意大利之旅

Letter on Rossellini Jacques Rivette Translated by Tom Milne.

'Ordinance protects. Order reigns.'

You don't think much of Rossellini; you don't, so you tell me, like Voyage to Italy; and everything seems to be in order. But no; you are not assured enough in your rejection not to sound out the opinion of Rossellinians. They provoke you, worry you, as if you weren't quite easy in your mind about your taste. What a curious attitude!

But enough of this bantering tone. Yes, I have a very special admiration for Rossellini's latest film (or rather, the latest to be released here). On what grounds? Ah, that's where it gets more difficult. I cannot invoke exaltation, emotion, joy: these are terms you will scarcely admit as evidence; but at least you will, I trust, understand them. (If not, may God help you.)

To gratify you, let us change the tone yet again. Mastery, freedom, these are words you can accept; for what we have here is the film in which Rossellini affirms his mastery most clearly, and, as in all art, through the free exercise of his talents; I shall come back to this later. First I have something to say which should be of greater concern to you: if there is a modern cinema, this is it. But you still require evidence.

1. If I consider Rossellini to be the most modern of film-makers, it is not without reason; nor is it through reason, either. It seems to me impossible to see Voyage to Italy without receiving direct evidence of the fact that the film opens a breach, and that all cinema, on pain of death, must pass through it. (Yes, that there is now no other hope of salvation for our miserable French cinema but a healthy transfusion of this young blood.) This is, of course, only a personal impression. And I should like forthwith to forestall a misunderstanding: for there are other films, other film-makers doubtless no less great than this; though less, how shall I put it, exemplary. I mean that having reached this point in their careers, their creation seems to close in on itself, what they do is of importance for, and within the perspectives of, this creation. Here, undoubtedly, is the culmination of art, no longer answerable to anyone but itself and, once the experimental fumblings and explorations are past, discouraging disciples by isolating the masters: their domain dies with them, along with the laws and the methods current there. Renoir, Hawks, Lang belong here, of course, and in a certain sense, Hitchcock. Le Carrosse d'Or may inspire muddled copies, but never a school; only presumption and ignorance make these copies possible, and the real secrets are so well hidden within the series of Chinese boxes that to unravel them would probably take as many years as Renoir's career now stretches to; they merge with the various mutations and developments undergone over thirty years by an exceptionally keen and exacting creative intelligence. In its energy and dash, the work of youth or early maturity remains a reflection of the movements of everyday life; animated by a different current, it is shackled to time and can detach itself only with difficulty. But the secret of Le Carrosse d'Or is that of creation and the problems, the trials, the gambles it subjects itself to in order to perfect an object and give it the autonomy and the subtlety of an as yet unexplored world. What example is there here, unless that of discreet, patient work which finally effaces all traces of its passage? But what could painters or musicians ever retain from the later works of Poussin or Picasso, Mozart or Stravinsky -- except a salutary despair. There is reason to think that in a decade or so Rossellini too will attain (and acclimatise himself to) this degree of purity; he has not reached it yet -- luckily, it may be said; there is still time to follow him before within him in his turn eternity . . . (1); while the man of action still lives in the artist.
2. Modern, I said; after a few minutes watching Voyage to Italy, for instance, a name kept recurring in my mind which seems out of place here: Matisse. Each image, each movement, confirmed for me the secret affinity between the painter and the film-maker. This is simpler to state than to demonstrate; I mean to try, however, though I fear that my main reasons may seem rather frivolous to you, and the rest either obscure or specious. All you need do, to start with, is look: note, throughout the first part, the predilection for large white surfaces, judiciously set off by a neat trait, an almost decorative detail; if the house is new and absolutely modem in appearance, this is of course because Rossellini is particularly attracted to contemporary things, to the most recent forms of our environment and customs; and also because it delights him visually. This may seem surprising on the part of a realist (and even neo-realist); for heaven's sake, why? Matisse, in my book, is a realist too: the harmonious arrangement of fluid matter, the attraction of the white page pregnant with a single sign, of virgin sands awaiting the invention of the precise trait, all this suggests to me a more genuine realism than the overstatements, the affectations, the pseudo-Russian conventionalism of Miracle in Milan; all this, far from muffling the film-maker's voice, gives him a new, contemporary tone that speaks to us through our freshest, most vital sensibility; all this affects the modem man in us, and in fact bears witness to the period as faithfully as the narrative does; all this in fact deals with the honnete homme of 1953 or 1954; this, in fact, is the theme.
3. On the canvas, a spontaneous curve circumscribes, without ever pinning down, the most brilliant of colors; a broken line, nevertheless unique, encompasses matter that is miraculously alive, as though transferred intact from its source. On the screen, a long parabola, pliant and precise, guides and controls each sequence, then punctually closes again. Think of any Rossellini film: each scene, each episode will recur in your memory not as a succession of shots and compositions, a more or less harmonious succession of more or less brilliant images, but as a vast melodic phrase, a continuous arabesque, a single implacable line which leads people ineluctably towards the as yet unknown, embracing in its trajectory a palpitant and definitive universe; whether it be a fragment from Paisa, a fioretto from The Flowers of St Francis, a 'station' in Europa '51, or these films in their entirety, the symphony in three movements of Germany, Year Zero, the doggedly ascending scale of The Miracle or Stromboli (musical metaphors come as spontaneously as visual ones) -- the indefatigable eye of the camera invariably assumes the role of the pencil, a temporal sketch is perpetuated before our eyes (but rest assured, without attempts to instruct us by using slow motion to analyze the Master's inspiration for our benefit) (2); we live through its progress until the final shading off, until it loses itself in the continuance of time just as it had loomed out of the whiteness of the canvas. For there are films which begin and end, which have a beginning and an ending, which conduct a story through from its initial premise until everything has been restored to peace and order, and there have been deaths, a marriage or a revelation; there is Hawks, Hitchcock, Murnau, Ray, Griffith. And there are the films quite unlike this, which recede into time like rivers to the sea; and which offer us only the most banal of closing images: rivers flowing, crowds, armies, shadows passing, curtains falling in perpetuity, a girl dancing till the end of time; there is Renoir and Rossellini. It is then up to us, in silence, to prolong this movement that has returned to secrecy, this hidden arc that has buried itself beneath the earth again; we have not finished with it yet. (Of course all this is arbitrary, and you are right: the first group prolong themselves too, but not quite in the same way, it seems to me; they gratify the mind, their eddies buoy us up, whereas the others burden us, weigh us down. That is what I meant to say.) And there are the films that rejoin time through a painfully maintained immobility; that expend themselves without flinching in a perilous position on summits that seem uninhabitable; such as The Miracle, Europa '51.
