My Voyage to Italy - Martin Scorsese

The perfect documentary for me is Martin Scorsese's MY VOYAGE TO ITALY, I missed this whenever it played on television - did it ever play here in the UK? - but at least the dvd is now avalable. Scorsese of course as an Italian-American is the ideal guide through Italian cinema, he grew up watching these films and they have inluenced his work. It is a given that he would have loved Fellini's I VITELLONI (which I raved about here a while back), it is a major influence on his MEAN STREETS.

This four hour documentary charts the landmark films and directors of the post-war era, including Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rosselini and Michelangelo Antonioni, good to see the usually neglected Rossellini given his due here. Given Marty's wealth of knowledge and infectious passion, just watching this DVD is like attending the best film class. He knows what he’s talking about and gives precise, eloquent descriptions of each movie, using his years of experience in front of a screen as well as behind the camera. Most of all this is 246 minutes of one of the great US directors imparting his passion about some of the most important films of the 20th century. It makes one want to go back to the movies and experience them all over again, particularly Visconti's great SENSO, De Sica's UMBERTO D, and those Fellini and Antonioni masterworks. I VITELLONI for instance remains a timeless pleasure and makes me want to see those other early Fellini films.



If you care about the medium, then it is an essential purchase. Scorsese introduces various segments and through judicious use of clips and an informed, eloquent voiceover takes us on a journey of the following films:

• Paisà (1946))
• Rome, Open City (1945)
• Stromboli (1950)
• Europa ’51 (1952)
• Shoeshine (1946)
• Bicycle Thieves (1948)
• Umberto D (1952)
• The Gold of Naples (1954)
• Ossessione (1943)
• La Terra trema (1950)
• Senso (1954)
• I Vitelloni (1953)
• La Dolce Vita (1960)
• Voyage to Italy (1954)
• L’avventura (1960)
• L’eclisse (1962)
• 8½ (1963)

His focus of course is on classic Italian cinema, but a broader view would encompass the sword-and-sandal peplum films popular in the late 50s/early 60s (like GIANT OF MARATHON, Leone's rather good THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII and the Steve Reeves spectaculars, APHRODITE, MESSALINA (see Belinda Lee label), and the giallo thrillers by the likes of Mario Bava and Dario Argento (Jean Sorel label), as well as the popular Loren-Mastroianni films and the delicious comedy films of Monica Vitti, Alberto Sordi et al (BOCCACCIO 70, LE BAMBOLE, LE FATE etc); and those films from the works of Alberto Moravia (TIME OF INDIFFERENCE (Claudia Cardinale label), TWO WOMEN), Georgio Bassani (THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI CONTINI'S) and those intriguing novels by Natalia Ginzburg (DEAR MICHAEL (CARO MICHELE), FAMIGLIA etc). Other strands of Italian cinema I liked are those Lina Wertmuller films like SEVEN BEAUTIES, the Taviani's PADRE PADRONE and new comedies like LOOSE CANNONS (review at Italian label), and the lesser known films by Alberto Lattuada (THE TEMPEST, DOLCI IGNANNI), Mauro Bolognini (GRAN BOLLITO, METELLO), Monicelli etc; Visconti's 1952 BELLISSIMA and 1965 operatic melodrama SANDRA (VAGHE STELLE D'ORSA) being my recent re-dioscoveries. I will have to comment separately on the polarising works of Bertolucci and Pasolini!

I have written about these in more detail at Italian, De Sica, Antonioni, Fellini labels ....plus at labels for Loren, Vitti, Valli, Cardinale, Magnani, Mangano, Mastroianni. We sure love those Italians!

Alida, Ingrid, Anna and Isa as "themselves" ....

SIAMO DONNE (WE, THE WOMEN). A 1953 Italian compendium of 4 stories, in a nice fresh print. The 4 actresses are Ingrid Bergman, Anna Magnani, Alida Valli and Isa Miranda all playing “themselves” in little anecdotes from their lives, and we start with auditions for young beauties for parts in the film.

The first is a nice little satire on stardom as Alida is back from America and bored with all the showbiz parties and events she has to attend. Her masseuse invites her to her engagement party that evening, but Alida has another boring company event to attend; on a whim she leaves and arrives all glamorous at the engagement party, which turns out to be a horror of a different kind. She can’t relax and be natural as the star-struck ordinary people make a fuss of her, demand autographs and bring in everyone to meet her. She grabs her mink stole and flees back to her rarified existence (after imagining she could have a normal life with the masseuse’s fiancé).

Ingrid tells an amusing little story about a neighbour's chicken who keeps eating her roses, and it is a nice fictional snapshot of her life in Italy at the time, directed by Rossellini. Its quite funny seeing Ingrid and the chicken squaring up to each other.



