BFI Top 50: Journey to Italy, Released in 1954, Directed by Roberto Rossellini

What I know going in

I know the film is about the dissolution of a marriage between characters played by George Saunders and Ingrid Bergman. I also know about the famous affair with the director and how it destroyed her Hollywood career.

Immediate Reaction

This is the first Rossellini film I have seen. I primarily know him, as I expect most people do, as one the Italian Neorealist directors exemplified by films such as Rome, Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero. Knowing that, I was a little surprised that he would direct a film about a huffy English couple who travels to Naples to sell a glorious house.

In a nutshell, the film charts the dissolution and eventual reconciliation of the marriage between Katherine (Bergman) and Alex (Sanders) Joyce as they travel around Naples and contemplate their lives together. Both do an excellent job of portraying characters that, at this point, are only comfortable when insulting each other. In fact, I was surprised at how hurtful they could both be. They don’t blow up at each other in a way that could be considered cliché or overblown, instead, their barbs gather to create a toxicity that I haven’t quite seen before in a film about marriage.

Bergman’s role in particular is free from any vanity that a huge star might employ to try and make their character more sympathetic. From the opening scene, she wears a sneer on her face that could whither anyone trying to engage her. I don’t know much about Sanders, but he is perfect as the “rational” unemotional Brit. He views his marriage with Bergman with a shocking degree of coldness. Also, both behave exactly as expected (for an older, wealthy couple) when they interact with the less well-off residents of Naples. Anyone with rich family members should recognize the mix of faux-politeness, annoyance, and condescension.

Even though I enjoyed the film, I’m not entirely sure why it is on the Sight and Sound List. Films on the list usually fit into a few categories: they introduced some new technique and advanced the language of film (Battleship Potemkin)), they were stylistically daring (Jean Dielman, Satantango), they were the first of their kind or are representative of particular movement (Breathless, Bicycle Thief), they are a paragon of a particular genre (Seven Samurai), or they investigated the nature of film in a unique way (Close-Up, Vertigo). I can’t really say what group Journey to Italy falls into, unless it was one of the first films to deal with divorce and alienation within a marriage. I even had a few complaints with the film. I though the couple’s ultimate reunion came out of nowhere. I could not get a sense that they had overcome the problems within their marriage. If you asked me to project their future, I would say they would probably divorce when they get back to Britain.

The film is quite lovely, many props to Criterion’s excellent transfer, but I couldn’t pinpoint a particular style, and I don’t think it really utilizes camerawork or cinematography to suggest the themes of alienation and loneliness that come up in Alex and Catherine’s discussions. It’s too clean looking to be considered neo-realist, but not striking enough to be commended for its photography. However, there is a thread that runs through the movie that I might be totally missing. Alex and Catherine’s marriage is interspersed between scenes of Catherine exploring Italy’s long, violent, and tragic history and Alex having fun with another group of ex-pats. I’m sure the movie is trying to suggest something with the scenes of Alex and Catherine responding to different aspects of Naples, but I can’t really pinpoint what that something is. Honestly, before I rate the film, I will have to go read other analyses about it.

Further Thoughts

After reading a few other pieces about the film, the most intriguing ideas Journey to Italy explores is the difference between the external and the internal and how our environment can shape our action or lead our thoughts. I initially had trouble relating to Journey, I am 22 years old, have never been married, and have never had a romantic relationship deteriorate to the point seen in the film. However, I can relate to the idea that your surroundings have a subtle effect on not necessarily your actions, or who you are as a person, but on your thought process and mood. I recently came back to the States after living in Germany for four months. My German isn’t great, it was a completely new town, I worked a new job, my roommate was very quiet and a bit impersonal, and I made very few friends. Therefore, I can relate to one of the main themes of Journey, isolation and alienation from other people caused by your surroundings. Alex and Catherine are often separate during Journey, she is more interested in visiting famous landmarks, and he is more interested in flirting with ex-pats. The new location, Naples, initially pushes them apart.

Of course, while in Germany, I visited many museums, churches, and castles. Being constantly faced with such a staggering amount of history and culture, forced my thoughts to go to a very internal and contemplative place. I believe Naples had a similar effect on Catherine. I think Bergman was trying to distract herself by doing all of these tourist activities, but found that even the grandeur of ancient Rome wasn't enough to stop her from thinking about Sanders. In fact, these visits, in the case of the Pompeii sequence, pushed her to realize that she still cares deeply about him. I think her journey was more internal than I was expecting, which is why I found the ending to be a little unearned, but now feel a bit better about it.

In addition, I like the idea that the couple needed some external force, the crowd of people near the end, to try and separate them before they were able to respond with compassion towards each other. Their marriage had probably wilted slowly away over the years, and had become an internal struggle to continue. When they were faced with an actual, physical threat toward their marriage, they found they were able to forget their issues with each other, at least for a moment, and respond with care.

Why is it on the list?

I unfortunately don’t know enough about film history to understand the context Journey was released. It has been called the first modern film by the Cahiers critics and Martin Scorsese. I can’t really say whether or not this is true, because I am not aware of the films released before and after Journey. I understand that Journey’s focus on environment was a huge influence on Michelangelo Antonioni, but I have yet to see any of his films. I can say that I see Journey’s influence on La Dolce Vita, Lost in Translation, and The Tenant. All three films focus on how a new environment can spark loneliness, isolation, and confusion.