4. Is it toon soon for such enthusiasms? A little too soon, I fear; so let us return to earth and, since you wish it, talk of compositions: but this lack of balance, this divergence from the customary centres of gravity, this apparent uncertainty which secretly shocks you so deeply, forgive me if once again I see the head of Matisse here, his asymmetrism, the magisterial 'falseness' in composition, tranquilly eccentric, which also shocks at first glance and only subsequently reveals its secret equilibrium where values are as important as the lines, and which gives to each canvas this unobtrusive movement, just as here it yields at each moment this controlled dynamism, this profound inclination of all elements, all arcs and volumes at that instant, towards the new equilibrium, and in the following second of the new disequilibrium towards the next; and this might be learnedly described as the art of succession in composition (or rather, of successive composition) which, unlike all the static experiments that have been stifling the cinema for thirty years, seems to me to stand to reason as the only visual device legitimate for the film-maker.
5. I shall not labor the point further: any comparison soon becomes irksome, and I fear that this one has already continued too long; in any case, who will be convinced except those who see the point as soon as it is stated? But allow me just one last remark -- concerning the Trait: grace and gaucheness indissolubly linked. Render tribute in either case to a youthful grace, impetuous and stiff, clumsy and yet disconcertingly at ease, that seems to me to be in the very nature of adolescence, the awkward age, where the most overwhelming, the most effective gestures seem to burst unexpectedly in this way from a body strained by an acute sense of embarrassment. Matisse and Rossellini affirm the freedom of the artist, but do not misunderstand me: a controlled, constructed freedom, where the initial building finally disappears beneath the sketch. For this trait must be added which will resume all the rest: the common sense of the draft. A sketch more accurate, more detailed than any detail and the most scrupulous design, a disposition of forces more accurate than composition, these are the sort of miracles from which springs the sovereign truth of the imagination, of the governing idea which only has to put in an appearance to assume control, summarily outlined in broad essential strokes, clumsy and hurried yet epitomizing twenty fully rounded studies. For there is no doubt that these hurried films, improvised out of very slender means and filmed in a turmoil that is often apparent from the images, contain the only real portrait of our times; and these times are a draft too. How could one fail suddenly to recognize, quintessentially sketched, ill-composed, incomplete, the semblance of our daily existence? These arbitrary groups, these absolutely theoretical collections of people eaten away by lassitude and boredom, exactly as we know them to be, as the irrefutable, accusing image of our heteroclite, dissident, discordant societies. Europa '51, Germany, Year Zero, and this film which might be called Italy '53, just as Paisa was Italy '44, these are our mirror, scarcely flattering to us; let us yet hope that these times, true in their turn like these kindred films, will secretly orient themselves towards an inner order, towards a truth which will give them meaning and in the end justify so much disorder and flurried confusion.
6. Ah, now there is cause for misgivings: the author is showing the cloven hoof. I can hear the mutters already: coterie talk, fanaticism, intolerance. But this famous freedom, and much vaunted freedom of expression, but more particularly the freedom to express everything of oneself, who carries it further? -- To the point of immodesty, comes the answering cry; for the strange thing is that people still complain, and precisely those people who are loudest in their claims for freedom (to what end? the liberation of man? I'll buy that, but from what chains? That man is free is what we are taught in the catechism, and what Rossellini quite simply shows; and his cynicism is the cynicism of great art). 'Voyage to Italy is the Essays of Montaigne,' our friend M prettily says; this, it seems, is not a compliment; permit me to think otherwise, and to wonder at the fact that our era, which can no longer be shocked by anything, should pretend to be scandalized because a film-maker dares to talk about himself without restraint; it is true that Rossellini's films have more and more obviously become amateur films; home movies; Joan of Arc at the Stake is not a cinematic transposition of the celebrated oratorio, but simply a souvenir film of his wife's performance in it just as The Human Voice was primarily the record of a performance by Anna Magnani (the most curious thing is that Joan of Arc at the Stake, like The Human Voice, is a real film, not in the least theatrical in its appeal; but this would lead us into deep waters). Similarly, Rossellini's episode in We the Women is simply the account of a day in Ingrid Bergman's life; while Voyage to Italy presents a transparent fable, and George Sanders a face barely masking that of the film-maker himself (a trifle tarnished, no doubt, but that is humility), -- Now he is no longer filming just his ideas, as in Stromboli or Europa '51, but the most everyday details of his life; this life, however, is 'exemplary' in the fullest sense that Goethe implied: that everything in it is instructive, including the errors; and the account of a busy afternoon in Mrs. Rossellini's life is no more frivolous in this context than the long description Eckermann gives us of that beautiful day, on May 1st 1825, when he and Goethe practiced archery together. -- So there, then, you have this country, this city; but a privileged country, an exceptional city, retaining intact innocence and faith, living squarely in the eternal; a providential city; and here, by the same token, is Rossellini's secret, which is to move with unremitting freedom, and one single, simple motion, through manifest eternity: the world of the incarnation; but that Rossellini's genius is possible only within Christianity is a point I shall not labor, since Maurice Scherer' has already argued it better than I could ever hope to do, in a magazine: Les Cahiers du Cinema, if I remember right. (3)
7. Such freedom, absolute, inordinate, whose extreme license never involves the sacrifice of inner rigor, is freedom won; or better yet, earned. This notion of earning is quite new, I fear, and astonishing even though evident; so the next thing is, earned how? -- By virtue of meditation, of exploring an idea or an inner harmony; by virtue of sowing this predestined seed in the concrete world which is also the intellectual world ('which is the same as the spiritual world'); by virtue of persistence, which then justifies any surrender to the hazards of creation, and even urges our hapless creator to such surrender; once again the idea becomes flesh, the work of art, the truth to come, becomes the very life of the artist, who can thereafter no longer do anything that steers clear of this pole, this magnetic point. -- And thereafter we too, I fear, can barely leave this inner circle any more, this basic refrain that is reprised chorally: that the body is the soul, the other is myself, the object is the truth and the message; and now we are also trapped by this place where the passage from one shot to the next is perpetual and infinitely reciprocal; where Matisse's arabesques are not just invisibly linked to their hearth, do not merely represent it, but are the fire itself.
8. This position offers strange rewards; but grant me another detour, which like all detours will have the advantage of getting us more quickly to where I want to take you. (It is becoming obvious anyway that I am not trying to follow a coherent line of argument, but rather that I am bent on repeating the same thing in different ways; affirming it on different keyboards.) I have already spoken of Rossellini's eye, his look; I think I even made a rather hasty comparison with Matisse's tenacious pencil; it doesn't matter, one cannot stress the film-maker's eye too highly (and who can doubt that this is where his genius primarily lies?), and above all its singularity. Ah, I'm not really talking about Kino-Eye, about documentary objectivity and all that jazz; I'd like to have you feel (with your finger) more tangibly the powers of this look: which may not be the most subtle, which is Renoir, or the most acute, which is Hitchcock, but is the most active; and the point is not that it is concerned with some transfiguration of appearances, like Welles, or their condensation, like Murnau, but with their capture: a hunt for each and every moment, at each perilous moment a corporeal quest (and therefore a spiritual one; a quest for the spirit by the body), an incessant movement of seizure and pursuit which bestows on the images some indefinable quality at once of triumph and agitation: the very note, indeed, of conquest. -- (But perceive, I beg you, wherein the difference lies here; this is not some pagan conquest, the exploits of some infidel general; do you perceive the fraternal quality in this word, and what sort of conquest is implied, what it comprises of humility, of charity?)
