Journey to Italy (1953) - Directed by Roberto Rossellini

Journey to Italy is thought of in some circles as one of the truly great films. Of course the Cahiers du Cinema crowd hailed back in 1953 as the harbinger of something new. Even in last year's update of the Sight and Sound poll, it placed at #41, in the top 50 Greatest Films of All Time list, ahead of several canonized masterpieces like Play Time, City Lights, and Ugetsu. It in fact was Rossellini's only film that made the top 100, placing ahead of other films of his like Rome Open City, and The Flowers of St. Francis among others. I've watched the film twice over the last couple of months. The first viewing I responded well to, but felt like something was missing in the final 15 minutes. A second viewing opened up my appreciation to the film even more and I felt like I finally comprehended the undercurrents going on in the film. I'm not so sure it deserves to be mentioned above some of his other great masterpieces, but it's a masterpiece in it's own right.

If Stromboli strikes us today as Rossellini's infatuation and developing love toward Bergman, then Journey to Italy marks a strikingly bold attempt to convey marital discord. Perhaps due to his own failing marriage to the actress, the film parallels their real life struggles by examining two characters, Katherine and Alex Joyce, who have been married roughly about 8 years, who have had no children, and have found themselves traveling down to Naples to deal with some family business. Along the way, they've entered a period of stasis and carelessness toward each other's feelings. They are callous and coarse with each other, and when she decides she wants to begin touring the nearby artifacts and historical sites, he wants nothing to do with it. In a fit of frustration, Alex decides to leave the villa where they are staying to go to the Isle of Capri for a couple days while Katherine continues to tour the relics and art museums. He returns a few days later whereby they both proclaim they want a divorce. In the film's final moments, their intentions and devotions are called front and center.

There's one thing you're going to have to get over if you're watching this film, and that's the dubbed voices. Neither Bergman's nor Sanders's wonderful voices are heard in this film, because the entire film is subtitled in English while the film is spoken in Italian. It's a shame that somehow the film couldn't have been written with their English language being chosen as I think there's something lost when you don't get to hear the actor's inflections and nuance of voice. However the film becomes often about the face instead and I find that the less I focus on how they're saying things, I can focus on what their eyes are saying. Both Bergman and Sanders give terrifically subtle performances here, and particularly Bergman is looking so much older than just 3 years ago in Stromboli. Here her hair is cut short, and there is a wisp of gray showing, and her features are harder and more pointed. She is given the air of a woman well past her prime, and filled more with regrets about the past than optimism about the future. Rossellini's script, just as in Stromboli, allows Bergman time to wander.... this time among the actual relics and sights around Naples. Having Bergman walk among statues and catacombs gives the feeling that time never ceases, that death is imminent...that all things must pass and come to an end in this life, and in particular, the sense in her case that she has wasted this time that she has been given. In particular there are 2-3 moments in the film where there is the indication she regrets not having any children, that there is nothing for her to pass along to ANYONE. There is a quiet despair on display in this film, and there's also a coldness here. Those smooth marble statues staring back at the camera literally give me the creeps.

The key difference for me in finally "getting" this film was understanding the conflicting intentions of our two lead characters at the end. Alex returns from his frolic on Capri, WANTING Katherine to feel like he has slept around with other women (even though he hasn't). She wants him to THINK that she hasn't missed him at all while he's been gone. She feigns not caring. There's that key moment when he has returned to the villa and has said good night to her to sleep in his own room. He returns to the living room and reminds her he doesn't want to be disturbed, and makes a particular point of reminding her that he hasn't had much sleep lately, even though we know it's a lie. He is distinctly trying to hurt her and make her think that he doesn't love her anymore. Much of the final third of the film must be spent trying to understand the fact that these two characters are doing and saying things completely opposite to what they actually want. They really want to love the other, and they want the other to love them, but neither of them want to show or admit to the other that they still love the other. It's a very complicated emotional process to be able to portray this to the camera, and for some reason, it took me two viewings to understand this. All of this comes into play in the final moments when the couple is reunited in love and understanding and each finally admits they love the other still. But if you haven't followed the delicate game they've been playing with each other, the ending seems rather trite. When you view it understanding they've been aching to admit their love to each other, the final moment comes as a terrific release. Rossellini's compassion and humanism is always on display in this film, but it also feels very personal and intimate, which are sometimes not things I feel when watching his other films. There is something painful he's trying to express here and he does so with beautiful poignancy, and aching hope. He and Bergman, though, would divorce within 3 years of the release of this film.

