#675: ROSSELLINI, Roberto: Journey to Italy (1954)
3 FIMLS BY ROBERTO ROSSELLINI STARRING INGRID BERGMAN {Spine #672}
The Film
With film critic Adriano Aprà.
Short film
Featuring footage of the Rossellinis during the production of Journey to Italy.
Interview 2
With Rossellini and actress Bergman’s daughters, Ingrid Rossellini and Isabella Rossellini.
Interview 3
With filmmaker Martin Scorsese.
Living and Departed
A new visual essay by Rossellini scholar Tag Gallagher on the evolution of the director’s style in the trilogy.
Surprised by Death
A new visual essay by film critic James Quandt on the historical and artistic themes of the trilogy.
ROSSELLINI, Roberto (Italy)
Journey to Italy [1954]
Spine #675
Blu-ray
Blu-ray
Among the most influential films of the postwar era, Roberto Rossellini's Journey to Italy (Viaggio in Italia) charts the declining marriage of a couple from England (Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders) on a trip in the countryside near Naples. More than just the anatomy of a relationship, Rossellini's masterpiece is a heartrending work of emotion and spirituality. Considered a predecessor to the existentialist works of Michelangelo Antonioni and hailed as a groundbreaking modernist work by the legendary film journal Cahiers du cinéma, Journey to Italy is a breathtaking cinematic benchmark.
85 minutes
Black & White
Black & White
Monaural
1:37:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2013
Director/Writers
Roberto Rossellini was 48 when he directed Journey to Italy.
Story and screenplay by Vitalialno Brancati and Rossellini.
Other Rossellini films in the Collection:
#497: Rome Open City (1945)
#498: Paisan (1946)
#497: Rome Open City (1945)
#498: Paisan (1946)
#674: Europe '51 (1952)
#463: Il Generale Della Rovere (1959)
#456: The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (1966)
Eclipse Series 14: Blaise Pascal (1972)
#463: Il Generale Della Rovere (1959)
#456: The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (1966)
Eclipse Series 14: Blaise Pascal (1972)
The Film
The future Nouvelle Vague directors (esp. Rivette) loved it. But whether or not it represents the beginning of "modern films" is perhaps up for debate.
**
Katherine (Ingrid Bergman) and Alex (George Sanders) clearly don't like each other; both insist their marriage is on the rocks ...
The final moments of this film have an unmistakable note of falsity, and the improvised dialogue is inane:
KATHERINE
Alex, I don't want you to hate me. I don't want it to finish this way.
ALEX
What are you driving at?
What game are you trying to play?
KATHERINE
You've never understooed me. You've never even tried.
ALEX
And now this nonsense. What is it you want?
KATHERINE
Nothing. I despise you ... oh, I don't want to lose you!
ALEX
Katherine! Katherine, what's wrong with us? Why do we torture one another?
KATHERINE
When you say things that hurt me, I try to hurt you back. But I can't any longer, because I love you.
ALEX
Perhaps we get hurt too easily.
KATHERINE
Tell me that you love me.
ALEX
If I do, will you promise not to take advantage of me?
KATHERINE (a faint smile at his joke)
Yes, but tell me. I want to hear you say it.
ALEX
All right. I love you.
**
However, Rossellini invests screen time in interesting locations, making for an interesting travelogue:
- The villa outside Naples, which the Joyces are trying to sell ...
- The Naples waterfront ...
- The Via Chiaia. Katherine walks through, seeing everyday Neapolitan life.
- National Archaeological Museum of Naples
- Fontanelle Cemetery
- Phlegrean Fields
- Pompeii
- Feast of Saint Januarius festival
The Extras
Tons of extras!
The Booklet
Eighty-eight page booklet featuring essays by Richard Brody, Dina Iordanova, Elena Dagrada, Fred Camper, Paul Thomas, an exchange of letters between Rossellini and Bergman.
Brody:
Brody:
"In 1948, when Bergman wrote to Rossellini offering him the services of 'a Swedish actress who speaks English very well,' she was one of the most admired, most successful, and most highly paid actresses in the world, after a run of films in Hollywood that included Casablanca (1942) and Notorious (1946, Spine #137) and that brought her three Oscar nominations for best actress (and a win for her performance in 1944's Gaslight). Rossellini was also at the pinnacle of his fame, based on the international acclaim for his first two postwar features, Rome Open City (1945, Spine #497) and Paisan (1946, Spine #498), seminal works of Italian neorealism and the films that inspired Bergman to contact him. But the films that he would make with Bergman would differ sharply from the ones that had aroused her enthusiasm. In the five features they did together over five years, he revolutionized both his own way of working and the cinema itself. In the process, he turned himself and his new star — who would also become his wife — into cinematic outcasts. Bergman would ultimatly be accepted back into the public's — and the critics' — good graces with open arms. Rossellini lost almost all the recognition he had won — except among a band of young French enthusiasts, whom he decisiveky inspired. Blamed doubly for dragging Bergman into his schemes, he subsequently remained an outsider. Perhaps no filmmaker ever faced such hostility for departing from the manner that made his name."
Thomas:
"Each of Katherine's visits emphasizes what Jacques Rivette called 'all those shots of eyes looking.' At the museum, the camera focuses on the statues before moving to an angle from which we can see Katherine looking at them. Rossellini's camera declines any interpretive advantage, registering instead the outward particularity of what it observes, and does so with the same kind of 'astonishing reticence' (the phrase is Gilberto Perez's) that Katherine (sometimes despite herself) brings to bear. Life is taken as if by surprise. The camera tracks, pans, and cranes, always beginning with what is being looked at and always ending — without a cut — on Katherine's facial expressions. Rossellini, eschewing the traditional shot-reaction shot formula, creates meaning in, by, and through the way Katherine reacts to what she sees. In so doing, he is giving the spectator work to do. We look, just as Rossellini's camera looks, at Katherine and with Katherine, at one and the same time ..."
Commentary
By film scholar Laura Mulvey.
Introduction
By director Rossellini.
He is not too enthusiastic about this film.
Interview 1
By film scholar Laura Mulvey.
Introduction
By director Rossellini.
He is not too enthusiastic about this film.
Interview 1
With film critic Adriano Aprà.
Short film
Featuring footage of the Rossellinis during the production of Journey to Italy.
Interview 2
With Rossellini and actress Bergman’s daughters, Ingrid Rossellini and Isabella Rossellini.
Interview 3
With filmmaker Martin Scorsese.
Living and Departed
A new visual essay by Rossellini scholar Tag Gallagher on the evolution of the director’s style in the trilogy.
Surprised by Death
A new visual essay by film critic James Quandt on the historical and artistic themes of the trilogy.
Rossellini Through His Own Eyes
A 1992 documentary on the director’s approach to cinema, featuring archival interviews with Rossellini and Bergman.
A 1992 documentary on the director’s approach to cinema, featuring archival interviews with Rossellini and Bergman.
Ingrid Bergman Remembered
A 1995 documentary on the actress’s life, narrated by her daughter, Pia Lindström.
A 1995 documentary on the actress’s life, narrated by her daughter, Pia Lindström.
The Chicken
A 1952 short film directed by Rossellini and starring Bergman.
A 1952 short film directed by Rossellini and starring Bergman.
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