9. For 'I have made a discovery': there is a television aesthetic; don't laugh, that isn't my discovery, of course; and what this aesthetic is (what it is beginning to be) I learned just recently from an article by Andre Bazin (4) which, like me, you read in the colored issue of Cahiers du Cinema (definitely an excellent magazine). But this is what I realized: that Rossellini's films, though film, are also subject to this direct aesthetic, with all it comprises of gamble, tension, chance and providence (which in fact chiefly explains the mystery of Joan of Arc at the Stake, where each shot change seems to take the same risks, and induce the same anxiety, as each camera change). So there we are, because of a film this time, ensconced in the darkness, holding our breath, eyes riveted to the screen which is at last granting us such privileges: spying on our neighbor with the most appalling indiscretion, violating with impunity the physical intimacy of people who are quite unaware of being exposed to our fascinated gaze; and in consequence, to the imminent rape of their souls. But in just punishment, we must instantly suffer the anguish of anticipating, of prejudging what must come after; what weight time suddenly lends to each gesture; one does not know what is going to happen, when, how; one has a presentiment of the event, but without seeing it take shape; everything here is fortuitous, instantly inevitable; even the sense of hereafter, within the impassive web of duration. So, you say, the films of a voyeur? -- or a seer.
10. Here we have a dangerous word, which has been made to mean a good many silly things, and which I don't much like using; again you're going to need a definition. But what else can one call this faculty of seeing through beings and things to the soul or the ideal they carry within them, this privilege of reaching through appearances to the doubles which engender them? (Is Rossellini a Platonist? -- Why not, after all he was thinking of filming Socrates.) Because as the screening went on, after an hour went by I wasn't thinking of Matisse any more, I'm afraid, but of Goethe: the art of associating the idea with the substance first of all in the mind, of blending it with its object by virtue of meditation; but he who speaks aloud of the object, through it instantly names the idea. Several conditions are necessary, of course: and not just this vital concentration, this intimate mortification of reality, which are the artist's secret and to which we have no access; and which are none of our business anyway. There is also the precision in the presentation of this object, secretly impregnated; the lucidity and the candor (Goethe's celebrated 'objective description'). This is not yet enough; this is where ordering comes into play, no, order itself, the heart of creation, the creator's design; what is modestly known in professional terms as the construction (and which has nothing to do with the assembling of shots currently in vogue; it obeys different laws); that order, in other words, which, giving precedence to each appearance according to merit, within the illusion that they are simply succeeding one another, forces the mind to conceive another law than chance for their judicious advent. This is something narrative has known, in film or novel, since it grew up. Novelists and film-makers of long standing, Stendhal and Renoir, Hawks and Balzac, know how to make construction the secret element in their work. Yet the cinema turned its back on the essay (I employ A. M. 's (5) word), and repudiated its unfortunate guerrillas, Intolerance, La Regle du Jeu, Citizen Kane. There was The River, the first didactic poem: now there is Voyage to Italy which, with absolute lucidity, at last offers the cinema, hitherto condemned to narrative, the possibility of the essay.
11. For over fifty years now the essay has been the very language of modern art; it is freedom, concern, exploration, spontaneity; it has gradually -- Gide, Proust, Valery, Chardonne, Audiberti -- buried the novel beneath it; since Manet and Degas it has reigned over painting, and gives it its impassioned manner, the sense of pursuit and proximity. -- But do you remember that rather appealing group some years ago which had chosen some number or other as their objective and never stopped clamouring for the 'liberation' of the cinema; (6)don't worry, for once it had nothing to do with the advancement of man; they simply wanted the Seventh Art to enjoy a little of that more rarefied air in which its elders were flourishing; a very proper feeling lay behind it all. It appears, however, that some of the survivors don't care at all for Voyage to Italy; this seems incredible. For here is a film that comprises almost everything they prayed for: metaphysical essay, confession, log-book, intimate journal -- and they failed to realize it. This is an edifying story, and I wanted to tell you the whole of it.
12. I can see only one reason for this; I fear I may be being malicious (but maliciousness, it seems, is to today's taste): this is the unhealthy fear of genius that holds sway this season. The fashion is for subtleties, refinements, the sport of smart-set kings; Rossellini is not subtle but fantastically simple. Literature is still the arbiter: anyone who can do a pastiche of Moravia has genius; ecstasies are aroused by the daubings of a Soldati, Wheeler, Fellini (we'll talk about Mr. Zavattini another time); tiresome repetitions and longueurs are set down as novelistic density or the sense of time passing; dullness and drabness are the effect of psychological subtlety. -- Rossellini falls into this swamp like a butterfly broken on the wheel; reproving eyes are turned away from this importunate yokel. (7) And in fact nothing could be less literary or novelistic; Rossellini does not care much for narration, and still less for demonstration; what business has he with the perfidies of argumentation? Dialectic is a whore who sleeps with all odds and ends of thought, and offers herself to any sophism; and dialecticians are riff-raff. -- His heroes prove nothing, they act; for Francis of Assisi, saintliness is not a beautiful thought. If it so happens that Rossellini wants to defend an idea, he too has no other way to convince us than to act, to create, to film; the thesis of Europa '51, absurd as each new episode starts, overwhelms us five minutes later, and each sequence is above alt the mystery of the incarnation of this idea; we resist the thematic development of the plot, but we capitulate before Bergman's tears, before the evidence of her acts and of her suffering; in each scene the film-maker fulfils the theorist by multiplying him to the highest unknown quantity. But this time there is no longer the slightest impediment: Rossellini does not demonstrate, he shows. And we have seen: that everything in Italy has meaning, that all of Italy is instructive and is part of a profound dogmatism, that there one suddenly finds oneself in the domain of the spirit and the soul; all this may perhaps not belong to the kingdom of pure truths, but is certainly shown by the film to be of the kingdom of perceptible truths, which are even more true. There is no longer any question of symbols here, and we are already on the road towards the great Christian allegory. Everything now seen by this distraught woman, lost in the kingdom of grace, these statues, these lovers, these pregnant women who form for her an omnipresent, haunting cortege, and then those huddled corpses, those skulls, and finally those banners, that procession for some almost barbaric cult, everything now radiates a different light, everything reveals itself as something else; here, visible to our eyes, are beauty, love, maternity, death, God.
