Roberto Rossellini
Viaggio in Italia

Anyone who has studied film history in university, or is simply a cinephile, knows how fundamental Roberto Rossellini is in the world of cinema. Even more than Fellini and De Sica (whom I personally prefer), he invented neorealism (or at least identified it through well-defined parameters, as perhaps the first neorealist film is "I bambini ci guardano," 1943, by Vittorio De Sica), anticipated some insights of the nouvelle vague, and had the courage, at the peak of success, to devote himself to making experimental and completely anti-commercial films. In the 1960s and 1970s, he directed some documentaries for Rai and, as the last act of his life, as president of the 1977 Cannes Festival, he fought tirelessly to ensure the Palme d'Or went to the beautiful "The Duellists" by Ridley Scott.

It was thus that, in the late 1940s, he fell in love with Ingrid Bergman. She was a Hollywood diva with an Oscar already in her pocket, he was a cultured and established director who had already conquered Italy and America with his "Roma città aperta" and "Paisà." Their love story caused a scandal and sparked a famous rivalry between Bergman and Magnani (Rossellini's ex) that culminated in the so-called war of the Volcanoes (Magnani, Rossellini and the war of the two volcanoes (associazioneculturalecalipso.it)).

She, Bergman, was courageous to leave Hollywood for Italy, and he, Rossellini, was equally brave in writing films for her that were so far from the classic American iconography that they sparked two cinematic revolts: the American audience dismissed Bergman (who was Swedish) as a kind of traitor who renounced the country that had given her fame and fortune (only to return in 1956, after her story with Rossellini ended, starring in "Anastasia" alongside Yul Brynner and immediately awarded a second Oscar) and the indignation of the Italian public who saw this new Rossellini era as something deliberately convoluted and snobbish.

Of course, the films of the Rossellini-Bergman couple are not among the easiest in the world ("Stromboli, terra di Dio", 1950; "Europa '51", 1952). "Journey to Italy," 1954, is the culmination of their journey. Beloved by Martin Scorsese (who honored it by titling his famous documentary on Italian cinema "Journey to Italy"), praised by Cahiers du Cinéma (Truffaut would brazenly copy its style), snubbed in Italy, it is one of the highest points ever reached by cinema, not just Italian cinema.

With a composed and silent style, alternating moments of chatter with moments (many moments) of absolute sonic peace, "Journey to Italy" tells the story of a rather wealthy English couple who, needing to settle an inheritance issue, come to Naples. They are a couple with little left to say to each other, fractured by habit and gray everyday life. He takes refuge in some Italian friendships, she plays the tourist among museums and ruins (in an Italy still deeply scarred by post-war rubble). A procession in Maiori, Salerno, might, perhaps, save their marriage. But will it?

Exalting the beauty of Naples and surroundings to the utmost (the Sibyl of Cumae; the Fontanelle cemetery; Capri; Pozzuoli; the Hotel Excelsior), Rossellini moves the camera as if he were a tourist captivated not by the local beauty but by the events of a couple of strangers. There is already much of Antonioni's cinema, there is the alienation of a new world (the post-war one), there is the Nothing that devours the lives of the protagonists, there is the vacuum of existence that seems to have reached the end of the line. Often words aren't even necessary: the looks, the body language, already say it all. The two protagonists (both Bergman and the, unfortunately, forgotten George Sanders are extraordinary) seem like two ghosts among the plaster casts of Pompeii.

Very short (it lasts only 79') it is the pinnacle of Rossellini's poetics and the cinema of incomprehensibility. In the end, Antonioni will merely present, in his way, themes and concepts already expressed by Rossellini in a handful of films between 1950 and 1954, of which "Journey to Italy" represents the last, extreme stop.

A commercial disaster, it was the film that made Rossellini a bad actor in the eyes of producers, who began to finance him less and less willingly (except when he decided to devote himself to more popular and commercial cinema, see the still excellent "Il generale della Rovere," 1959, starring the all-round success of the Italian box office of the time, Vittorio De Sica).

Essential work, I'd say total.