Stromboli (1950) - Directed by Roberto Rossellini

For some reason this film has a way of getting under my skin. I’ve seen it twice in the last few months….the first time because I’d been trying to track down Ingrid Bergman’s films with Rossellini, and the second time because I felt compelled to do so, just because the film was so INTERESTING the first time I watched it. Bergman of course famously sought out Rossellini in a personal letter she wrote to him after seeing Paisan. They eventually had a torrid and scandalous affair, got married, had 3 children together, and eventually churned out 6 films during their collaboration. After viewing Stromboli the second time, I’m convinced it’s a beautiful and messy masterpiece, the kind of film that means something personal to me and strikes a chord, even though I know that not everyone is probably going to receive it with the kind of affection that I hold for it. It is the kind of film that asks more questions than it answers.

Stromboli is written, produced and directed by Rossellini, who had complete control over this film, even though it’s release was fraught with the scandal of the affair. There are at least 2 cuts of the film, one a U.S. release at 81 minutes, and the other cut which is 107 minutes. I’m slightly convinced I have seen both versions, as the first version I watched on YouTube and I think I prefer the longer cut which recently played on TCM. Bergman plays Karin, a Lithuanian refugee at an internment camp in Italy, following WWII, who is picked up by a local Italian man, marries him, and he brings her back to the Island of Stromboli off of Italy, which is his home. Soon after reaching the desolate, lava-strewn island (which contains a monstrous, live volcano at its center), Karin enters a serious period of doubt and questioning. Her despair upon reaching the island is holistic….she feels she has been led astray by blanket promises of her husband and his portrayal of the island, when in fact it is a small, strict, aging society, not open to outsiders. Her natural beauty is at odds with both the local women, and the rugged volcanic island. She can also barely communicate with anyone, not even her husband. She can’t speak Italian, and the broken English spoken by some of the residents leads to mostly frustration. She desperately wants to leave the island and voices her opinion often. The film examines her ennui and existential crises, and grows increasingly tense, as she becomes pregnant, the volcano erupts, and she attempts a traverse of the mountain to the other side of the island.

I’m not sure how Rossellini originally intended the film to be viewed, but I have found it interesting that, at least in the prints I have seen, he does not provide subtitles. Even while the Italians are speaking in their native language, the subtitles are not provided. One way to interpret this is that perhaps Rossellini wants us to feel as though Bergman feels, meaning the sense of confusion, alienation and isolation. On the other hand, it might just be that during the editing of the prints that subtitles were never provided, or the two prints I've seen have been poor. I would be interested to hear if anyone has seen a print that DOES contain subtitles.

Rossellini’s choice of filming on Stromboli is the masterstroke, as it provides a gritty, rough texture to the frame, which allows Bergman’s beauty to stand out even more. She is breathtaking in this film and as beautiful as she ever was in any other film. The dry and lava strewn island provides a sort of visual symmetry to the emotionally fraught film as well, kind of like Antonioni’s symmetry  of environmental and human degradation in Red Desert. So here, Rossellini assimilates the erupting volcano to Karin’s despair. In a sense, she disrupts the balance of the island and the island can’t take anymore. She brings a carnality and a worldliness not found there, and everyone from the local men, to the priest, to the women find themselves charged up in one way or another by her presence. It is appropriate to mention Antonioni as I did though. Stromboli seems to presage films like L’aventura, L’ecclise etc. that would rock the cinematic world with their distinct portrayal of emptiness and existential crises, and of the wandering and of the internalization of a character’s disenchantment. In Rossellini’s hands, though, this mode of storytelling comes across as less of a honed “design” or specific thematic tendency and more a necessary approach to the content, the outdoor space, and the story. There is a naturalness here that is not apparent in Antonioni’s films. There’s a stretch of about 10 minutes in Stromboli where Bergman sobs in despair, and meanders about the town, searching for a crying baby she hears in the distance. The sequence goes on for what seems like an eternity, and the camera just lingers on her and follows her on her search. Nothing really happens, but the allowance for nothing to happen gives the film a vitality, a shifting context, and an improvisatory feel that would become far more en vogue in decades that would follow. It’s one of the best sequences in the film. Of course the finale, where Bergman climbs Mt. Stromboli and stares straight into the fuming crater of the volcano, is a brilliantly composed and shot sequence that brings her to the brink of fate and allows her to perhaps find her inner strength at a crucial moment when all seems lost. I say “perhaps” because nothing is really defined for us as the audience. It is a scene of emotional understanding and awakening, even though we don’t fully comprehend it. It would really be a shame if I did not mention Renzo Rossellini’s lovely score, with strains of string and flute interspersing throughout the film. Like I mentioned above, I don’t think everyone will take to this film. It’s rough around the edges and is a bit awkward at times, probably on purpose. But, the naked emotional honesty and the visualization of Karin’s inner turmoil are unforgettable to me. 