13. All rather outmoded notions; yet there they are, visible; all you can do is cover your eyes or kneel. There is a moment in Mozart where the music suddenly seems to draw inspiration only from itself, from an obsession with a pure chord, all the rest being but approaches, successive explorations, and withdrawals from this supreme position where time is abolished. All art may perhaps reach fruition only through the transitory destruction of its means, and the cinema is never more great than in certain moments that transcend and abruptly suspend the drama: I am thinking of Lillian Gish feverishly spinning round, of Jannings' extraordinary passivity, the marvelous moments of tranquility in The River, the night sequence in Tabu with its slumbers and awakenings; of all those shots which the very greatest film-makers can contrive at the heart of a Western, a thriller, a comedy, where the genre is suddenly abolished as the hero briefly takes stock of himself (and above all of those two confessions by Bergman and Anne Baxter, those two long self-flashbacks by heroines who are the exact center and the kernel of Under Capricorn and I Confess). What am I getting at? This: nothing in Rossellini better betokens the great film-maker than those vast chords formed within his films by all the shots of eyes looking; whether those of the small boy turned on the ruins of Berlin, or Magnani's on the mountain in The Miracle, or Bergman's on the Roman suburbs, the island of Stromboli, and finally all of Italy; (and each time the two shots, one of the woman looking, then her vision; and sometimes the two merged); a high note is suddenly attained which thereafter need only be held by means of tiny modulations and constant returns to the dominant (do you know Stravinsky's 1952 Cantata?); similarly the successive stanzas of The Flowers of St Francis are woven together on the ground bass (readable at sight) of charity. -- Or at the heart of the film is this moment when the characters have touched bottom and are trying to find themselves without evident success; this vertiginous awareness of self that grips them, like the fundamental note's own delighted return to itself at the heart of a symphony. Whence comes the greatness of Rome, Open City, of Paisa, if not from this sudden repose in human beings, from these tranquil essays in confronting the impossible fraternity, from this sudden lassitude which for a second paralyses them in the very course of the action? Bergman's solitude is at the heart of both Stromboli and Europa '51: vainly she veers, without apparent progress; yet without knowing it she is advancing, through the attrition of boredom and of time, which cannot resist so protracted an effort, such a persistent concern with her moral decline, a lassitude so unweary, so active and so impatient, which in the end will undoubtedly surmount this wall of inertia and despair, this exile from the true kingdom.
14. Rossellini's work 'isn't much fun'; it is deeply serious, even, and turns its back on comedy; and I imagine that Rossellini would condemn laughter with the same Catholic virulence as Baudelaire; (and Catholicism isn't much fun either, despite its worthy apostles. -- Dov'e la liberta? should make very curious viewing from this point of view). What is it he never tires of saying? That human beings are alone, and their solitude irreducible; that, except by miracle or saintliness, our ignorance of others is complete; that only a life in God, in his love and his sacraments, only the communion of the saints can enable us to meet, to know, to possess another being than ourselves alone; and that one can only know and possess oneself in God. Through all these films human destinies trace separate curves, which intersect only by accident; face to face, men and women remain wrapped in themselves, pursuing their obsessive monologues; delineation of the 'concentration camp world' (8) of men without God. Rossellini, however, is not merely Christian, but Catholic; in other words, carnal to the point of scandal; one recalls the outrage over The Miracle; but Catholicism is by vocation a scandalous religion; the fact that our body, like Christ's, also plays its part in the divine mystery is something hardly to everyone's taste, and in this creed which makes the presence of the flesh one of its dogmas, there is a concrete meaning, weighty, almost sensual, to flesh and matter that is highly repugnant to chaste spirits: their 'intellectual evolution' no longer permits them to participate in mysteries as gross as this. In any case, Protestantism is more in fashion, especially among skeptics and free-thinkers; here is a more intellectual religion, a shade abstract, that instantly places the man for you: Huguenot ancestry infallibly hints at a coat of arms. -- I am not likely to forget the disgusted expressions with which, not so long ago, some spoke of Bergman's weeping and snivelling in Stromboli. And it must be admitted that this goes (Rossellini often does) to the limits of what is bearable, of what is decently admissible, to the very brink of indelicacy. The direction of Bergman here is totally conjugal, and based on an intimate knowledge less of the actress than of the woman; we may also add that our little world of cinema finds it difficult -- when the couple are not man and wife (9) -- to accept a notion of love like this, with nothing joyous or extravagant about it, a conception so serious and genuinely carnal (let us not hesitate to repeat the word) of a sentiment more usually disputed nowadays by either eroticism or angelism; but leave it to the Dolmances (10) among us to take offence at the way it is presented (or even just its reflection, like a watermark, on the face of the submissive wife), as though at some obscenity quite foreign to their light, amusing -- and so very modern -- fancies.
15. Enough of that; but do you now understand what this freedom is: the freedom of the ardent soul, cradled by providence and grace which, never abandoning it to its tribulations, save it from perils and errors and make each trial redound to its glory. Rossellini has the eye of a modern, but also the spirit; he is more modern than any of us; and Catholicism is still as modern as anything. You are weary of reading me; I am beginning to tire of writing to you, or at least my hand is; I would have liked to tell you many more things. One will suffice: the striking novelty of the acting, which here seems to be abolished, gradually killed off by a higher necessity; all flourishes, all glowing enthusiasms, all outbursts must yield to this intimate pressure which forces them to efface themselves and pass on with the same humble haste, as though in a hurry to finish and be done with it. This way of draining actors must often infuriate them, but there are times when they should be listened to, others when they should be silenced. If you want my opinion, I think that this is what acting in the cinema tomorrow will be like. Yet how we have loved the American comedies, and so many little films whose charm lay almost entirely in the bubbling inventiveness of their movements and attitudes, the spontaneous felicities of some actor, the pretty poutings and fluttering eyelashes of a smart and saucy actress; that one of the cinema's aims should be this delightful pursuit of movement and gesture was true yesterday, and even true two minutes ago, but after this film may not be so any longer; the absence of studied effects here is superior to any successful pursuit, the resignation more beautiful than any glow of enthusiasm, the inspired simplicity loftier than the most dazzling performance by any diva. This lassitude of demeanor, this habit so deeply ingrained in every movement that the body no longer vaunts them, but rather restrains them, keeps them within itself, this is the only kind of acting we shall be able to take for a long time to come; after this taste of pungency, all sweetness is but insipid and unremembered.
16. With the appearance of Voyage to Italy, all films have suddenly aged ten years; nothing is more pitiless than youth, than this unequivocal intrusion by the modem cinema, in which we can at last recognize what we were vaguely awaiting. With all due deference to recalcitrant spirits, it is this that shocks or troubles them, that vindicates itself today, it is in this that truth lies in 1955. Here is our cinema, those of us who in our turn are preparing to make films (did I tell you, it may be soon); as a start I have already suggested something that intrigues you: is there to be a Rossellini school? and what will its dogmas be? -- I don't know if there is a school, but I do know there should be: first, to come to an understanding about the meaning of the word realism, which is not some rather simple scriptwriting technique, nor yet a style of mise en scene, but a state of mind: that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points; (judge your De Sicas, Lattuadas and Viscontis by this yardstick). Second point: a fig for the skeptics, the rational, the judicious; irony and sarcasm have had their day; now it is time to love the cinema so much that one has little taste left for what presently passes by that name, and wants to impose a more exacting image of it. As you see, this hardly comprises a program, but it may be enough to give you the heart to begin. This has been a very long letter. But the lonely should be forgiven: what they write is like the love letter that goes astray. To my mind, anyway, there is no more urgent topic today. One word more: I began with a quotation from Peguy; here is another in conclusion: 'Kantism has unsullied hands'(shake hands, Kant and Luther, and you too, Jansen), 'but it has no hands'.

