Martin Scorsese’s love letter to Italian cinema finally emerges on DVD a decade after being produced, and is a remarkable, passionate and highly personal look at some of cinema’s most important milestones.

As the title (riffing off Rossellini\s 1953 Voyage to Italy) suggests, this is very much Scorsese’s own selection, though there are no real surprises. Over four hours, He looks at around two decades of work, from the birth of neo-realism in the 1940s with films like Rome: Open City and The Bicycle Thief, through to the free-form work of Antonioni and Fellini in the early 1960s. Key movies are selected for detailed analysis, with extensive footage effectively presenting a cut-down edit of the film (to about 20 – 30 minutes) while Scorsese discusses the scenes in question as well as the wider cultural impact of the movie, and the relationship between the different directors (also including De Sica and Visconti) and their developing styles.

By its nature, this is a very specific selection: while Mario Bava is referenced as a ‘great director’, he’s only mentioned in passing in the context of his work assisting Rossellini, and there’s no room for Gualitiero Jacopetti, Sergio Leone or any other genre cinema, although there’s a strong case to argue that both the Mondo movie and Spaghetti Western were just as revolutionary and influential as any neo-realist film. This is not a criticism, I should note – for those films to be included would have pointlessly expanded the scope of an already epic project. But how I wish Scorsese would do a follow-up film looking at the so-called ‘low cinema’ that was an equal (and acknowledged) influence on him.

This is a fascinating, genuinely informative film (ideally watched in one session if you can find a spare four hours), and Scorsese is an excellent guide to these movies – you rather wish this is how film studies was taught. It’d certainly save us some pompous books and magazine articles. Unlike Scorsese, I saw most of these films on TV, back when BBC2 and Channel 4 still showed black and white, subtitled movies. While broadcasters might claim that these films are now available on DVD for those who want to see them (not true in all cases), the fact is that those discs will only be seen by people actively seeking them out and willing to pay to do so; chance encounters during a TV broadcast are no longer possible, so it’s no wonder we have a generation of film ‘fans’ who think cinema began with Star Wars – or even later. These are the people who would most benefit from this documentary, giving an easy entry point into some of cinema’s finest moments.

Essential viewing – as are all the films covered.

DAVID FLINT

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