ROMA CITTÀ APERTA

1 1 R R O M A C I T T À A P E R T A K A R L K I R C H W E Y At the end of Roma città aperta by Rossellini, after the S.S. o≈cer has given the coup-de-grace to the Catholic priest played by Aldo Fabrizi, the scab-kneed children who watched through the fence troop downhill, and St. Peter’s is in the background, its dome floating like a miracle they do not notice. I watched the movie again last night. Beyond my window were patches of filthy snow as grudging winter yielded and spring returned; but only when the bloody-handed thugs in the Via Tasso had tortured the Resistance leader to death with the blowtorch, the pliers, the lash, and the priest was forced to listen to his cries as others amused themselves with cognac and Chopin in another room and the woman who betrayed him had fainted at the truth in the fur coat they bought her for: as I say, it came only slowly, after the pregnant Anna Magnani had been shot dead in the street in wartime Rome, with a blot of crimson and a concussion of dismay like the red-bellied woodpecker in the catalpa hammering at the reluctance of each lengthening day, that dawn had broken, and it was Easter morning. ...