened by 20 minutes or so. I don't beieve this has been issued comerciallly anywhere, but who knows! It is only 5/6ths because the print was exported to Germany where the sixth (Po) episode was deleted.
Thank you very much for your quick answer, Mr. Gallagher.

You mean you've had access to the 1945 Italian 35mm prints that were screened in theaters in Italy at that time and they have no burned-in subtitles for the German dialogue?

I have never seen “Roma città aperta” with only Italian, they all have scenes in German language. On TV, RAI broadcast it also with scenes in German, but they subtitled them in Italian. However, the subtitles clearly not belong to the original print.

There was a Criterion Laserdisc special edition of “Roma città aperta”, on Laserdisc Database it is listed as Italian only: Spoken Language: Italian. I don't have access to that Laserdisc, but I imagine it will actually be Italian/German and not just Italian throughout the film. The back side does not specify the language we only see "the original film soundtrack" in "Audio track information":

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/X2gAAOSw ... -l1600.jpg

It is rare, as you say, that there are no subtitles because this scene is very long in German:

Image

Were the Italians of the time listening to the film in German in the cinema without understanding what they were saying for almost 4 minutes?

And what about “Germania anno zero”? There are some words in other languages in the Italian and German versions of the film. In French when a guy tries to flirt with Edmund's sister and another person from France appears and later we can hear some soldiers being photographed speaking English. Did these scenes also not have burned-in subtitles in the Italian or German prints of Germania anno zero?

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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#88 Post by tag gallagher » Thu Nov 23, 2023 10:54 am

I have not seen either Roma città aperta or Paisà in Italy on film or video nor have I seen an Italian dvd of either.
I have read more than 50 contemporary newspaper reviews of both movies, and it is curious that subtitles were never mentioned, nor was incomprehensible German mentioned. Curious because everything was dubbed, subtitles rare enough that I never encountered them. I never ceased to marvel that even the most sophisticated Italian movie people were all but insensitive to the (to me) intolerable dubbing - to John Wayne, for example, sounding like a head waiter

The reason movies didn't get released with subtitles was not only that people did not like subtitles (like in the U.S.) but also that the majority of the movie-going audiences were not people with high literacy, and the vast majority of cinemas, after first run, were parish affairs at the cheapest prices. (Anytime I've shown subtitled movies in U.S. university classrooms, many of the American students had trouble keeping up with the subtitles.)

It might be -- I do NOT know! -- that prints of Roma città aperta for domestic consumption were dubbed in Italian and those for export left in German. I simply do not know.

Deutschland im Jahre Null was shot in German and in direct sound. (Direct sound was extremely rare in Italian cinema until fairly recently.) In Italy it was shown ony in Italian; Rossellini, as usual had nothing to do with te Italian dubbing; it's credied to Sergio Amidei on the Italian prints. In NewYork, it was released in German with subtitles; only in the 1970s was it replaced with Italian dubbing with subtitles. Curiously the best picture quality version is the French dubbing, as Gaumont was one of the original producers.

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Olkan
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#89 Post by Olkan » Thu Nov 23, 2023 6:58 pm

tag gallagher wrote:
Thu Nov 23, 2023 10:54 am
I have not seen either Roma città aperta or Paisà in Italy on film or video nor have I seen an Italian dvd of either.
I have read more than 50 contemporary newspaper reviews of both movies, and it is curious that subtitles were never mentioned, nor was incomprehensible German mentioned. Curious because everything was dubbed, subtitles rare enough that I never encountered them. I never ceased to marvel that even the most sophisticated Italian movie people were all but insensitive to the (to me) intolerable dubbing - to John Wayne, for example, sounding like a head waiter

The reason movies didn't get released with subtitles was not only that people did not like subtitles (like in the U.S.) but also that the majority of the movie-going audiences were not people with high literacy, and the vast majority of cinemas, after first run, were parish affairs at the cheapest prices. (Anytime I've shown subtitled movies in U.S. university classrooms, many of the American students had trouble keeping up with the subtitles.)

It might be -- I do NOT know! -- that prints of Roma città aperta for domestic consumption were dubbed in Italian and those for export left in German. I simply do not know.

