Journey to Italy

Viaggo in Italia

Dormant marital frustrations threaten to erupt, against the backdrop of Mount Vesuvius, in Rossellini’s classic, which is screening from a brand-new print.

  • Director

    Roberto Rossellini

  • With

    Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders

  • Italy 1954. 85min

  • 35mm

  • Certificate

    PG

A trip to Naples forces Bergman and Sanders’ wealthy couple to confront their passionless marriage. ‘The temperature’s beginning to rise,’ a local warns of the volcano beyond their villa, just as the couple’s despondency gives way to irritable contempt. Bergman delivers an affecting portrayal of loneliness and longing as she tours the city’s wonderous sites: marble galleries, ancient catacombs, geothermal vents, an excavation at Pompeii. Rossellini’s attention to Neapolitan scenes of devotion and revival amplifies the drama, asking: will the city destroy or resurrect this relationship? Contact-printed from the original negatives, this new print movingly reveals, just like the delicate excavation at Pompeii, the film’s splendour.

Caitlin Lynch

Made by the BFI National Archive with funding from the National Lottery and the additional support of donors to the Keep Film on Film campaign. Created courtesy of ISTITUTO LUCE-CINECITTÀ, using the original camera negative, at Haghefilm in 2023.

The Polonsky Foundation