Yours faithfully,

Jacques Rivette

NOTES:

1. A reference to the first line of Mallarme's poem, Le Tombeau d'Edgar Poe: 'Tel qu'en Lui-meme enfin l'etemite le change'. (Trans.)
2. A reference to Clouzot's Le Mystere Picasso. (Trans.)
3. 'Genie du Christianisme' by Maurice Scherer (Eric Rohmer) in Cahiers du Cinema No. 25. July 1953.
4. 'Pour contribuer a une erotologie de la Television' in Cahiers du Cinema, No, 42.
5. Probably Andre Martin. (Trans.)
6. Possibly a reference to Ricciotto Canudo (1879-1923) and his Club des Amis du Septieme Art. (Trans.)
7. Rivette's original of this sentence reads: 'Rossellini tombe dans ce marecage comme le pave de ('ours; on se detourne avec des moues reprobatrices de ce paysan du Danube.' The bear and the Danube peasant are references to Fables by La Fontaine. (Trans.)
8. Rivette was referring to David Roussel's book, L'Univers Concenrationnaire. (Trans.)
9. The adulterous affair between Rossellini and Bergman. which began during the shooting of Stromboli (1949); and their subsequent child, caused an enormous press scandal which virtually exiled Bergman from Hollywood. (Ed.)
10. A character in De Sade's La Philosophie dans le boudoir. (Trans.)

Originally appeared in Cahiers du cinema April 1955, no. 46. This translation reprinted from Rivette: Texts and Interviews (British Film Institute, 1977): p. 54-64

2022.01 ｜一年之后二刷，叹为观止，从三星改到五星hhh 感性理想主义者和理性现实主义者的不相容。然而两个浪漫理想的人放在一块，也就只能是谈天说地写诗作赋的白月光。那个冒雨来到她门前的诗人亦是疯子，只是她景仰的灵魂，就如同景仰博物馆的雕塑、庞贝古城一样，所谓艺术，就是情感的猖狂。还有那个每个人都经历过海难的比喻，是被动的闭塞还是主动的慵懒，又怎能说得清呢，只是每个人都不约而同地陷入了这样的生活方式。