Paisan (1946) - Directed by Roberto Rossellini

Burgeoning out of the tremendously harsh economic and social period following World War II, Italian neorealism was a vital movement screaming to be heard. Giving voice to the people, it was a way to convey stories of the suffering and injustice facing Italians during and following the war. Amazingly, through the use of mostly non-professional actors the movement maintains a vital freshness and poeticism to this day. Roberto Rossellini, along with Vittorio De Sica made probably the best films of the movement, each grabbing the audience through humanistic portrayals and vital truth, infusing stories with a yearning for justice and grace under harsh conditions. Rossellini’s Paisan is the 2nd installment of his War Trilogy coming between his equally important works, Rome Open City (1945) and Germany Year Zero (1948). Paisan is a wonderful distillation of a collective yearning for understanding and reflection on war’s scope and effect on people.

Six short stories are presented over the 120 minutes of the film and they all deal directly with war’s effects- psychological, physical, environmental, economical, spiritual etc. The film is set during the year of Italy’s liberation from German occupancy. In the first episode, a group of GIs attain the assistance of a teenage girl to help them navigate some difficult terrain. A beautiful moment of attempted communication and understanding between a GI and the girl is undercut by the cruel insistence of violence. In the third episode, a GI in Rome is so disenchanted and fed up with the economic and relational difficulties of the city that he doesn’t realize the same woman he fell in love with and lost track of 6 months prior, is the woman who picks him up on the street. Love, in this case, is thwarted by ennui and mental paralysis. In perhaps the most tragic sequence, episode 6, a few GIs are behind enemy lines trying to support the partisans in defeating the Germans. Their futile attacks on the enemy, coupled with the deaths of some local family members are incredibly haunting, leaving only a screaming child on the roadside wandering among dead bodies.

Although the film is in somewhat rough shape (although it used to be in much worse shape) and the dubbing is pretty far off, it does not impact the watchable quality of the film, nor the ability of the film to impact the audience. In fact, I think the scratched and rough quality of the film today only enhances the harshness of the stories and the difficulty in producing such a film on the streets and in the rubble. Rossellini’s insistence on using these natural locations and using mostly amateurs to wander these cities and locales makes the stories incredibly vital and heartpounding, mysterious and tragic. In fact, though the film presents 6 different episodes, they are remarkably connected and related, as the presentation covers all of Italy, from the south to the north, bringing the collective of a country and the terrors and hardships it faced to a full awareness.

Continually, themes of miscommunication and the futility of understanding are underscored as GIs try to communicate with the local Italian people. Furthermore, love and family being thwarted or snuffed out by swift violence or mental ineptitude is another theme brought forward. Although Paisan is filled with deeply humanist perspectives and moments of shared beauty, the continual presence of injustice and violence, economic squalor and deprivation usually refutes any attempts of transcendence or joy. It’s hard to imagine the hardships facing the local Italian people of the time, but this film does a particular service in that it’s a forever reminder of the true cost of war, both for the soldier and the innocent bystander.