Rome, Open City exemplifies the growing genera of Italian Neorealist filmmaking. Director Roberto Rossellini crafts a story to show the Italian people’s struggle and resistance to the Nazi occupation during the Second World War. Filmed in the year after Rome was liberated, Rossellini used documentary-style shots and long, drawn out takes of dialogue to immerse the audience in the crafted world of Rome in the Nazi occupation. A world in which Rossellini was able to create a united Italy in defiance of Nazi Germany.

Two of the main characters featured in Rome, Open City: Giorgio Manfredi and Don Pietro. The Former is a partisan communist who leads the resistance against the Nazis, and the ladder is a catholic priest that is recruited to help move information and people for the resistance. While apprehensive at first Don Pietro aids the resistance and he and Manfredi eventually grow tor trust and respect one another and are united in their common cause against the German occupation. Outside of Rossellini’s vision of Italy this partnership is very unlikely because in reality the secular communist parties and the Christian democrat parties were often in conflict with one another. In the years leading up to the Fascists rise to power it was the Catholic church’s suspicion of the secular communists that led them to at least tacitly support Mussolini to prevent the communists from taking power. Following the war, the Christian democrats and the socialist/communists parties remained at odds trying to control Italy’s parliament. Rossellini tries to present the embodiments of these ideologies as united and working together towards a better Italy.