The Age of Commercialism

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I watched this on Netflix also and although I like De Sica much better (for some reason his melodrama seems less melodramatic!) there were a few points in other reviews with which I wanted to take issue. First, the title means (I think, given my pidgin Italian) "It was night in Rome". "Escape by Night" is indeed a weird choice for an English title, but one can't really fault the movie for that. Also, as for the American acting like an Italian, even Americans can occasionally act according to the adage "When in Rome..." so I don't buy that as an indictment of the historical sense of the film.The point that is made above about stereotypes is a good one. I would expect Rossellini to accept this criticism -- it is almost as if, fifteen years later, he is setting out to tell his story of the way Italian society adapted to the end of the occupation. The black market, the Church, the aristocracy, the professional class -- they all are caricatured, almost as if he was doing a sociological study of the time. I thought that film succeeded at that level, although of course there is really little character development if all of them are a "type."One other distinctive feature I wanted to point out is the role of the Communists in the film - - Rossellini paints the Communists as the major anti-fascists and as having sacrificed quite a bit. This wholeheartedly positive portrayal is unfamiliar for me, as someone who grew up in the Cold War era, but according to my limited understanding, historically accurate. Since the film was made in 1960, at the end of the decade of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, though, I wonder if this portrayal was not somewhat pointed?

SPOILER ALERT (Shortened Review: Nowhere near the drama I was expecting):I watched the 133 minute version on Netflix based on the positive reviews here. But after watching the film, and I don't care about the masterful, under-appreciated directing etc, I just want a good story and something to care about. It doesn't happen. The title led me to believe there was an escape from occupied Italy to somewhere in liberated Italy. This is World War 2 after all and the Germans had occupied Italy for some time after the Sicily invasion and the eventual Italian surrender to the Allies. Even the history is wrong. I don't believe the Germans held Soviet prisoners with the rest of the Allied POWs. Soviet POWs were used as slaves and worked to death. Almost none of the Soviet POWs returned alive after the war. But that is trivial to the plot of the movie. What is awkward is that none of the 3 former Allied POWs escapes - or at least the one who did escape just vanished and the audience is told he escaped. The POW escapees go out on some nights from their attic hide out and into the street on another occasion but that's it. Not really much of an escape for hardened veterans, and officers at that. There are a very few moments of drama when the film picks up. And miraculously, all the non-Italians learn fluent Italian by reading a book and hiding in a dreary attic of our beautiful Italian hero-ette. Even the Russian speaks decent Italian. I knew there was something hokey about the cast when the American POW kissed his Italian male acquaintance on the cheek. No American male would ever do that in an infinite number of centuries, let alone a soldier. The film just didn't flow enough for me and the story dragged with very few moments of drama. It's an above-average film but that's it.

An user complained that Rossellini's movies are overlooked today;he is completely right.Although the Italian New Wave was never so hard and so nasty as their French counterpart on former colleagues,it nevertheless cast a shadow over them.On the European board ,there are plenty of messages about Fellini,Antonioni,Pasolini (and Godard,Truffaut ,Rohmer and co)whereas Rossellini (and De Sica,the great Luigi Comencini)are almost always absent.He also complained about the cuts in Rossellini's works;however,what was intolerable in "Vanina Vanini" (the first part of which is thoroughly incomprehensible) is not so important in "Era Notte a Roma" . My copy has a running time of about 130 min and that's enough,for I think that it's overlong and even full of filler."Era Notte" tells the story of three escaped prisoners during WW2: a Russian,an English and an American.It's also the story of an Italian girl who helps the peasants to get rid of their burdensome guests in exchange for food.She's not a resistance fighter (as his fiancé is) but she will prove herself very human in spite of her weakness.Rossellini displays respect for the audience: every character speaks his own language ,which gives the movie much more substance than ,for instance ," Uomo della croce " in which everyone spoke Italian.My favorite scene is the Christmas celebration with a very moving "Auld Lang Syne" sung by people from four different countries.It cannot be considered one of Rossellini 's masterworks but its several moments of brilliance make it a must for Rossellini's fans.

I like a lot of Rossellini, but there is the odd clinker. Here's why:it's not sure if it's propaganda, documentary or drama, or all three ; it's set in a blackout, so it's more unrelieved grey than black and white; it's largely set in tenement garrets, though some odd scenes elsewhere; there are few attractive compositions, except repeated shots of the Rome skyline; it has national clichés instead of characters: impulsive American, reserved Brit, bad German, good German, bad fascist, emotional Italian etc. ; the characters enter and leave the film almost at random ; the dramatic scenes aren't, they stop and start abruptly and are poorly linked; plot developments seem to come out of nowhere; the interesting things often happen off screen; characters' behaviour is often reckless to the point of incredulity.Apparently rewritten, screenplayed, edited and scored on the hoof, with a great deal of family involvement,and I'm afraid it shows. sorry for being so negative.