2021.01 ｜这里边庞贝遗址和博物馆雕塑的拍摄要说没有启发之后阿伦雷乃的雕像也会死亡我都不信，这诗意的描述、精致的画面、宏大的音乐、庄严的气氛…女主回忆她与诗人的过往，想必两人相爱，我能理解她去到一些地方追忆，但追忆的内容都是沿着诗的足迹，而非两人交往的痕迹，就显得有些虚假了，对于我来说应该只有追星的时候才会沿着作品的足迹吧，毕竟作品是包装和外化，亲密的人之间更应该有像大雨中来到你们外的这种故事。以及，虽然说情人之间说分手都是小打小闹，但这两个主角的感情戏，提离婚和复合都实在太过突然。以及，这部影片应该是之后无数城市漫游片的鼻祖吧，女主游览意大利各个地方，触景生情。罗西里尼开始抛弃纯粹的新现实主义转型了…

亚历山大刚和妻子坦白离婚的事，夫妇被热情地邀请去看尸骨挖掘，这一段处理得非常棒，把拥抱在一起的夫妇尸体与亚历山大夫妇的情感状态建立了某种神秘的联系。生命太过脆弱了，爱情也败给了它，谁又能知道那对拥抱着死去的夫妇是真心相爱呢？兴许也是在不断的妥协与退让中，只是死亡成就了它们的爱情，将其永恒化了。那么，影片最后亚历山大夫妇在神面前的相拥和解就一定是因为爱吗？不过是害怕再度迷失，害怕再度虚空，不过是无处取暖时祈求对方的一点温度罢了，毕竟这里到处弥漫着死亡，需要新生命(孩子)来弥补破裂的情感。因此，透过女主角的眼睛，我们可以看到战后的街上，婴儿和孕妇都增加了。可以说，整个民族的情感创伤都企图通过婴孩来弥合。

上世纪五十年代，罗西里尼和褒曼合作了三部电影，它们分别是：

1950年，《火山边缘之恋》

1952年，《1951年的欧洲》

1954年，《游览意大利》

尽管这是三部在文本上完全独立的作品，但我们依然能从中窥探到世界电影主流风格的变化，战后欧洲社会的变化，以及他对爱情和家庭观念的更深入理解。

电影风格的变化：从现实主义到现代主义

罗西里尼获得国际声誉，在很大程度上得益于他在1945年到1950年这一阶段拍摄的“战争三部曲”《罗马，不设防的城市》《战火》和《德意志零年》，这三部作品也是世界上的一次伟大的电影美学革新——意大利新现实主义电影——的代表作，因此它们所呈现出的技巧和文本，都对电影在此之前的美学认知产生了冲击。

在文本上，区别于意大利战时描写资产阶级生活的“书法派电影”和“白色电话片”，它们展现底层人民的生活，表现的是人民生活的困苦。

在技巧上，和精心设计的好莱坞电影不同，用长镜头和露天拍摄来尽可能地呈现真实，甚至找非职业演员出演，令他们得以将自身最真实的平民气质带入电影中。

1950年左右，随着意大利经济的缓慢复苏，新现实主义渐显颓势，也是在这一年，罗西里尼奉上了他和褒曼合作的《火山边缘之恋》。

可以看出在这部作品中，罗西里尼的电影已经在转变风格，比如本片中的一个捕鱼的段落，露天拍摄依然有着一定的粗粝感，但是镜头的切换和构图的思考已经被融入其中，他的电影从新现实主义中逐渐挣脱。

1959年至1960年被看做是世界电影的又一个重要时期，法国电影新浪潮被视为是对电影美学的又一次重大革新，长镜头被延续下来，但现实主义却转向了现代主义，导演们不再热衷于通过摄影机记录外部的现实，更关注如何通过那些外部的表象来反映人的内心世界。

《游览意大利》中已经有一些现代主义特征：一个女人来意大利游览各种名胜，最初她尚抱着一种轻松的心情游历，但随着与丈夫之间的不愉快越来越深重，一次次的游历，她从那些名胜中看到的不再是文化，而是她与丈夫生活的不幸和悲剧。

一男一女死在一起的骸骨令女主角悲从中来

不仅是罗西里尼，意大利后来的现代主义电影大师安东尼奥尼和费里尼也正是在上世纪五十年代进行着他们作品风格的过渡，这些电影大师在风格上的转向直指电影即将向着不一样的主流奔去，更极大地反映了当时的社会面貌。

战后的社会面貌：从贫穷到疏离

正如上文所说，新现实主义把镜头对准外部，展现贫穷的表象，而现代主义则直指内部，注重通过外部来映射内心世界。

1945年到1950年，战后的百废待兴是每个被卷入战争中的国家都不得不考虑的问题，而二战带来的不仅有各种技术的进步（包括外科手术、便携摄影设备等各方面），还有对战争的恐惧、社会进步的焦虑等心理层面的问题。

《火山边缘之恋》讲述了一个女人为了追求安定的生活选择了一个男人结婚，她跟随男人回家，却发现男人的老家是一个没有开化的小岛，这与她要过体面生活的愿望完全相悖，这就恰如社会中的一些人追求文明，而一些人固守传统，因此产生了矛盾。

这部影片于1950年上映，也可反映出当时人们的苦闷仍然是贫穷，物质上的缺乏造成了这种矛盾。

而1952年上映的《1951年的欧洲》，把镜头对准了社会的最上层阶级，由于他们能接触到最先进的文明，因此那些先进化所带来的好处和苦果都由他们最先品味到。

褒曼在片中饰演的女主角是一个热衷于社交的、精明能干的上流社会女士，她的丈夫亦如此，但儿子的突然自杀让这位女主角性情大变，她开始关心生活在贫民区的百姓疾苦，意图拯救处在水深火热中的人们，她的丈夫因此开始觉得她患有精神病，这对夫妻因为对人世的感悟不同渐生嫌隙。

人与人之间的关系开始因为一些捕捉不到的表象而出现问题，具体在这部电影中，那就是连穷人之间都有美好真挚的互帮互助之情，但富人之间却因为价值利益的不同，即这位妻子不再如他的丈夫所愿的那样“正常”，关系就产生了破裂。

上文中交代过《游览意大利》的现代主义特征，妻子和丈夫之间的不沟通、误会、冷漠等消极情绪充斥着整部电影。社会在进步，人与人之间的亲密关系却越走越远，人们越来越不明白爱为何物，于是不断地互相伤害，又互相包容，循环往复地折磨。

