page_title: Women in Italian neorealism
section_title: Rome, Open City
hierarchical_section_title: Women in Italian neorealism / Significant Characterisations / Natural Woman vs Prostitute / Natural Woman / Rome, Open City
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Screenshot, catturato da me, di Roma città aperta, regia di Roberto Rossellini (1945) English: Rome, Open City.
context_page_description: Filmic representations of women have developed in tandem with changing historical and socio-cultural influences. Italian neorealism was a movement that, through art and film, attempted to "[recover] the reality of Italy" for an Italian society that was disillusioned by the propaganda of Fascism. Representations of women in this era were influenced heavily by the suffrage movement and changing socio-political awareness of gender rights. The tension of this transitional era created a spectrum of female representation in film, where female characters were written to acquiesce, or more commonly reject, the societal standards imposed on the women of the age. Italian neorealists, with their characteristic use of realism and thematic-driven narrative, used their medium to explore these established ideals of gender and produce a number of filmic representations of women.
context_section_description: Roberto Rosselini's 1945 Neorealist film Rome, Open City presents his iteration of the natural woman through the characterisation of Pina. Pina is a woman who is shown to have engaged in premarital sex, an identifier of her liberated sexuality, while simultaneously being an epitome of natural, Italian values through her political activism, natural demeanour and dress. The duality of her characterisation is a reflection of the ideals valued by the evolving social standards of the time, consistent with the context of the women's suffrage movement preceding it, and the feminist movement following it. By presenting this dichotomy, Rosselini presents a female lead who, not only in terms of aesthetic but also personality, rejects the excess, luxury and one-dimensional nature of the divas in the Fascist film period.
caption: Anna Magnani as Pina in a scene from Rome, Open City
exif: {}