Rossellini @ MoMA.

With the Roberto Rossellini retrospective opening at MoMA this evening, Fernando F Croce opens Slant's special section: "Today, even with Rossellini securely standing next to the likes of Renoir, Ford, Dreyer, and Mizoguchi, the various disconcerting aspects of his work remain stubbornly in place, refusing reductive tidiness. Rossellini was a genius for sure - one whose searching aesthetic should be experienced in its many phases in order to be fully assessed."

Today, too, Mike Hertenstein does something rather extraordinary at the Flickerings site. This summer, they celebrated the centennial "with a program featuring several of Rossellini's films, paired with a series of seminars the notes of which I now post here." And those notes so far are extensive: Germany: Year Zero, The Flowers of St Francis, Europa '51, The Miracle and Stromboli, with more to come.

Updated through 11/19.

Earlier: Manohla Dargis in the New York Times.

Update, 11/19: Blogging for Reverse Shot, scrumtrelescent argues that Germany Year Zero "is the most sublimely empathic vision ever committed to the screen." Also, Paisan is "a film primarily of healing, an expression of regeneration and hope now that the long nightmare has come to an end - yet tempered by the legacy of rampant material and social destruction."

Posted by dwhudson at November 15, 2006 11:59 AM