家庭关系的破灭：浪漫主义的冲击

褒曼和罗西里尼在1949年在一起，而当时的褒曼已经有了丈夫，她的行为招来了好莱坞的议论，她在美国的事业也被迫停摆，事业的重心转移到了欧洲。

褒曼原本是瑞典人，后来辗转成为好莱坞巨星，但她之于意大利，仍是不折不扣的“外来者”。

《火山边缘之恋》中“女人随丈夫到一个陌生的小岛上生活”，彻底的外来感仍被暴露在外，但褒曼还是在接下来一点点被融入了罗西里尼的作品，《1951年的欧洲》里女人和他的丈夫有了一个孩子，而《游览意大利》中女人和丈夫有了两个孩子（片头提到的约翰和桃乐丝）——正如戏外的褒曼和罗西里尼一样。

很巧合的是，她主演的三部罗西里尼的作品，在文本上都有以下定式：女人（褒曼饰演的角色）和丈夫的关系本来是和睦的，但女人突然变了，她产生了某些思想上的变化，这个变化让丈夫无法接受，两人之间产生了嫌隙。

实际上诸如《火山边缘之恋》中的丈夫，他的原始思想也随着回到小岛被暴露出来，这也可被看做是一种“思想的转变”（因为观众最初不知道他的原始一面），但毫无疑问，褒曼是这三部作品的绝对主角，她的变化成为了电影的中心。

罗西里尼通过镜头凝视着她，将自己认为的一些女性面貌诉诸于她的形象上，而我们得以通过银幕窥探到这种形象。

这种形象正如世间很多女性一样，她们崇尚爱，有着对美好和诗意的追求和向往，但这些东西在追求实用主义的家庭生活中沦为摆设，更严重的是，甚至沦为了令人不安的因素。

《游览意大利》中这对夫妇因为“诗意”有了矛盾

婚姻是两个人之间的事，即便他们是名人，离婚的背后究竟是谁在“造乱”，亦只有他们最清楚。

但不能忽视的是在这三部作品中，罗西里尼的现代化转向，亦是一种他内心所思所想的投射。

他欣赏女人的美，却又畏惧着。

1948年，《卡萨布兰卡》女主角英格丽·褒曼被名导罗西里尼的战争三部曲之一《罗马，不设防的城市》深深感动，并写给他一封信表示期望能与之合作，罗西里尼也为之动容。两年之后，两人在合作拍摄《火山边缘之恋》时坠入情网，褒曼给罗西里尼产下一子，褒曼清纯贤惠形象被毁，舆论哗然。不久，褒曼与丈夫离婚，并与罗西里尼结婚。此后一段时期就被称为罗西里尼的“英格丽·褒曼时代”。但是两人的事业并未因此更进一步，相反地，他们遭到了以好莱坞为首的电影界的抵制，两人后来合作的电影大都在业内颇有口碑却难以与观众见面。整体来看，这段时期的作品反响远不如其他时期作品。 本片就是这个时期的作品，2013年《视与听》杂志邀请846位影评人共同参与投票，每人选出个人心中的影史十佳。票数汇总之后，得出影史佳片的50强。本片荣登Top50 #41，该片也曾入选《电影手册》年度十佳。 本片故事内容是战后一对中产阶级夫妻的在意大利的一次旅行，通过彼此感情的碰撞展示了战后欧洲民众的生态。故事的男主人公喜欢沾花惹草，女主人公喜欢感怀伤逝。在这次旅途中，男女主人公因为情感不和，中途各奔东西。但是经历这段不美好的意大利之旅，随着时间的推移，俩人逐渐认识到时光易逝，生命短暂，而爱情也并非永恒，需要彼此妥协，彼此维护。通过这对男女的感情变故，罗西里尼向我们展示了战后欧洲普通人的精神面貌，隐约显露出一股淡淡的忧伤。 通观全片，不能绝对地说这个故事的情感重点是婚姻感情，我觉得罗西里尼似乎有意识地情感重点停靠在“战争”这个点上。整部电影自始至终，镜头里都充斥着战后人们消极、迷茫、颓废的生活态度。罗西里尼通过这对男女的情感变故来展现欧洲战后普通人的情感变化，从他们游历途中的所见，以及自身的情感波动，反映出整个欧洲的思想意识形态。导演没有采用形式主义手法，刻意夸大人们的情感变动，而是把这种变动隐含在“婚姻变故”中。从这对恋人的爱情横生出来的枝节，看出欧洲二战之后的一种精神面貌。 男主角代表了这样一类人。客观地看待现状，并不想主动倾注自己的精力去改变现状。男主角面对婚变的做法是“逃避”，因为跟女主角的一些意见不合，男主角在某天清晨突然消失的无影无踪。他之所以寻欢作乐，不过是为了逃避目前的现状，而不是真的想要跑去玩乐。这一点，在男主人面对妓女的时候表现的极为明显。表面上，他在调情，但实质上，他也牵挂着女主角。这类人经历了战争，遭受了战争的创伤，他们却并不想着去改变什么，而是选择逃避，即便他们再怎么关爱着欧洲的现状。 而影片中，女主角在面对婚变时，她努力表现得若无其事，她明知道自己过得不够快乐，却努力装得美好非常。我们关心的并不是男主人的“游览”，而是女主角的“游览”，她的所见给我们展示了欧洲战后的现状。自然景观冷清，带着颓废，某处安放的一排排尸骨，静谧，哀伤。当镜头从女主角角度看去的时候，我们才真正感受到那股淡淡的忧伤。它不仅仅关乎男女主角之间破裂的爱情，更关乎整个欧洲的情感裂痕。 面对陈列的尸骨和被挖掘出来的死尸时，女主角几欲泪流。她因而想到了时光短暂，爱情未能永远，看到了爱情最终败给了生命，看到了她所不能接受的一切。 一个民族不经历战争，就不会懂得战争之痛。一个人不见识死亡，就揣摩不到生命的厚度，就不知道现在拥有的究竟何等珍贵。 《卧虎藏龙》里有句台词，我们能够触摸的，都没有永远。一切能够现在把握的，都看不到永久。能在一起的时候，请别轻易分离。 又突然想到李白一首诗。“夫天地者，万物之逆旅；光阴者，百代之过客。而浮生若梦，为欢几何？”想到此处，反观本片，这股淡淡的忧伤便越发明显。

