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