Viaggio In Italia - Film (Movie) Plot and Review

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(Journey to Italy; Voyage to Italy)

Italy-France, 1953

Director: Roberto Rossellini

Production: Italiafilm/Junior (Rome), Sveva Films/Ariane/Francinex/SGC (Paris); black and white; running time: 106 minutes, English version 84 minutes, some sources list 70 minutes. Released 1953.

Producer: Roberto Rossellini; screenplay: Vitaliano Brancati, Roberto Rossellini; photography: Enzo Serafin; camera operator: Aldo Scavarida; editor: Jolanda Benvenuti; sound recordist: Eraldo Giordani; art director: Piero Filippone; costumes: Fernanda Gattinoni; music: Renzo Rossellini.

Cast: Ingrid Bergman ( Katherine Joyce ); George Sanders ( Alexander Joyce ); Maria Mauban ( Marie ); Paul Muller ( Paul Dupont ); Leslie Daniels ( Tony Burton ); Natalia Ray ( Natalia Burton ); Anna Proclemer ( Prostitute ); Jackie Frost ( Judy ); Lyla Rocco ( Miss Sinibaldi, Judy's friend ); Bianca Maria Cesaroli ( Judy's other friend ).

Publications

Script:

Rossellini, Roberto, and others, Voyage to Italy (in English and French), in Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), June 1987.

Books:

Hovald, Patrice, Roberto Rossellini , Paris, 1958.

Steele, Joseph Henry, Ingrid Bergman , London, 1960.

Mida, Massimo, Roberto Rossellini , Paris, 1961.

Verdone, Mario, Roberto Rossellini , Paris, 1963.

Sarris, Andrew, Interviews with Film Directors , New York, 1967.

Guarner, José Luis, Roberto Rossellini , New York, 1970.

Ivaldi, Nedo, La resitenza nel cinema italiano del dopoguerra , Rome, 1970.

Quirk, Lawrence J., The Films of Ingrid Bergman , New York, 1970.

Armes, Roy, Patterns of Realism: A Study of Italian Neo-Realist Cinema , Cranbury, New Jersey, 1971.

Wlaschin, Ken, Italian Cinema Since the War , Cranbury, New Jersey, 1971.

Baldelli, Pierre, Roberto Rossellini , Rome, 1972.

Brown, Curtis F., Ingrid Bergman , New York, 1973.

Rondolini, Gianni, Roberto Rossellini , Florence, 1974.

Bergman, Ingrid, with Alan Burgess, Ingrid Bergman: My Story , New York, 1980.

Ranvaud, Don, Roberto Rossellini , London, 1981.

Taylor, John Russell, Ingrid Bergman , London, 1983.

Rossellini, Roberto, Le Cinéma révélé , edited by Alain Bergala, Paris, 1984.

Hillier, Jim, editor, Cahiers du Cinéma 1: The 1950s: Neo-Realism, Hollywood, New Wave , London, 1985.

Leamer, Laurence, As Time Goes By: The Life of Ingrid Bergman , New York, 1986.

Serceau, Michel, Roberto Rossellini , Paris, 1986.

Brunette, Peter, Roberto Rossellini , Oxford, 1987.

Gansera, Rainer, and others, Roberto Rossellini , Munich, 1987.

Rossellini, Roberto, Il mio metodo: Scritti e intervisti , edited by Adriano Apra, Venice, 1987.

Rossi, P., Roberto Rossellini: A Guide to References and Resources , Boston, 1988.

Bondanella, Peter, Films of Roberto Rossellini , Cambridge, 1993.

Rossellini, Roberto, My Method: Writings and Interviews , New York, 1995.

Gallagher, Tag, The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini , Cambridge, 1998.

Articles:

Schèrer, Maurice, and François Truffaut, "Entretien avec Roberto Rossellini," in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), July 1954.

Variety (New York), 3 November 1954.

Truffaut, François, "Rossellini," in Arts (Paris), April 1955.

Rivette, Jacques, in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), April 1955.

Monthly Film Bulletin (London), March 1958.

Tynan, Kenneth, "The Abundant Miss Bergman," in Films and Filming (London), December 1958.

Sarris, Andrew, "Rossellini Rediscovered," in Film Culture (New York), no. 32, 1964.

Casty, Alan, "The Achievement of Roberto Rossellini," in Film Comment (New York), Fall 1964.

Apra, Adriano, and Maurizio Ponzi, "Intervista con Roberto Rossellini," in Filmcritica (Rome), April-May 1965.

Cinema (London), Summer 1971.

Wood, Robin, in Film Comment (New York), Fall 1974.

Damico, J., "Ingrid from Lorraine to Stromboli: Analyzing the Public's Perception of a Film Star," in Journal of Popular Film (Washington, D.C.), vol. 4, no.1, 1975.

Beylie, Claude, and C. Clouzot, interview with Rossellini, in Ecran (Paris), July 1977.

Lawton, H., "Rossellini's Didactic Cinema," in Sight and Sound (London), Autumn 1978.

Bohne, Luciana, "Rossellini's Viaggio in Italia: A Variation on a Theme by Joyce," in Film Criticism (Meadville, Pennsylvania), Winter 1979.

Ranvaud, Don, in Monthly Film Bulletin (London), February 1981.

Serceau, M., "Rossellini—le prisme des idéologies," in Image et Son (Paris), April 1982.

Amiel, M., "Ingrid Bergman: Force, dignité, courage," in Cinéma (Paris), October 1982.

"Ingrid Bergman Section" of Casablanca (Madrid), October 1982.

"Rossellini Issue" of Casablanca (Madrid), March 1985.