Deutschland im Jahre Null was shot in German and in direct sound. (Direct sound was extremely rare in Italian cinema until fairly recently.) In Italy it was shown ony in Italian; Rossellini, as usual had nothing to do with te Italian dubbing; it's credied to Sergio Amidei on the Italian prints. In NewYork, it was released in German with subtitles; only in the 1970s was it replaced with Italian dubbing with subtitles. Curiously the best picture quality version is the French dubbing, as Gaumont was one of the original producers.
I called it “Germania anno zero” because it is usually listed as an Italian film but the actors clearly speak German as you say. German is, without the slightest doubt, the original language of the film. You are absolutely right, the Italian version is due to Amidei:

Image

At the Locarno Festival it was the first time it was screened in public, but do you know which version was seen there, the Italian or the German? I don't know if the film represented Italy or Germany at that Festival. The Italian print mentions the award won there, but it is remarkable that there is no trace of that award in the German print:

Image

According to imdb (which has a lot of misinformation) it was not released in Germany until 1952:

Switzerland
- July 9, 1948(Locarno Film Festival)

Switzerland
- July 11, 1948(Italian speaking region)

Italy
- December 1, 1948(Milan)

United Kingdom
- 1949

France
- February 2, 1949

Sweden
- February 7, 1949 Italy

Italy
- March 25, 1949 (Turin)

United States
- September 19, 1949

Finland
- September 28, 1951

West Germany
- April 9, 1952

I wonder which country was the first to release this film in German before the US. If France had its own version, maybe the UK? Perhaps Switzerland, at the Locarno Film Festival, would have screened the German version and that's why this version makes no mention in the credits of the award received? I don’t know but In the Swiss city of Locarno I think people speak Italian.

Regarding languages, these are the scenes in which French and English are spoken. Only a few lines:

Image

Image

We can hear those languages in both the Italian and German prints. The prints you've seen with English subtitles would surely subtitle the French lines (and the rest of the dialogues, of course), but I don't know if the German or Italian prints originally had burned-in subtitles to translate only those moments. I imagine not because it's a very brief thing, but I’d like to discover it. I have not been able to access any 35mm prints of the time.

By the way, I remember now a film by a Rossellini's collaborator, Fellini, with which I wonder if the main language during the shooting was Italian or not. I am referring to “Il bidone” (The Swindle). I suppose it's a similar case to Ingrid Bergman and Alexander Knox in "Europa '51" and most likely Broderick Crawford and Richard Basehart said their lines in English during filming and then were dubbed into Italian. I have not seen this film but neither Criterion nor MoC have included an English track on their Blu-rays, nor do I know of an English print. Occasionally the foreign actors have spoken Italian during filming. If I'm not mistaken Scorsese says in a documentary that Farley Granger said his lines in Italian in Visconti's "Senso". I don't know if this may be the case with Broderick Crawford and Richard Basehart but I thought this had happened with Ingrid Bergman and Alexander Knox until reading in this thread that they had shot in English.

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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#90 Post by tag gallagher » Thu Nov 23, 2023 8:04 pm

Locarno being Italian-speaing, most likely the Italian-dubbed Germany was shown there. I know for sure that in the U.S.it was distributed in German. In France it was shown dubbed into French.I have no idea abut England but assume it played in German.
I believe it had not much audience anywhere,which is curious as today I'd think it the most accessible of any Rosselini movie. Anyhow,it disappeared during the 50s and then in the early 70s (?) showed up in Itaian mid a bunch of movies Rossellini sold to the U.S. (including the abominable Italian Socrate). One big blind (deaf) spot in Rossellini was that he never related to the horrors of dubbing. Yes, Bergman and Knox shot in English, and others were dubbed so badly that much of it had to be redone (still badly). Anyhow there are zillions of dvds of Germania anno zero if you want to pinpoint surviving non-Italian words. The German,Italian French vidoe portions areidentical (except for titles); so you canget the Gaumont dvd and stick on the Criterion audio.
I was fortunate to be consulted when Criterion issued these and other movies. And each time it was a battle to convince people that Rossellini does not mean Italian. But we did Germany in German Pascal in French, Medici in English, and the Bergmans in English (except Joan of Arc) rather than everything in Itaian. Am stil campaigning for a restored INDIA in French, Actes des apôtres, Socrates in French (albeit I haveposted it myself 1fichier.com/?rcb4y0qpef

I don't know about the Visconti movies.

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Olkan
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Re: Roberto Rossellini

#91 Post by Olkan » Tue Nov 28, 2023 4:57 am

Thank you very much for all this information, Mr. Gallagher.

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