In the Name of the Father, the Daughter and the Holy Spirits: Remembering Roberto Rossellini with DVD [Hardcover]

Isabella Rossellini (Author), Ingrid Bergman (Author), Federico Fellini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2006

Roberto Rossellini, famous Italian film director and icon of neorealism, would have been one hundred years old on May 8, 2006. Isabella Rossellini, daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini, and herself a film star, bestselling author and celebrated photo model, has created two very special homages to her father on the centenary of his birth: a short film entitled My Dad is 100 Years Old, directed by Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin as director—and this many-voiced, richly illustrated book of remembrance. In the Name of the Father, the Daughter and the Holy Spirits, Remembering Roberto Rossellini, features texts and illustrations by Isabella Rossellini; entries by Ingrid Bergman, Roberto Rossellini, François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and Guy Maddin; and numerous film stills and photographs by Herbert List, Clifford Coffin, Gordon Parks, David Seymour, and many others.

Texts by Isabella Rossellini, Ingrid Bergman, Federico Fellini and many others

Roberto Rossellini, (May 8, 1906 – June 3, 1977) is considered one of the most innovative and influential of post-war film directors. Among his most significant films are: Rome, Open City (1945, with Anna Magnani), Stromboli (1950, with Ingrid Bergman) and Germany, Year Zero which he filmed in 1948, working with amateur actors in a bombed-out Berlin. He was married to Ingrid Bergman from 1950–1957 and had three children with her, one of whom is Isabella.

Isabella Rossellini was born in 1952 and grew up in Rome and Paris. At the age of nineteen she moved to New York where she began her career as a film actress, under the direction of David Lynch in particular, and achieved international fame as the exclusive model for Lancôme.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 143 pages
• Publisher: Schirmer/Mosel (February 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3829602421
• ISBN-13: 978-3829602426
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #829,540 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming, affectionate family memento, August 20, 2006

By 

Daryl Chin (Bklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In the Name of the Father, the Daughter and the Holy Spirits: Remembering Roberto Rossellini with DVD (Hardcover)

Though Roberto Rossellini is one of the least-known of the great filmmakers (many of his films are difficult to see for various reasons of copyright, etc.), he was incredibly influential and highly prolific. Though this book doesn't really help to explain his work, it does provide a wonderfully emotional and generous overview of his life, and his impact on his daughter, Isabella Rossellini. As a bonus, included in the book is the DVD of the short film "My Dad Is 100 Years Old", written by Isabella Rossellini and directed by the Canadian fantasist Guy Maddin. The film is utterly charming, but in all of this, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Rossellini was one of the most important filmmakers of all time, whose NeoRealist classics ("Open City", "Paisan", "Germany Year Zero") proved to be influential, and whose films from the 1950s ("Stromboli", "Viaggio in Italia", "Fear") introduced themes of alienation and urban malaise which would be developed in films by Antonioni, Godard, Bertolucci and many others. And there is a sadness to the book, because Isabella Rossellini seems to have no consciousness of the importance of her father's actual achievements, she seems to fixate on how her father is seen in Hollywood commercial terms, which is totally incongruous. Yet it's so obvious that this is a labor of great love, and that feeling overwhelms everything else.