Impotent directing is a strange criticism of Rossellini, have you seen Rome, Open City or Paisa, the guy was a genius with non-professional actors!

I'm not a fan of De Sica, his work is very sentimental and hilariously simple. Not so with Roberto, his work is multi-layered and morally complex, they're not just plain neo-realist films, they're very artful. Even though neo-realist is just another stupid category that was used to box cinema in by stupid critics, I'm sure Rossellini never intended to make a "neo-realist" film, or a film that fits into any pre-defined classification. He was just expressing himself.

I found Umberto D quite dull actually. Too plain, too straight-forward.