Rossellini, Roberto (rōbĕr`tō rōs-sĕl-lē`nē), 1906–77, Italian film director and producer. He first received international attention in 1946 with Open City, which was made clandestinely during the Fascist period and became the key film of the neorealist movement. He brought the real world into films by mixing non-actors and authentic locales with actors and studio sets. In Paisan (1946) and Stromboli (1949), he continued his striking use of locale as character. Beginning in the 1960s, Rossellini worked on a series of historical films for television, including The Rise of Louis XIV (1966). An affair with Ingrid Bergman Bergman, Ingrid (bûrg`mən), 1915–82, Swedish actress, b. Stockholm.
..... Click the link for more information. , whom he later married, caused an international scandal that obscured the quality of the films they made together in the 1950s.

Bibliography

See biography by T. Gallagher (1998); study by P. Brunette (1987).

Rossellini, Roberto

(born May 8, 1906, Rome, Italy—died June 3, 1977, Rome) Italian film director. He directed his first feature film, White Ship, in 1941. During World War II he made Fascist propaganda films but also secretly filmed anti-Fascist activities. He used the documentary footage in Open City (1945), acclaimed as one of the first examples of Italian Neorealism. The screenplay was written with Federico Fellini, who also collaborated with him on Paisan (1946). He made several films starring Ingrid Bergman, beginning with Stromboli (1949), but the scandal of their adulterous affair and marriage damaged their careers. He later directed General della Rovere (1959) and works for the stage and television, including a series of didactic historical works. His daughter Isabella Rossellini (b. 1952) appeared in films such as Blue Velvet (1986) and Big Night (1996).