1. Do you know who made this film even possible? Foreign actors, in an Italian film, marketed globally? It was the actress Silvana Mangano. She had pretty well single-handedly put Italian movies on the global map immediately before. Pre-WWII Italian movies were in part tools of fascism for a domestic audience. Immediately post-WWII Italian movies were mournful "neo-realist" laments also for domestic audiences. And then, along came Mangano. Starting late 40s she made four extremely intense movies, and all four caught fire globally (Bitter Rice, Wolf Of The Sila, Outlaw Girl, and the haunting Anna). They each made a ton of money, breaking Italian records, and saw theater goers waiting in long lines in New York and London. Directly, this had a 2-way effect: (1) Mangano opened the way to international fame for Marcello Mastroanni, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, and numerous other Italian actors (those 3 were all in films with Mangano). (2) Mangano opened the way to British and American actors risking a presence in such Italian films as this and Stromboli, Bergman's earlier one. Mangano herself appeared with Dirk Bogarde, Joseph Cotton, Kirk Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Burt Lancaster, Yves Montand, Jack Palance, Tony Perkins, Anthony Quinn, Terence Stamp, Van Heflin, and Orson Welles. She also made the career of her husband, de Laurentiis; a common delusion is that it was the opposite.
2. Starkly displayed in this film, and in only a very few others, is a sad phenomenon, one you might call The Embassy Wife, that is still around. Nationals get sought-after foreign career postings (diplomats and development experts and military) but their spouses (usually women) often have a hell of a time, forbidden to work, trying to normalize and educate a family if they opt for one (large minorities do not), and fighting loneliness and boredom. Marriages on the rocks are incessant. Yes, in Journey to Italy, geographical and cultural and language displacement was not actually the plight of Ingrid Bergman, but her husband's career and an unexplained decision not to have children had created this identical effect. Separation sometimes works magic, and in this case there was separation: she went cultural and noticed a lot of happy pregnant women; and he went looking for better company but found none. His stony heart melted for her in the final seconds, and my own interpretation was "Okay, finally we have liftoff".
Do please hunt down Bitter Rice and Anna as this movie's vital forbears, and also, in the light of this movie, Gold Of Naples - Mangano's final several minutes are still marveled-at in film schools.
2. Starkly displayed in this film, and in only a very few others, is a sad phenomenon, one you might call The Embassy Wife, that is still around. Nationals get sought-after foreign career postings (diplomats and development experts and military) but their spouses (usually women) often have a hell of a time, forbidden to work, trying to normalize and educate a family if they opt for one (large minorities do not), and fighting loneliness and boredom. Marriages on the rocks are incessant. Yes, in Journey to Italy, geographical and cultural and language displacement was not actually the plight of Ingrid Bergman, but her husband's career and an unexplained decision not to have children had created this identical effect. Separation sometimes works magic, and in this case there was separation: she went cultural and noticed a lot of happy pregnant women; and he went looking for better company but found none. His stony heart melted for her in the final seconds, and my own interpretation was "Okay, finally we have liftoff".
Do please hunt down Bitter Rice and Anna as this movie's vital forbears, and also, in the light of this movie, Gold Of Naples - Mangano's final several minutes are still marveled-at in film schools.
