“Marcello come here,” called Anita Ekberg, inviting Mastroianni to enter the Trevi Fountain with her, in Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (1960); Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn on a Vespa scooter in William Wyler’s “Roman Holiday” (1953) against the backdrop of Trinità dei Monti. These are eternal images, carved in our collective memory, that have always linked Rome to world cinema.
Rome, eternal and dreamlike, also thanks also to the cinema that has exalted and borrowed it as a beautiful backdrop in famous films that have made the history of world cinema. In the Cinecittà studios the most talented workers and technicians in the world have trained, becoming greatly responsible for the enormous success of Italian film-making, and for whom directors and producers came from the United States and the rest of Europe.
At first, filming Rome meant using the Roman ruins, as was the case for Elizabeth Taylor in “Cleopatra” (1963) beside the Arch of Constantine, or “Spartacus” (1960) directed by Stanley Kubrick, or “Quo vadis” (1951) by Mervyn Le Roy with the Appian Way. With the advent of neorealism, cinema discovered the working-class neighbourhoods. In Tufello, De Sica filmed “Bicycle Thieves” (1948), in Pietralata, where he lived, Pasolini filmed “Accattone” (1961), in Prenestino, Rossellini set “Rome, Open City” (1945) with the famous scene of Anna Magnani being killed as she runs out of a door in Via Montecuccoli.
In Campo dei Fiori, in 1953, there were celebrities like Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi. Alberto Sordi walked through the streets of the ghetto in Steno‘s film “An American in Rome” (1954), while Carlo Lizzani set his film “Gold of Rome” (1961) on the deportation of Roman Jewish citizens during Fascism. Also set in the ghetto is the film written and directed by Luigi Magni telling of papal Rome, “The Conspirators” (1970), starring Nino Manfredi and Claudia Cardinale.
At the Garbatella, Nanni Moretti with “Dear Diary” (1993) gave the neibourhood a new dignity making it one of the most beautiful and appreciated places outside the historic centre. Then there are the monuments and landmarks of mass tourism; at the Campidoglio, Zampa filmed “Woman of Rome” (1954) and Tarkovsky, “Nostalgia” (1983).
In the piazza of the Pantheon, Peter Greenaway shot a very important scene of the film “The Belly of an Architect” (1987) while in Piazza del Popolo, Scola filmed the first scene of “We All Loved Each Other So Much” (1974). In Piazza Navona, Dino Risi made an unforgettable tribute to the Capital with the scenes of “A Girl in Bikini” (1957).