Journey to Italy (1954)

Film: Journey to Italy (1954)

Stars: Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders

Director: Roberto Rossellini

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Ingrid Bergman-click here to learn more about Ms. Bergman (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week, we took a look at Ingrid Bergman's career headed in 1949, when she made Under Capricorn, her final film with Alfred Hitchcock, and I talked about a major change that was about to happen in Ingrid Bergman's career.  This week, we're going to head straight into that moment, and with it one of the biggest scandals of Hollywood's Golden Era.  Ingrid Bergman had been married to Dr. Peter Lindstrom for 13 years in 1950, and while they lived somewhat distanced lives, he was the first husband of a movie star whose public image had become synonymous with virtue.  This all changed when Bergman had an affair with Roberto Rosselini on the set of their film Stromboli together, and became pregnant with his child, despite still being married to Lindstrom at the time.  This entire story was broken by Louella Parsons in an unusual betrayal of the Hollywood system (keep in mind, at the time, that Bergman was one of the most important stars in Hollywood & Parsons was famous for minding what was best for the industry, which in this case would've been just letting Bergman claim the child was Lindstrom's), and it made Bergman a pariah.  You'd have to go back to the Silent Era to find a star of Bergman's stature who was put in this kind of scandal, and at the hands of one of the industry's most ardent supporters.  Suffice it to say, it temporarily destroyed Bergman's career, and even led Sen. Edwin Johnson of Colorado to publicly push for a ban of Bergman's film, calling her a "powerful influence of evil."  As a result of the scandal, the only director who was willing to work with Bergman was her new husband, Rossellini, and for the next six years she stayed off of a major studio set, until she returned triumphantly in Anastasia (we'll talk about that next week when we conclude our look at Bergman).

But before we get to the remainder of Bergman's career, we're going to look at the films she made with Rossellini, oftentimes overlooked because they are atypical to her screen presence, but generally celebrated by cinephiles.  She made five feature-length movies with him (none of which I've seen), and I selected Journey to Italy which is considered by many to be both the best of the five films they made together, and possibly the greatest of Rossellini's movies, period.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Alex (Sanders) and Katherine Joyce (Bergman), a couple who are visiting an Italian villa that Katherine recently inherited from her Uncle Homer.  The two were married hastily, have no children, and are clearly going through a bit of a rough patch in their union-Alex is callous & catty, not caring to the sensitive Katherine, who has unresolved feelings for a deceased poet friend.  As the movie goes on, we see the two of them start to drift apart, becoming much crueler to each other as they separate during their "vacation" in Italy, with Alex enjoying the company of multiple women, and Katherine going sightseeing throughout a 1950's Italy.  As the movie goes, they hastily decide that they want to divorce, but Katherine begins to have doubts after seeing an excavation of Pompeii and a religious parade.  In a moment of quick about-face (perhaps a miracle in the face of the religious figures in the parade), they agree that they love each other, and the film spins on a dime toward a happy, manufactured ending.

Journey to Italy is difficult to describe mostly because it's very subtle (it was a clear influence on the French New Wave), but it's really compelling.  I adore movies that are seemingly about nothing, and then as the movie progresses you begin to understand it's about everything.  The film is sly in the way that it lets Alex & Katherine's petty jealousies and competitions start to underscore the serious damage in their relationship, and I admired the way that one of them realized it before the other (but not in a cute way).  Katherine suddenly realizing that she's about to lose the man she loves (despite his faults), and it might be over something silly, is so real.  How often have we looked back on relationships & realized that a fight was about nothing, but the damage it did was colossal?  Rossellini picks up on this, and while the ending feels a bit too much (I don't know if I didn't think they should end up together, but I do think the epiphany of the moment feels a bit cloying for the cynical Alex), that's the only thing I disliked.  I found Journey to Italy mesmerizing.

Some of the best attributes of the film are in the cinematography, and the way that Rossellini shows (without saying it too loudly) what a post-WWII Italy is like.  Filmed less than a decade after the death of Mussolini, we see the ravages of the war, particularly in a galling scene with a series of skulls out in the open.  Though they are from centuries before, death & the way that it continually invites itself back (not just with the skulls, but also with the unearthed remains in Pompeii) show us the ghosts of WWII, and the thousands of young Italian men who didn't come back home, and are lost even as Italy moves forward (there's a sequence where Bergman sees a cavalcade of pregnant women, all there ready to replace & move on from the men that they had just lost).  Filmed with crystal-clear photography & a very mobile camera (the final scene of the picture is shot from a rising crane), it's these kinds of insights littering the background that inform the main storyline, about two people fighting over nothing, while we're constantly reminded of the lessons of "past battles."

Both of the leads are terrific.  Sanders brings the perfect streak of cruelty (he always played the same version of the same sarcastic British snob) to his Alex, someone who is more willing to move on than Katherine, even if he clearly loves her on some level.  Bergman gets the harder part, since she has to shift gradually without it feeling too sudden when she has her epiphany, and she nails it.  While the film wasn't a hit at the time, it's easy to see why cinephiles (such as Martin Scorsese) would later pick this film up as a favorite-there's so much grace & pain in the way she moves around, suddenly watching these relics and understanding that she'll someday be one of them...and that risking a relationship with the man she loved wouldn't be worth it, even if it came with some personal cost.  This, of course, was a lesson that Bergman had already learned in real life.  Next week, we'll finish our look at our Star with one last iconic performance from an actress who would continue to dominate the cinematic landscape for decades after a scandal that seemed certain to kill her career.