ROME, OPEN CITY - Finding Comedy Amongst Trauma
Two scenes bring humour in different ways; one through editing, one through a single take, both with careful blocking and timing.
Rome, Open City follows individual and collective resistance to Nazi occupation; while its subject and much content is heavy and serious, it finds levity in small moments: a soccer game, a lover’s tease, the below sequences.
The film is in Italian and German, but neither of these scenes need words to convey exactly what’s happening, with all its tensions and hilarity.
Similarly to our breakdown of The Awful Truth, we’re looking at one scene which uses cuts to make comedy, and one scene which relies on blocking and body language within a single take.
The Edit
A chase! A soldier is ‘benignly’ delayed by a washer woman! He pokes into the tunnel, gun-first, then turns his face towards camera / audience! All the while we can see his targets dimly in the background as they escape! He looks the upwards, and a smile creeps across his face . . .
Cut to a low-angle shot, clearly his POV, looking up the skirts of women gathered above. The soldier’s pervy-ness has allowed his targets to escape!
Cut to the washer woman being ‘escorted’ outside, a smug look of satisfaction on her face showing knowledge she succeeded playing her part to frustrate the soldier’s search.
The Single Take
A priest and Marcello enter with a bomb and a gun they must hide. The priest sets down gun and bomb on the table with dishes and a frying pan (keep this in mind for later) while he looks for a good hiding place . . . he notes they left the door open, and whispers frantically to Marcello to close it. As Marcello moves to the door, he innocently knocks the gunbutt, which in turn spins and knocks the bomb off the table! where the priest catches it before it hits the ground and EXPLODES. The priest looks to the heavens and clutches his chest in relief, puts the bomb under the bed, picks up the gun, looks at his ‘hiding’ place, thinks better of it, and hands the gun to Marcello; another darkly hilarious moment as the heavy weapon is almost as big as he. The priest puts the bomb - which we’ve just been reminded is very dangerous! - into bed with the dying man, grabs the gun back to stuff it under the sheets to lay with the bomb, straightens his vestments, and sits in front of the bed to hide the very obvious lumps with his and Marcello’s bodies.
It’s a breathless, frantic, funny piece of work, and all three feelings are heightened by playing the movements in real time in a single shot, which doubtless took a lot of rehearsal and attempts to get the timing right.
Oh, and remember the frying pan?
As we hear Nazi footsteps approach, the old man wakes up and understandably freaks out about a literal bomb in his bed.
Here’s the following sequence of shots, which again need no verbal translation:
Comedy gold.
Takeaways
Consider the importance of a gasp, a laugh, collective audience acknowledgement of human foibles and inherent fragility. These emotions work as release and reminder amidst a film about humanity’s resilience and the strengths of individuals who resist evils.
We need both the release and the reminder now as much as 1945.