If you’ve ever wondered what Scorsese watched before he made “Taxi Driver” or “Mean Streets,” this four-hour doc is the answer. It’s a masterclass in Italian cinema history and personal storytelling rolled into one.
Shout out to Elizabeth Jackson and Nicole Johnson of Stacker for recommending this one. “My Voyage to Italy” is the best documentary on how one filmmaker’s roots and cinematic influences shaped an entire generation of storytellers.
Trailer for “My Voyage to Italy”
You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up
- When Scorsese discusses De Sica’s Umberto D. (1952), he recalls how the film so honestly portrayed poverty that Italy’s Minister of Culture publicly condemned neorealism for being too depressing—proof that cinema could scandalize an entire government.
Watch “My Voyage to Italy”
You can watch part one of “My Voyage to Italy” on YouTube here. At the moment, it isn’t available on major streaming platforms, but keep an eye on JustWatch for updated options.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 90/100
- IMDB Rating: 8.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 87/100 (Users); 100/100 (Critics)
Director’s Note
Directed by Martin Scorsese himself, this is both film history and autobiography. It’s Scorsese walking us through the Italian films that formed his cinematic DNA—Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti, Fellini, and Antonioni. His narration is calm and reverent, but you can feel the emotion in every word. This isn’t a critic lecturing—it’s a filmmaker remembering how he fell in love with movies.
Release Date: 1999 (Italy); 2001 (U.S. release)
My Review of “My Voyage to Italy”
The Setup
Scorsese begins by taking us back to his family’s apartment on Elizabeth Street in New York’s Little Italy. The TV became their window to the old country. Through those broadcasts, Scorsese discovered Rossellini’s moral realism and De Sica’s compassion for ordinary people. The doc unfolds as a cinematic pilgrimage through Italy’s golden age—from the rubble of postwar Rome to Fellini’s dreamscapes.
More Highlights from the Doc
- As a kid, Scorsese’s family gathered around their TV in the 1950s to watch Italian films like Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City.” His grandparents cried seeing postwar Italy onscreen—the homeland they’d left behind.
- Half of this four-hour epic is devoted to Roberto Rossellini, especially “Paisan” (1946), a film so raw and real it redefined what cinema could be.
- Scorsese draws a direct line from “Bicycle Thieves” and “8½” to his own “Mean Streets,” showing how neorealism and surrealism fused into modern American filmmaking.
- Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City” and “Paisan” dominate the first half, with Scorsese explaining how their blend of realism and faith influenced his approach to storytelling in “Mean Streets.”
- De Sica’s “Bicycle Thieves” becomes a moral compass—Scorsese says its ending taught him more about humanity than any sermon ever could.
- When Scorsese reaches Fellini’s “La Strada” and “8½,” he connects their surreal, self-reflective tone to his own later work in “Raging Bull” and “The Last Temptation of Christ.”
- He shows clips from Visconti’s “The Leopard” and Antonioni’s “L’Avventura,” calling them the bridge from neorealism to modernist cinema.
- The film isn’t just academic—it’s deeply personal. Scorsese admits these movies shaped his understanding of morality, love, and art as much as the Catholic Church did.
Lesser-Known Details from the Doc
- Scorsese had already explored Italian cinema in a 1995 BBC series before expanding this project into a standalone four-hour documentary.
- He personally restored some of the Rossellini films featured here through his Film Foundation, ensuring their preservation for future generations.
- While narrating, Scorsese occasionally slips into Italian, switching between languages the way his grandparents once did in their Lower East Side home.
Wrap Up:
“My Voyage to Italy” is about identity. If you love film history, Italian culture, or Scorsese himself, this is essential viewing. It’s four hours long, but it feels like a conversation you never want to end.
Thanks for reading!
Heather Fenty, Guest Writer, Daily Doc