《游览意大利》作为一部电影是有些尴尬的:在影评界拥有者极高声誉的同时，在民间评价却平平(豆瓣上只有7.8分，而letterboxd也只有3.9分)；它虽然是著名导演罗西里尼的电影，但是人们提到罗西里尼是最先想到的应该是《罗马，不设防的城市》《德意志零年》等作；主演是英格丽·褒曼，但这部电影却一直被忽略。

《游览意大利》是一部婚姻题材的电影，明显已经不属于意大利新现实主义的范畴，但是其中也带有浓厚的新现实主义气息，不止反映了婚姻和爱情，还描述了人们的精神状态以及资产阶级人的状况，可以说是一部包罗万象的作品

影片大体可以分为三段

一、二人来到意大利

这一段中，可以看到一桩近乎于完美的婚姻的背面:妻子认为自己与丈夫结婚7年，却仍然不了解自己的丈夫，继而认为自己的婚姻是无爱的；丈夫同样发现这个事实，但是他觉得还可以挽回，对妻子说:“那我们就像陌生人一样重头来过”

二人截然不同的态度，褒曼饰演的妻子想“将就”地讲婚姻延续下来，漠视已经出现的巨大分歧，丈夫积极地想要解决问题，但这个方法本身也寸步难行。

这两种态度的差异，不止出现在婚姻当中，而是战争后人们的共同状态。一方面像女主一样做鸵鸟状，浑浑噩噩地将日子过下去，像My Amour里面一样，在绝育、畸形、患病的状态下生活；一方面像男主一样，积极地提出无法实施的计划，根本无法解决问题。

这背后所映射出的，是战后人民巨大的空虚感和迷茫感。人们对于战争留下的问题束手无策，只能通过逃避或者说无视问题来不使自己痛苦和悲伤

而后丈夫的不告而别，就是激进的解决方式，看似带有伤害，反倒实质上解决了问题，在影片中，正是二人的分离，让他们思考了自己的婚姻并体会到了孤独的痛苦。当然这个行为同时也标志着影片第一段的结束，也是“游览意大利”片段的开始。

二、各自的旅程

第二段中，二人的状态也是不同的。丈夫显得沉默而忧郁，而妻子则是焦躁不安的状态。导演数次将镜头放在开车的褒曼身上，让观众看到她的心猿意马。可以明显的看出:女主去的地方远多于男主去的地方，这也展现了她急于为自己找到精神上忘掉丈夫的方法，她明显要比丈夫更慌张。

最让人记忆深刻的应当是她到博物馆:古希腊俊美的雕像，将人的美好保留了上千年。最长久和最短暂，最完美和最破碎，被置于同一个时空之下，也难怪妻子看到雕像后会震撼，在完美的人体面前，人人都只能自残形秽。这一段会让人想到克里斯·马克《堤》中二人游览博物馆的镜头(平心而论，《堤》这一段的冲击力强于《游览意大利》，哪怕前者只是一个PPT)。

不知褒曼那犹如雕塑一般的面容在看着雕像的时候，是作何感想，毕竟她和罗西里尼的婚姻刚好也只维持了七年而已，《游览意大利》对于她来说，是一种寓言。

还有妻子去看火山口那一段，同样的手法，自然的宏达，自然的愤怒，和渺小的旅人，又是极致的对比。壮丽的风景下的人，这一招后来又被李安学去，用在了《少年派的奇幻漂流》里

三、最后的重归于好

这一段中出现了以后被无数人分析讨论的镜头:夫妇二人在庞贝古城相见，看到两具尸体相拥而亡，女主惊慌失措，丈夫在游行队伍中追上了她，二人重归于好。

庞贝的尸体象征了什么？

也许象征了永恒的爱情，穿越时空，女主是被其隽永而震撼，感到惭愧；象征的或许是爱情定格的如此巧妙，也许这对夫妇生前也曾经“游览意大利”，但是时间选择保留他们最后的拥抱；或者这只是永恒伤痛的象征，女主感叹的是生命的虚无，所以她会痛苦不堪，所以夫妇才会复合。

不是因为爱情，而是因为害怕，害怕分开后一个人面对雕塑，一个人开车，一个人面对生活，害怕死时没有人可以拥抱，害怕孤独与寂寞。

游行队伍是人们，相比于几乎只有两个主角的前段和中段，这里的人数是全片最多的。象征着男女主终于融入了熙熙攘攘的社会，资产阶级人群走进普通世界，也是对人们在战后精神恢复的祝福

对于资产阶级的精神思考也是本片的母题之一，人际交往是如此的冷漠空洞，夫妇犹如陌生人，亲戚沦为陌路，所谓美好生活只不过是隔绝状况下的一个幻影。人人相敬，人人也相远。妻子带上墨镜就好像能拒绝整个世界，对所有问题不闻不问。这也是罗西里尼与褒曼的一场自我剖析，也许力度相较安东尼奥尼的作品可能少些，但是足够真诚，也是从另一个角度的思考

《游览意大利》或许不是单纯的婚姻电影，它不如戈达尔的《蔑视》般一针见血，也不如伯格曼的《婚姻生活》般让人痛彻心扉，它对于婚姻的描绘比以上两部都要单薄许多。妻子和丈夫的感情问题其实没有最终解决，该有的分歧还是存在，只不过对于空虚的恐惧让人们不得不抱团取暖而已

但是《游览意大利》的伟大在于包罗万象以及高超电影手法的运用:时空的对比，平行交错的时空剪辑，无限风光下撕裂的情感…它是一个简单的故事，也没有富有哲理的对白，但是真的有一种魔力，会让你无数次的回想它，品味它

罗西里尼给了一个很理想化的结局:人们会重新爱上对方，在失去中寻找爱情，最后冰释前嫌

这部电影就像罗西里尼的一个大问:

这个世界能变好吗？

片尾自顾自地回答了这个问题:

一定会变好的