Nieuwenweg, L., "De liefdes van Roberto Rossellini: 'Ik haat actrices, het zijn ijdele wezens,"' in Skoop (Amsterdam), September-October 1985.

Bergala, Alain, "La vacance du cinéaste," in Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), no. 361, June 1987.

Faux, A.-M., "Mises en scènes de la confrontation," in Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), no. 361, June 1987.

Marie, Michel, "Un pélerinage esthétique," in Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), no. 361, June 1987.

Roncoroni, S., "Pour Rossellini," in Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), vol. 361, June 1987.

Ostria, Vincent, "Archéologie de l'amour," in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), no. 410, July-August 1988.

Truffaut, François, "Roberto Rossellini par François Truffaut," in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), no. 410, July-August 1988.

Wagstaff, Chris, "True Stories," in Sight & Sound (London), vol. 3, no. 8, August 1993.

Nosei, E., "Invito al viaggio," in Filmcritica (Siena), vol. 45, no. 445, May 1994.

Denby, David, " Naples, Open City ," in Premiere (Boulder), vol. 8, no. 1, September 1994.

* * *

The five films that Rossellini made with Ingrid Bergman between 1950 and 1955 have still to receive their due recognition in the Anglo-Saxon world. The ridicule that was heaped on Stromboli can be largely attributed to the "scandal" of their personal relationship: more specifically, to the shock of the American public (and the critical establishment) on discovering that Bergman, who had become a national icon of female "niceness," was actually a woman with autonomous sexual desires and professional aspirations. The continuing neglect of the films outside circumscribed academic circles must be attributed to the overwhelming dominance of expectations of the "realistic" (something quite distinct from "realism"): most obviously, the use of post-synchronization is likely always to remain a problem, with Rossellini's indifference to the nationality of his actors ensuring that in every version of every film some performers will be patently dubbed. Beyond that (but not unconnected with it) is the uncertainty (a crucial manifestation of the films' distinction) as to what exactly they are really about. The aim of neo-realism in its early phase was the "truthful" depiction of contemporary social realities in as immediate and unmediated a way as possible. Yet the early neorealist films (Rome, Open City, Bicycle Thieves , etc.), for all the quasi-documentary ambitions and the frequent use of non-professionals, are always patently acted and are always patently fictions : the "reality" we are invited to scrutinize is a constructed one. Rome, Open City can be seen to draw on a whole array of cinematic conventions, schemata, and stereotypes (one extended sequence even evokes Hitchcock). As he developed, Rossellini seems to have found such a method and aesthetic increasingly suspect, and the notion of "filming the reality in front of the camera" acquires a new dimension. That "reality" (or a significant aspect of it) consists, after all, of a group of actors speaking constructed dialogue. Is Viaggio in Italia a film about a woman called Katherine Joyce (British upper-middle-class, with an undisguised and unexplained Swedish accent) or an actress called Ingrid Bergman? While never directly autobiographical, Bergman's roles in the Rossellini films invariably make oblique reference to aspects of her life, and Rossellini's demand for spontaneity (handing the actors their lines—or simply a rough indication of what they were to talk about—immediately before the take, allowing no time for rehearsal, refusing to permit more than an absolute minimum of retakes) was clearly motivated by the desire that she reveal herself rather than act a character.

This clearly troubles our relationship to the character on the screen. On one level, Bergman's characters are always our primary identification-figures: in Viaggio , we discover Italy as Bergman discovers it, sharing her experiences. Yet identification is constantly disturbed. Scene after scene returns us from what Katherine sees to Katherine seeing it: are we studying "Italy" with her, or studying her with "Italy" as catalyst? Then there is the question of our relationship to the film's Italy (a very selective Italy). On one level, Katherine's journey is as banal as possible: she is offered all the obvious sightseeing attractions (famous sculptures, catacombs, Pompeii), and the banality is emphasized by the recurrent use of tour guides monotonously reciting their standard commentaries. Yet through (and beyond) the banality Katherine reaches a transcendent experience that transforms her perception of reality—an experience that remains unarticulated in any explicit manner, but which we are invited both to share and to understand.

Early neo-realist theory and practice suggest that the movement was strongly committed to the depiction of the material world, of contemporary social/political actuality. What came to obsess Rossellini, however, was the possibility of revealing the spiritual through the strict presentation of the material and physical. The cinema has constructed a whole panoply of signifiers of "spiritual experience": a rhetoric of acting, music, lighting, focus, big close-ups, special effects. Rossellini, knowing that the spiritual can only be implied, never shown, rigorously eschews all such rhetoric, employing the simplest, seemingly transparent methodology. Katherine/Bergman is brought into contact with all those fundamentals of existence from which in our daily lives we try to insulate ourselves: the terrifying power and mysteriousness of nature; otherness; time, transcience, eternity; death. Her experience is conveyed to us obliquely, through the structuring of sequence upon sequence, culminating in her climactic utterance at Pompeii (on paper, a line of staggering banality, in its context one of the cinema's supreme moments), "Life is so short." The context (which is that of the entire film) transforms a cliché into a felt and lived essential truth.

The perfunctoriness of the ending (an apparent religious miracle, paralleled by the "miracle" of the couple's reconciliation) is often found problematic. It is helpful to recall that Rossellini and Bergman went on to make La paura (Fear) , for which Rossellini shot two quite different (and contradictory) endings. As there, the ending of Viaggio is an admission of uncertainty as to what may happen: no guarantee is offered that the couple's problems have been resolved, or that the reconciliation is more than momentary. One might say that the film doesn't really end : it just stops.

—Robin Wood