Then we have Isa Miranda dedicated to her career and her lovely apartment and the archive of her achievements but suddenly she has to look after a sick child and his siblings and realises what she is missing as she returns to her lonely apartment.



Then its Anna Magnani’s turn, directed by Visconti (as in BELLISSIMA) as the star always late at the theatre as she gets into an escalating row with her taxi-driver who wants to charge her extra for her lapdog. Then Anna sings wonderfully when she finally gets on stage. I enjoyed it all enormously, and its made me interested in Isa Miranda whom I only saw in her later smaller roles.
Next: back to BOCCACCIO 70 and some early Fellini.

Visconti

Today, a selection of stills from Visconti films. Luchino Visconti who died in 1976 certainly left a great legacy of films and performances stretching back to the neo-realism of the '40s and LE TERRA TREMA and OBSESSIONE, and with Antonioni and Fellini remains one of that trio of great Italian directors. Performers like Bogarde, Lancaster, Delon, Schneider, Cardinale, Valli blossomed in films like SENSO, THE LEOPARD, SANDRA (VAGHE STELLE DELL'ORSA), the sensational THE DAMNED. DEATH IN VENICE and his monumental LUDWIG may be his most personal, and that interesting last two: CONVERSATION PIECE and his swansong with L'INNOCENTE in 1976 - one of the most ravishing costume films ever. Did any director do period recreations like Visconti, making films like THE LEOPARD endlessly fascinating and re-watchable. Its a perfect film of a book I love. SENSO from '54 also has a stunning peformance by Alida Valli. Visconti of course was an aristocrat [the Duke of Modrone] and, as per the books on him, certainly lived like one - reports of dining at the Visconti castle recall a lost world of opulence. His theatre and opera productions were also legendary, including several key Maria Callas roles. [He also directed Delon and Schneider in Paris in '59 in a production of Ford's "Tis Pity She's A Whore", a clip of which used to be on YouTube. Michael Craig's memoir recounts how he liked working with Visconti on SANDRA and describes his working methods.]

Romy Schneider has one of her best moments in his episode from BOCCACCIO 70. Claudia is at her zenith in the 1965 drama SANDRA, and Helmut Berger was a sensation in THE DAMNED, ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS launched Alain Delon to prominence. Ingrid Thulin scores in THE DAMNED, Silvana Mangano is almost silent in DEATH IN VENICE but is perfect in LUDWIG and CONVERSATION PIECE, a very mysterious film where reclusive professor (Lancaster) clashes with the noisy Eurotrash family (headed by Mangano and Berger) who move in upstairs. Schneider's mature SISSI is stunning in LUDWIG where Berger is perfectly cast - as are Trevor Howard and Mangano as the Wagners. The whole ensemble in L'INNOCENTE from the Gabriele D'Annunzio story is superb - perhaps only SENSO, THE LEOPARD, DEATH IN VENICE and Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON are more perfectly realised period recreations. The Verdi waltz and that sumptuous long ballroom sequence in THE LEOPARD is something one can experience over and over.

above: Visconti with Schneider and Berger on LUDWIG; Schneider in BOCCACCIO 70, Berger with Thulin in THE DAMNED, which also featured Charlotte Rampling and Florinda Bolkan in eye-catching roles; Berger and Lancaster in CONVERSATION PIECE and Mangano in the same film; right: THE DAMNED. See Visconti label for more on SANDRA (VAGHE STELLE DELL'ORSA). Visconti's '67 film of Camus' THE STRANGER with Mastroianni seems totally unavailable now, and of course his earlier films like BELLISSIMA with Magnani and WHITE NIGHTS are hard to see now.

Cinema Italiano: into the '60s

Popular Italian cinema of the early '50s: TOO BAD SHE'S BAD, Silvana Mangano and Raf Vallone so young in 1949's BITTER RICE, Gina Lollobrigida and Vittoria Gassman, Alida Valli back in Italy in Visconti's 1954 SENSO with her mesmerising portrayal of 'the Wanton Countess', the first pairing of that young (19 year old!) Sophia Loren with Marcello Mastroianni in TOO BAD SHE'S BAD, also '54, followed by Sophia's steamy WOMAN OF THE RIVER which got the adolescent me all worked up when I saw it as a kid at my local cinema in Ireland. Silvana was kept busy too with De Laurentiis films like ANNA and MAMBO, another fascinating one to see now (as per my previous posts on it).

