In the Name of the Father, the Daughter, and the Holy Spirits: Remembering Roberto Rossellini

Though Roberto Rossellini is one of the least-known of the great filmmakers (many of his films are difficult to see for various reasons of copyright, etc.), he was incredibly influential and highly prolific. Though this book doesn't really help to explain his work, it does provide a wonderfully emotional and generous overview of his life, and his impact on his daughter, Isabella Rossellini. As a bonus, included in the book is the DVD of the short film "My Dad Is 100 Years Old", written by Isabella Rossellini and directed by the Canadian fantasist Guy Maddin. The film is utterly charming, but in all of this, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Rossellini was one of the most important filmmakers of all time, whose NeoRealist classics ("Open City", "Paisan", "Germany Year Zero") proved to be influential, and whose films from the 1950s ("Stromboli", "Viaggio in Italia", "Fear") introduced themes of alienation and urban malaise which would be developed in films by Antonioni, Godard, Bertolucci and many others. And there is a sadness to the book, because Isabella Rossellini seems to have no consciousness of the importance of her father's actual achievements, she seems to fixate on how her father is seen in Hollywood commercial terms, which is totally incongruous. Yet it's so obvious that this is a labor of great love, and that feeling overwhelms everything else.