Scorsese: My Voyage through Italian
Cinema
7 DVD Set
Umbrella Entertainment 2008
Scorsese:
My Voyage through Italian Cinema is a superb way to explore the world of
Italian film. It opens with what is arguably the very best documentary ever
made on Italian Cinema, My Voyage to Italy. It is Martin Scorsese' personal
journey through the films that influenced him in his career. "I saw these
movies. They had a powerful effect on me. You should see them." It is such
a simple message. It makes no justification for his choices, he doesn’t pack
his commentary with high end film criticism or interviews with film reviewers
or critics, he simply tells it as he sees it.
Offering
insight on the style, staging, technique, political context, and cinematic
influence of each film. It is an
incredibly personal documentary exploring his family’s love of cinema and how
it all began with watching classics on a small black and white television and
how he developed his own understanding of a range of unique movies he came to
love. It is from this appreciation of these classic works of cinema that his
own cinematic style evolved. Throughout the documentary he includes extended
clips of each of the films with his own narration. The films of Roberto
Rossellini make up for about half the films discussed in the documentary, focusing
on his significant role in Italian cinema and cinema history, while other
directors mentioned include Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico
Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. It is very comprehensive documentary coming
in at four hours and is presented in the first two DVDs of this set. Many timid
souls may think a four hour documentary which be boring or find it hard to
sustain the interest of the viewer, however, Scorsese’ personal observations, intriguing
commentary and erudite inside perspective really sustains it right the way through.
To
supplement this introduction Umbrella has included a series of highly
significant Italian films to round out the package.
La
Terra Trema is Luchino Visconti's haunting vision of a peasant uprising is his
purest excursion into neorealism and a masterpiece of post-war Italian cinema.
I
Vitelloni was a major influence on Martin Scorcese’s Mean Streets, Federico
Fellini’s autobiographical comedy-drama follows the frustrated small-town lives
of a group of aimless, promiscuous young men.
The
Bicycle Thief was awarded an honorary Oscar for Best Foreign Film, and
regularly voted one of the greatest films of all time, Vittorio De Sica’s
masterpiece is a harrowing portrait of loss and depravation in post-war Rome.
L’Avventura
was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival, Michelangelo Antonioni’s
breakthrough film, the first in his ‘alienation’ trilogy, stars the beautiful
Monica Vita (La Notte) in her greatest role.
The
set ends with the startling 8 ½ where Federico Fellini casts his alter-ego,
Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita), in the role of a frustrated director, creating
what is considered the greatest-ever movie about film-making. Winner of the
Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film (1963).
This
is a superb set which not only offers a truly encyclopaedic documentary on
Italian Cinema by a master filmmaker but includes a selection of the films which
he considers significant.
This review will appear in Volume 2:1
(2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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