TOO BAD SHE'S BAD is an absolute treat now, an Italian comedy by Blasetti with Vittorio De Sica enjoying himself hugely as the head of a family of thieves whom the rather dim taxi driver Marcello gets involved with as he falls for daughter Sophia whose endless chatter is deliriously funny here. These are just a few examples of early '50s movies for the Italian market, it would be nice to see some of those Gina movies too like the BREAD LOVE & DREAMS series and GOLD OF NAPLES and SCANDAL IN SORRENTO. Then there were those early Fellini's I VITELLONI, and the hits LA STRADA and CABIRIA, Antonioni's LE AMICHE and IL GRIDO.

American movies were already beckoning for Gina and Sophia, Alberto Sordi comedies were popular (TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA with Loren, NERO'S LOST WEEKEND with a young Bardot, De Sica and Gloria Swanson), while the Rossellini films with Bergman like EUROPA 51 and VOYAGE TO ITALY paved the way for Antonioni and others. Hollywood also came to the Tiber: this was the great era of Cinecetta and Titanus and producers like Ponti and De Laurentiis. Kirk Douglas was ULYSSES with Mangano as Penelope/Circe, Anthony Quinn was ATTILA (the first of 3 with Loren), Clark Gable was in Naples tussling with Sophia and Vittorio in IT STARTED IN NAPLES while Rock and Gina headed the very popular COME SEPTEMBER. Then of course came Claudia and Monica as that new '60s era dawned and Sophia and De Sica returned with TWO WOMEN as Antonioni, Fellini and Visconti stormed the film festivals...

People We Like: Alida Valli

The enigmatic Ms Valli [1921-2006] is one of those fascinating Italian actresses, and - as these things go - I have seen quite a few of her '50s films recently and she is always just about the best thing in them.

She was of course famously "discovered" by David Selznick for Hitchcock's THE PARADINE CASE, billed as "Valli" - generally considered a misfire and one of his lesser works but I only saw it for the first time a while ago and liked it a lot - she is perfect here as she lures Gregory Peck with her cool patrician beauty, but she had really made about 30 films before that in Italy, starting in the 1930s as per her IMDb resume.

Her other '40s classic is Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN and again its a perfect combination of actress and role. It seems she was back in Europe for the '50s and remained very prolific [as those other Italian actresses like Mangano, Lollobrigida, Loren, Vitti and Cardinale were ascending]. Visconti's SENSO is her third masterpiece and she is riveting as the Wanton Countess betraying her worthless lover Farley Granger - she should have been a contender for Best Actress in that terrific year 1954. Its certainly one of Visconti's finest, with that lush operatic background and, like THE LEOPARD covering that fascinating period of Italian history.



She is mesmerising in Vadim's HEAVEN FELL THAT NIGHT - his sensational Bardot film in '58 after AND GOD CREATED WOMAN - I enjoyed this the other day, steamy unusual Spanish locations and BB and Stephen Boyd at their peak (unlike their roles in the 68 trash western SHALAKO a decade later...) - Valli is the aunt young BB is sent to stay with and both women fall for Boyd. I liked it a lot .... as per my review.

Valli is Irma in Antonioni's IL GRIDO in '57 - but its a rather under-written role, we never get to understand why she does not want to be with Steve Cochran any more as she rejects him sending him into a downward spiral with only one ending - good to finally see it, but its certainly a bleak view of the human condition, set as it is among the rundown towns along the muddy Po river.

She has a supporting role in Rene Clement's THE SEA WALL (or THIS ANGRY AGE) in 1958, one of those long-unseen De Laurentiis international productions (but I got a copy recently); this is set in Thailand as Jo Van Fleet battles to keep her plantation from the sea as her children Silvana Mangano and Tony Perkins have their own problems. Perkins and Valli pick each other up in an electric scene in a cinema! Its a fascinating period piece now.

She is perfect too in Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE, his stylish creepy horror film from 1959, as the doctor's assistant who helps with his experiments in luring girls to his remote mansion, so he can work on restoring his daughter's face .... its eerie with some beautiful images, as we find out that Valli too has had her face replaced.

Valli continued in smaller roles as she got older - and there seems to have been some scandal she was involved in. She is in Pasolini's OEDIPUS REX and Bertolucci featured her in 1900, THE SPIDER'S STRATEGM (where she is very severe) and LA LUNA - though I don't remember much about that. She also had a nothing role in the star-laden THE CASSANDRA CROSSING. Then there were Italian horror films like Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA ('77). One of her last roles as in that nice romantic drama A MONTH BY THE LAKE in 1995 with Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox and Uma Thurman. One I would like to have seen is ASPERN in '85, a version of "The Aspern Papers" where she is the aged countess, with Jean Sorel and Bulle Ogier.

Like Magnani, Valli is always a compulsive screen presence and was a very attractive woman, and its a perfect name the way it sounds as one says it - no wonder Selznick wanted to feature her, presumably as his next Ingrid Bergman type import.