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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Comedy > History > Italy > Cinema > Documentary > Martin Scorsese’s My Voyage Through Italian Cinema (My Voyage to Italy/La Terra Trema/I Vitelloni/The Bicycle Thief/L’Avventura/8 1/2/Umbrella Entertainment PAL format/All Region/Region Zero/0)

Martin Scorsese’s My Voyage Through Italian Cinema (My Voyage to Italy/La Terra Trema/I Vitelloni/The Bicycle Thief/L’Avventura/8 ½/Umbrella Entertainment PAL format/All Region/Region Zero/0)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: A-     Films:

 

Scorsese’s My Voyage to Italy Documentary  B

Visconti’s La Terra Trema  A-

Fellini’s I Vitelloni  A-

De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief  A

Antonioni’s L’Avventura  A

Fellini’s 8 ½  A

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: This DVD set can only be operated on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can handle Region Zero/0 PAL format software and can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website address provided at the end of the review.

 

 

Martin Scorsese’ love for Italian cinema runs incredibly deep, being of Italian ancestry and growing up in the Italian neighborhoods of New York City it only seems natural for him to be influenced by all of this.  Not only influenced by Italian cinema, but also ingrained with it from his early childhood years, which combined with his overall fascination and deeply rooted passion for the art of filmmaking, he has become one of the most important modern filmmakers to rally behind the preservation of cinema.  I suppose it’s fair to call Scorsese an ambassador of the art and he certainly showcased his love for the culture and the medium in his feature film My Voyage to Italy released in 2002, which is included in this terrific box set from Umbrella Entertainment along with six Italian classics.

 

Many people are aware of Scorsese’ other documentary called A Personal Journey Though with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, which is another terrific DVD that acts as the perfect companion piece to this set.  Like that documentary, My Voyage to Italy is full of a ton of historical perspectives, but is also conversational as we walk through the timeline of Italian cinema in a very casual way with Scorsese setting the pace as he talks about his personal reflections on each film, most of which are now classics, yet he also brings out some of the nearly forgotten films as well.  Since those classics are mentioned, it’s absolutely a grand idea to have several of those films included in this set and these are a great sample section of some of the best from a variety of different filmmakers, styles, and time periods.  

 

La Terra Trema is a film from 1948 directed by Luchino Visconti and runs 153-minutes.  The film is a hallmark of neo-realism and a true account of the typical post-war Italian cinema era, which would bring out some of the best in Italian filmmaking.  The film deals with a group of poor Sicilian fishermen who are being exploited by the fish wholesalers during a time of economic despair, one family begins an uprising to even the score and the film continues to crescendo to a superb and surprising ending as independence struggles against the system.  Visconti used real fishermen and not paid actors for the film, which helped bring about its authenticity and helped fortify a documentary-like texture that many would emulate in the years to follow.  He would also go on to make other remarkable feature films including two of my favorites, The Leopard (1963), which was shot in 70mm and also 1957’s Le Notti Bianche, which would star Italian legend Marcello Mastroianni. 

 

The next film in this set is 1953’s I Vitelloni, directed by Federico Fellini and is the first of two Fellini films in this set.  The other film is his 1963 masterpiece 8 ½, but it’s great to get an earlier film by Fellini, which really marks a different era for the filmmaker.  I Vitelloni is a true character study film that deals with five young men who live for the moment.  They chase girls and really do very little productive in their life, even though they have jobs; they really float about aimlessly and find little meaning in their lives.  One of them (Fausto) is recently married, but his new life has little change involved as he is still after other women and this leads to a life of destruction as he even tries to seduce his boss’ wife.  Fausto’s wife forgives him though, but eventually comes to her limit with him and runs off with their child, only to end up at Fausto’s father’s home.  Fausto and his crew search all over for her and finally find her only to get a serious chewing out by his father Francesco.  Fausto tries to reform, while the rest of his crew attempt to change, but ultimately nothing good comes from their juvenile behavior. 

