Country: Italy
Year: 1954
Duration: 97'
After ten years of marriage, Alexander Joyce, a London businessman, and his wife Katherine realize that they have become strangers to each other. They have inherited a villa on the gulf of Naples and decide to go to Italy to escape the anguishing routine of their marital crisis. They are disturbed by Italy and seem to find confirmation of the wisdom of separation. Egoistical and indifferent, the two follow different paths, travelling in solitude between the most humble parts of Naples, the excavations in Pompeii and the nearby towns.
Biography
film director
Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini (Rome, Italy, 1906-1977) began working in cinema during Fascism. During the post-war period, he created neo-realistic masterpieces like Rome Open City (1945), Paisà (1946) and Germany Year Zero (1947). He then made films which studied solitude, alienation and marital crisis – Stromboli (1950), The Greatest Love (1952) and Journey to Italy (1954). His films are backed up by an experimental style and study reality with a subjective outlook. In 1960s he began working in television, dedicating himself to historical and didactic cinema.
FILMOGRAFIA
filmografia essenziale/essential filmography
La nave bianca (1941), Un pilota ritorna (1942), L’uomo della croce (1943), Roma città aperta (1945), Paisà (1946), Germania anno zero (1947), L’amore (ep. Una voce umana, 1948), La macchina ammazzacattivi (1948), Stromboli terra di Dio (1950), Francesco giullare di Dio (1950), Europa 51 (1952), Dov’è la libertà (1953), Viaggio in Italia (1954), Giovanna d’Arco al rogo (1954), La paura (1954), Le psychodrame (1956), India (1958), Il generale Della Rovere (1959), Era notte a Roma (1960), Viva l’Italia (1960), Vanina Vanini (1961), Anima nera (1962), La presa del potere da parte di Luigi XIV (tv, 1966), Atti degli apostoli (tv, 1968), Socrate (tv, 1970), Pascal (tv, 1971), Agostino d’Ippona (tv, 1972), Anno uno (1974), Il Messia (1975).
Declaration
film director
“In this film I tried to show the Mediterranean people as they really are and not as they are seen by Anglo-Saxon or Nordic people, who always come to look at us as though we were animals in a zoo. There’s also the problem of the couple. Their marriage is a commercial association. From the moment they arrive in Italy for a vacation they have to solve an inheritance problem, they find themselves alone, and since the tie that bound them – based on commercial obligations – doesn’t exist anymore, they discover they don’t love each other.”
Cast
& Credits
regia/director
Roberto Rossellini
soggetto/story Roberto Rossellini, Vitaliano Brancati, dal romanzo/from the novel Duo di/by Colette
sceneggiatura/screenplay Roberto Rossellini, Vitaliano Brancati, Antonio Pietrangeli
fotografia/cinematography Enzo Serafin
montaggio/film editing Jolanda Benvenuti
scenografia/production design Piero Filippone
costumi/costume editing Fernanda Gattinoni
musica/music Renzo Rossellini
suono/sound Eraldo Giordani
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters Ingrid Bergman (Katherine Joyce), George Sanders (Alexander Joyce), Maria Mauban (Marie), Anna Proclemer (la prostituta/prostitute), Paul Muller (Paul Dupont), Leslie Daniels (Tony Burton), Natalia Ray (Natalie Burton), Jackie Frost (Betty)
produttori/producers Roberto Rossellini, Adolfo Fossataro, Alfredo Guarini produzione/production Italia Film, Junior Film, Sveva Film
distribuzione/distribution Cineteca di Bologna
soggetto/story Roberto Rossellini, Vitaliano Brancati, dal romanzo/from the novel Duo di/by Colette
sceneggiatura/screenplay Roberto Rossellini, Vitaliano Brancati, Antonio Pietrangeli
fotografia/cinematography Enzo Serafin
montaggio/film editing Jolanda Benvenuti
scenografia/production design Piero Filippone
costumi/costume editing Fernanda Gattinoni
musica/music Renzo Rossellini
suono/sound Eraldo Giordani
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters Ingrid Bergman (Katherine Joyce), George Sanders (Alexander Joyce), Maria Mauban (Marie), Anna Proclemer (la prostituta/prostitute), Paul Muller (Paul Dupont), Leslie Daniels (Tony Burton), Natalia Ray (Natalie Burton), Jackie Frost (Betty)
produttori/producers Roberto Rossellini, Adolfo Fossataro, Alfredo Guarini produzione/production Italia Film, Junior Film, Sveva Film
distribuzione/distribution Cineteca di Bologna
