Writer. Nationality: Italian. Born: Trieste, 30 October 1904. Career: 1924—stage actor in Turin; 1926—entered films as assistant director for Brignone; 1935—first film as writer, Don Bosco. Died: Rome, 14 April 1981.
Don Bosco (Allessandrini)
Il conte di Brechard (Bonnard) (uncredited); Pietro Micca (Vergano)
Lotte nell'ombra (Gambino); Cose dell'altro mondo (Malasomma); Traversata nera (Gambino)
La notte delle beffe (Campogalliani); Arditi civili (Gambino); Popo divorzieremo (Malesomma); La fanciulla di portici (Bonnard) (uncredited)
Cuori nella tormenta (Campogalliani); Il prigioniero di Santa Cruz (Bragaglia); Il pozzo dei miracoli (Righelli); L'ultimo ballo (Mastrocinque)
Giungla (Malasomma); La regina di Navarra (Gallone); Gioco pericoloso (Malasomma); Don Cesare di Bazan (Freda); Il figlio del corsaro rosso (Elter); La bisbetica domata (Poggioli); Harlem (Gallone)
Gli ultimi filibustieri (Elter); Gelosia (Poggioli); Tristi amori (Gallone); T'amerò sempre (Camerini)
Addio, amore! (Franciolini); Il cappello da prete (Poggioli)
Roma cittĂ aperta ( Open City ) (Rossellini)
PaisĂ ( Paisan ) (Rossellini); SciusciĂ ( Shoeshine ) (De Sica); Cronoca nera (Bianchi)
FatalitĂ (Bianchi); L'altra (Bra gaglia); Germania, anno zero ( Germany, Year Zero ) (Rossellini)
Anni difficili ( Difficult Years ) (Zampa); Ladri di biciclette ( The Bicycle Thief ) (De Sica); La macchina ammazzacattivi (Rossellini); Sotto il sole di Roma ( Under the Sun of Rome) (Castellani)
Patto col diavolo (Chiasrini); Stromboli, terra di Dio ( Stromboli ) (Rossellini)
Domenica d'agosto ( Sunday in August ) (Emmer); Vita da cani (Steno and Monicelli)
Parigi è Sempre Parigi (Emmer)
La ragasse di Piazza di Spagna ( Three Girls from Rome ) (Emmer)
Anni facili ( Easy Years ) (Zampa); Destini di donne ( Daughters of Destiny ) (Pagliero); Villa Borghese ( It Happened in the Park ) (Franciolini)
Cronache di poveri amanti (Lizzani); Le signorine dello 04 (Franciolini); Terza liceo (Emmer); Secrets d'alcove ( Il letto ; The Bed ) (Decoin and others); Die Angst ( La paura ; Fear ) (Rossellini)
Picasso (Emmer—doc); Il bigamo ( The Bigamist ) (Emmer)
Una pelliccia di visone (Pellegrini); Racconti romani ( Roman Tales ) (Franciolini); Peccato di castitĂ (Franciolini)
Il momento piĂą bello ( The Most Wonderful Moment ) (Emmer)
Racconti d'estate ( Love on the Riviera ; Summer Tales ) (Franciolini)
Il Generale Della Rovere ( General Della Rovere ) (Rossellini); Viva l'Italia! (Rossellini)
Fantasmi a Roma (Pietrangeli)
Anni rugenti (Zampa); Copacabana Palace ( Girl Game ; The Saga of the Flying Hostesses ) (Steno); Una domenica d'estate (Petroni)
Il processo di Verona (Lizzani)
La fuga (Spinola); LiolĂ ( A Very Handy Man ) (Blasetti); La vita agra (Lizzani)
Fumo di Londra (Sordi); Scusi, lei e favorevole o contrario? (Sordi)
Maigret a Pigalle (Landi); Cinq gars pour Singapour (Toublanc-Michel) (Italian version only)
Colpo di sole (Guerrini); Il medico della Mutua (Zampa)
Il Prof. Guido Tersilli, primario della clinica Villa Celeste convenzionato con le mutue (Salce)
Il presidente del Borgorosso Football Club (Filippo d'Amico)
Detenuto in attesa di giudizio ( Why? ) (Loy)
La piĂą bella serata della mia vita (Scola)
Anastasia nio fratello (Steno)
Un borghese piccolo piccolo (Monicelli)
Le Temoin (Mockey)
Storie di ordinaria follia ( Tales of Ordinary Madness ) (Ferreri)
La Nuit de Varennes (Scola)
Maciste all'inferno (Brignone); Maciste nella gabbia dei Leoni (Brignone); Beatrice Cenci (Negroni); Transatlan-tisches (Righelli)
Il carnevale di Venezia (Almirante)
Gli ultimi zar (Negroni); La compagnia dei Matti (Almirante)
Les Aventures du roi Pausole (Granowsky)
Les Nuits moscovites (Granowsky)
Open City, Paisan , and Germany, Year Zero (scripts), in Roberto Rossellini: The War Trilogy , edited by Stefano Roncoroni, New York, 1973.
Positif (Paris), April 1982.
Cinema Nuovo (Turin), 25 August 1955.
Revista del Cinematografo (Rome), June 1981.
Positif (Paris), April 1982.
Codelli, Lorenzo, "A invencao no Mercado Central," in Filme Cultura , January-April 1984.
Filmcritica (Siena), December 1990.
* * *
Roma città aperta ( Open City ) probably owes more to Sergio Amidei, one of its writers, than to its director, Roberto Rossellini. Amidei either directly experienced many of the events recreated in the film (the escape from German soldiers over the rooftops of Rome, sitting in a café with his romantic interest during an air raid), or witnessed them (the murder of a pregnant woman by soldiers while protesting an arrest). Further, he was probably responsible for the idea of combining two different stories he was working on with Rossellini and fellow writer Federico Fellini—one story based on the exploits of resistance priest Don Giuseppe Morosini and another about the partisan activities of Roman children against the Germans. And the landlady who warned him of the arrival of the German soldiers, as well as the young woman with whom he shared the air raid, both reprised their roles in the film.
Amidei and Rossellini were already close friends when they set to work on this project, and would work together on several other films over the next fifteen years before becoming estranged after the director commented negatively on Il Generale Della Rovere ( General Della Rovere ) in 1959. Their collaboration includes the other two films of Rossellini's "War Trilogy," PaisĂ ( Paisan ) and Germania, anno zero ( Germany, Year Zero ). This trilogy, together with De Sica's SciusciĂ ( Shoeshine ) and Ladri di biciclette ( The Bicycle Thief ), to whose screenplays Amidei also contributed, are considered to be the central texts of the neorealist movement.
Amidei was much more politically committed than Rossellini or Fellini, but he joined them in their desires to move beyond the constraints of neorealist theory. Amidei collaborated with Rossellini on most of his films made with Ingrid Bergman, films generally greeted with howls of protest from Italian leftists at their apparent selling out of previously shared principles. Amidei's later work included comedies of manners, satires, and even fantasy ( La macchina ammazzacattivi , begun but not completed by Rossellini) with younger directors such as Mario Monicelli and Marco Ferreri.
Amidei has, perhaps facetiously, described his work in these terms, "I'm a worker. Someone comes, asks me for something—a miniature, a fresco, a portrait, a country scene, a still life—and I do what I can. I'm like a Titian, a 16th-century artist (admitting the differences!)."
—Stephen Brophy
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