 

Fellini explores the idea of contentment in this film and from the various perspectives of different men in a time of their lives when resistance to maturity is shown with the negative impacts.  Rather than focus in on all of the men, he chooses to isolate one of the stories and folds the other men into that story to show contrast and highlight the level of disillusionment each has.  Ten years later Fellini would direct a very personal film in 8 ½, which is really a film about himself as he casts his alter-ego in Marcello Mastroianni, who is playing a struggling director trying to finish a film, which leads to distractions and really the idea of contentment is explored again in 8 ½, yet in a different approach, but returning to this idea of an unfinished project and the level of dissatisfaction that can arise, especially in the male ego, which results in a series of events that come to a memorable ending unlike many others.  8 ½ ranks as one of the greatest films in Italian cinema and is full of energy and life despite feeling ‘incomplete’ at times.  Even the title itself, which often confuses many, feels very much like the film itself, it feel like it’s part of something (8) and yet nearly part of something else (9), but is stuck between those two concepts and while in that moment is never fully one or the other, it’s idle and there have been very few films even to this day that have really tampered with the concept of incomplete concepts.  Fellini mastered it here and none have been able to recreate it since, maybe for the better. There is also a 52-minute documentary included called “The Lost Ending”, which is a terrific bonus here. You can also read about our other coverage of two Fellini titles:

 

City of Women

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/26/Fellini's+City+Of+Women

 

Intervista

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2228/Intervista+(Fellini)

 

 

It would be nearly impossible to talk about Italian cinema without mentioning at least two other films, The Bicycle Thief and La Dolce Vita, but fortunately Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief is included in this set and is probably the better of the two to include.  De Sica’s film is unique and powerful in many ways as it features a young poor father how has been unemployed for over two years during a post-war time in Rome.  He struggles to get by and finally is able to get a job posting Rita Hayworth posters around various towns, but the only catch here is that he must have a bicycle as his means of travel.  Not owning a bike he pawns the family linens to get his bike knowing that once he starts working again he can buy back the linens, but that all comes to a screeching halt when his bike is stolen on the very first day of work.  Broken and despaired the young father and his son attempt to track down the thief and recover their lifeline of hope and newfound source of income.

 

The film is raw and powerful and really has a pace that brings the viewer into the struggling situation in such a magnetic way that very few films possess.  There is a documentary included called “That’s Life”, along with a still gallery and theatrical trailer.

 

For more on La Dolce Vita, try this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2494/La+Dolce+Vita+(DVD+set)

 

 

Of the many great Italian films there are perhaps very few that are as hard to watch as Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 film L’Avventura, which runs 143-minutes and is his breakthrough film and the first of his ‘alienation’ trilogy, which would be followed by 1961’s La Notta and 1962’s L’Eclisse, despite the fact that this is really an unofficial trilogy that Antonioni never envisioned.  The film is difficult, complex, complicated, and like Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (reviewed here) is challenging to its viewers.  Unlike most films, this one in particular wants to the viewer to feel detached from it and in doing so draws your attention in a more particular way if you can get past the pace of the film and its disconnected character development.  That being said, it’s also profound and when followed by its two unofficial sequels it becomes a masterpiece woven together in a truly artistic way that is hard to even sum up.  The film involves a group of friends out on a boating trip, and when one of the women go missing her lover and her best friend become attracted towards one other during a time that would seem most unlikely.  Yet the way in which Antonioni handles the source in such a masterful way it makes sense and really showcases that love is not always drawn from attraction as much as it is circumstances.  The DVD also includes commentary with Jake Wilson, which is a superb extra for those who might be new to Antonioni. 

 

All in all this is a terrific box set for any serious film fan, the only catch here is that it’s a Region 4/All Region PAL set from Umbrella Entertainment, which means that it will play in any region in the world, but you must have a PAL to NTSC converted in your DVD player or Blu-ray player in order to view on NTSC TVs.

 

The picture quality varies from title to title as some of the films are nearly 15-20 years apart, but for the most part the black and white levels look sharp and detailed, although some of these titles have been restored by The Criterion Collection and look remarkable on those sets.  This is just a great collection though to get all of these films in one set and to also have the in-depth My Voyage to Italy, which runs 246-minutes.  La Terra Trema, I Vitelloni, and The Bicycle Thief are presented in full-frame original aspect ratio and look pretty good considering their age, although do not show the best contrast or clarity, but certainly adequate for DVD playback.  The other films are presented in a 1.78 X 1 widescreen transfer that look a bit better, but again show age and compared to fully restored transfers are a bit lackluster, but nothing too catastrophic. 

 

All of the sound is presented in 2.0 Dolby Digital and is fairly good considering once again the age of the source, but the presentations are adequate enough for now and would take a full overhaul to make marginal improvements. 

 

With the extras included and the amount of films in this set, it’s a really great way to quickly familiarize yourself with some classics and have the fodder to bring some historical perspective as well and showcase the importance of these highly regarded Italian films, a great set indeed!

 

 

As noted above, you can order this PAL DVD import set exclusively from Umbrella at:

 

http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/

 

 

-   Nate Goss


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