The image of sexuality in general is completely modern and liberated, leaning towards pornographic in this film. Gambardello, in the midst of his birthday celebration, is dressed to the nines in a tailored suit. Young, attractive women surround him and kiss him. The entirety of this party reveals the lavish lifestyle of the affluent. In comparison to The Bicycle Thief, La Grande Bellezza …show more content…
The Conformist was produced and screened in the 1970s. This movie presented a theme of rape amongst the female characters. Each of the women starring in the film, Guilia, Anna, Clerci and Clerci’s mother were raped or put in a forceful and compromising sexual situation. Guilia, played by actress Stefania Sandrelli, was naïve and feminine. She was good for “...bed and kitchen,” (The Conformist). She was sexually free, but it was implied that her open sexual attitude was attributed to being raped as a child, which later affected her sexual encounters with her husband, Marcello. En route to their honeymoon, Guilia tells Marcello about her past rape. Marcello becomes aroused by Guilia’s traumatic memory and proceeds to mimic the actions of her rapist in their …show more content…
Through their actions, “these two women are the carriers of the melodramatic motifs of jealousy, revenge, and treachery.” Gottelieb goes on to say that Rome, Open City, has a certain trend of rejecting and attacking religious images as cherished beliefs as supreme ideals of thought to comply to. This trend is manifested and expressed throughout this cinematic work as shattering the pre-conceived and pre-established clichés tied to the expected norms of femininity and masculinity.
Rome, Open City portrays women in a dramatically more negative light than one would see in comparable works of cinema at the time such as The Bicycle Thief, Ossessione, ect. Pina is presented as the “new Italian woman” (Sexuality in Neorealism). She diverts from the typical, delicate, doe-eyed and graceful characterization of the woman with her “ample body, disheveled look, husky voice, and passionate acting...[which are] indicative of a departure from prevailing conceptions of