1945: Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City)

Its technical weaknesses (including a real howler at 60 minutes) do little to hurt the overall quality of Roberto Rosselini's classic neorealist film about resistance fighters in German-occupied 1944 Rome, the nitty-gritty visual style of which may easily detract from the fact that the narrative is wholly conventional. It's an engaging film overall (7), but both the somewhat rushed way the story is told and the artless use of the camera create a feeling of looking at the film, rather than being in it, and if pressed, I'd recommend Ladri di biciclette over Rosselini's war film.

It's a nice little pastime to think about which songs one would like to hear covered by which artists or which films one would like to see remade by which directors. I vote for a Paul Thomas Anderson remake of Open City.

Fun fact: The film was banned in West Germany until 1961 for counteracting the cordiality between the European peoples (to clumsily paraphrase the original wording).