Review: Man, this 4 hour documentary really seemed to go on forever. It's full of footage from the early years in Italian cinema, but I don't think that I have ever watched an Italian movie. At first, I did find it quite interesting because it was good to see how far the world of cinema has progressed, but I lost interest after a while. I liked when Scorsese was talking about his family and how it was to grow up in America back in the early years, but once he starts to get into the various directors and actors that influenced him to make movies, I did drift off a couple of times. My main problem with the documentary was that I hadn't seen or heard of any of the movies that Scorsese was talking about, so I didn't have a clue why the movies were so important back in a day and age when I wasn't born yet. I can understand how the movies had changed his life, but it's a world that I really can't relate to. In all, it's a well put together documentary which gives a deep insight into a Italian cinema, but you have to have an interest in this genre to be able to find the whole 4 hour experience interesting. Average! Round-Up: Scorsese really hasn't lost his touch nowadays, and he is still pulling in huge audiences at the box office. This documentary really does show that he was a lover of movies at a really early age and it gives a complete different point of view about the world of cinema. With movies like the Taxi Driver "You Talking To Me", to films like Goodfellas and Casino, I doubt that were ever going to get a director that can mix deep drama with heavy violence so well. After watching were he got his influences from, it really doesn't seem like he would ever make movies the way that he does. Maybe thats because of his unique vision which your everyday person well never be able to create, write or direct, because he is coming from such a different angle which is deeply rooted inside him. As I director, I rate him highly, but as a documentary, it's just way too long. Budget: N/A Domestic Gross: $11,600I recommend this movie to people who are into there documentaries which show the many movies and actors which have influenced Martin Scorsese to make movies. 4/10

This is less a documentary than a visual diary of one man's selective view of Italian Cinema of the 50's & 60's. Of course, when that man is Martin Scorsese, it demands the attention of cineastes worldwide. In the introduction, one could assume that Scorsese will give a general view of the Italian films he saw as a child and as a young adult. But soon, he plunges into a hour plus mini-documentary of Roberto Rossellini. This is certainly understandable not only because Rossellini was a seminal Italian filmmaker, but because Scorsese in fact married into the family (via his ex Isabella). From there it's on to Visconti, De Sica, Fellini and Antonioni. And, that's about all. A few other filmmakers are touched upon briefly, but those five comprise the heart of the nearly 4 hour long film. Of course, rarely has a country given the world cinema a quintet as gifted as these five men. Still, it would have been illustrative if Scorsese had donated perhaps half and hour of the picture to a survey of the other Italian filmmakers of the era. These are mere quibbles, however. For no world class filmmaker (with the possible exception of Truffuat) has ever poured out so much emotion and depth of understanding for other directors as Scorsese has here. The portrayal of Rossellini in particular will be hard-pressed to ever be equaled - let alone surpassed. A demanding, yet essential film history.

A vanity piece, of sorts, that could be retitled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Italian Film History But Were Afraid to Ask...Martin Scorsese." Wonderfully informative, touching and insightful for the first 2 to 3 hours or so, but exhaustive and exhausting after that. Viva Italia, Basta Scorsese!

This labor of love represents one of the greatest triumphs of director Martin Scorsese's career. Picking up where his "Personal Journey Through American Movies" left off, "My Voyage to Italy" expands upon and enriches the themes of the earlier documentary as the focus shifts to Italian cinema. It's not merely a great film about Italian movies, though it is that--with the help of collaborators such as the always incisive film critic Kent Jones and the always reliable editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese crams a semester's worth of Italian film history and criticism into four hours. Beyond being a thoroughly entertaining and insightful cinema course, however, "My Voyage to Italy" is a marvelous film about the intersection between movies and day-to-day life, both on a personal scale (as Scorsese recounts the effect that Italian films had on him and his family as he was growing up) and an international one (as Scorsese delineates the relationship between movements such as Italian neorealism and the historical context of the time). This is a movie that reminds us that movies matter, and Scorsese and his collaborators appropriately make the connection between the films under discussion and more recent works from countries such as Taiwan and Iran---showing us that the tradition of socially engaged filmmaking is alive and well, and that the world is a richer place because of it. This is a gift to film lovers everywhere, and stands alongside "Casino" and "Kundun" as yet another recent masterpiece by perhaps America's greatest filmmakers.