Journey to Italy / Viaggio in Italia (1954) [The Criterion Collection]

Director: Roberto Rossellini
Writers: Vitaliano Brancati (story and screenplay), Roberto Rossellini (story and screenplay), Colette (novel "Duo")
Stars: Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders, Maria Mauban

Among the most influential films of the postwar era, Roberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy (Viaggio in Italia) charts the declining marriage of a couple from England (Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders) on a trip in the countryside near Naples. More than just the anatomy of a relationship, Rossellini’s masterpiece is a heartrending work of emotion and spirituality. Considered a predecessor to the existentialist works of Michelangelo Antonioni and hailed as a groundbreaking modernist work by the legendary film journal Cahiers du cinéma, Journey to Italy is a breathtaking cinematic benchmark.

Extras Disc 1:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Introduction by director Roberto Rossellini
- Audio commentary by film scholar Laura Mulvey
- New interview with film critic Adriano Aprà
- Short film featuring footage of the Rossellinis during the production of Journey to Italy on CriterionChannel
- New interview with Rossellini and actress Ingrid Bergman’s daughters, Ingrid Rossellini and Isabella Rossellini
- New interview with filmmaker Martin Scorsese
- Living and Departed, a new visual essay by Rossellini scholar Tag Gallagher on the evolution of the director’s style in the trilogy
- Surprised by Death, a new visual essay by film critic James Quandt on the historical and artistic themes of the trilogy

Extras Disc 2:
- Rossellini Through His Own Eyes, a 1992 documentary on the director’s approach to cinema, featuring archival interviews with Rossellini and Bergman
- Ingrid Bergman Remembered, a 1995 documentary on the actress’s life, narrated by her daughter Pia Lindstrom
- New interview with G. Fiorella Mariani, Rossellini’s niece, featuring Bergman’s home movies
- My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a 2005 short film directed by Guy Maddin and starring Isabella Rossellini
- The Chicken, a 1952 short film directed by Rossellini and starring Bergman




3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman:
In the late 1940s, the incandescent Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman found herself so stirred by the revolutionary neorealist films of Roberto Rossellini that she sent the director a letter, introducing herself and offering her talents. The resulting collaboration produced a series of films that are works of both sociopolitical concern and metaphysical melodrama, each starring Bergman as a woman experiencing physical dislocation and psychic torment in postwar Italy. It also famously led to a scandalous affair and eventual marriage between filmmaker and star, and the focus on their personal lives in the press unfortunately overshadowed the extraordinary films they made together. Stromboli, Europe ’51, and Journey to Italy are intensely moving portraits that reveal the director at his most emotional and the glamorous actress at her most anguished, and that capture them and the world around them in transition.