Continually enmeshed in controversy, perhaps no other figure in the history of world cinema has been so reviled - and so revered.

A close analysis of the seven films that mark important turning points in Rossellini's evolution: The Man with a Cross (1943), Open City (1945), Paisan (1946),

He Had Come To See A World At The End Of One Period Of History And At The Beginning Of Another More Dramatic One. When He Came To India In December 1956 Roberto

Roberto Rossellini's Rome Open City instantly, markedly, and permanently changed the landscape of film history. Made at the end of World War II, it has been cre