Thanks for the memories!

It is a performances centric movie

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Four hours of Martin Scorsese talking us through his favourite Italian (mainly neo-realist) films. The format is odd. The problem is not that we don't get to see much of Scorsese - he appears only occasionally - but that he basically presents condensed versions of entire films - lots of them one after the other, using an extensive series of clips over which he narrates the story from beginning to end, giving away everything. This is annoying, and it is necessary to keep fast-forwarding in order to avoid all the spoilers.Rossellini gets most attention - a third of the film is devoted to him. Rome Open City, Paisan, Flowers of St Francis, and Viaggio in Italia are all treated in depth. The others, and the films that he singles out to rave about, are: Visconti (Senso), Fellini, (I Vitelloni), De Sica (Gold of Naples) and Antonioni (L'Avventura) - although many others touched on in less detail.Scorsese insists repeatedly that these films influenced his own work, but at no point gives any particular examples, and it's hard to see any. Where is the realism and the humanism in Scorsese's films? He admires Viaggio in Italia for not leaping from one climax to the next, instead allowing the drama to unfold through small moments - and yet breaks that precept completely in The Aviator.It's relentless adulation rather than critical assessment, and that becomes dull. Without adding enough critical value, it's hard to understand the point of the whole exercise.

Martin Scorsese's documentation of Italian cinema was an education for me. Being 1st generation Italian, I gained a better understanding of my parents and nonni's political and cultural experience. Thank you Martin for compiling these great works of art. I look forward to sharing this video with family and friends.

I definitely enjoyed an evening watching Turner Classic Movies listening to Martin Scorsese discuss his appreciation and affection for many of the formative films of Italian cinema, particularly the neo-realism movement and the post-war works of Rossellini, De Sica, Fellini, Visconti and Antonioni. So personal is this documentary, that it was like spending an evening with a friend sharing a mutual interest; and for those with an interest in International cinema, this is a rare treat. My suggestion is to hunt down as many of these films as you can find on video, then view them on the biggest television you can find. Among the more obscure and brilliant works discussed are PAISAN, GERMANY-YEAR ZERO, OSSESSIONE, SENSO, L'ECLISSE and I VITELLONI; along with more popular masterpieces, OPEN CITY, BICYCLE THIEF, LA DOLCE VITA, EIGHT AND A HALF and L'AVVENTURA. Superb!

In A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, (1995) (TV), the eponymous legendary director took us on a proverbial tour of his old neighborhood: the Hollywood movies of the 30s, 40s and 50s which were his school on screen.He now takes us on a second tour of his early influences, this time of early post-war Italian cinema which he recalls growing up watching on an Italian t.v. station in New York, albeit dubbed into English.Want to know those influences? Buy it and watch it.Like with the earlier documentary, this one is an immediate collection standard for everyone from the movie buff to Scorsese's heirs-in-the-making. You may be tempted to watch it through as I tried to one Friday night on a cable broadcast. You'd be better off watching it in segments al la the film school classroom. I know I will.