Three Neorealist Classics

Three Neorealist Classics by Vittorio De SicaAuthor(s): Peter BondanellaSource: Cinéaste, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1997), pp. 52-53Published by: Cineaste Publishers, IncStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41688998 .

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HOMEVIDEO

Three Heorealìst

Classics by

Uittorio De Sica

by Peter Bondanella

There history ing as

is

Italian

no as ambivalent

moment

neorealism.

in or postwar as The fascinat-

argu-

film history as ambivalent or as fascinating as Italian neorealism. The argu-

ment about what neorealism represented became quite heated, particularly in France and Italy, and the critical debate it sparked on the nature of the cinema began with the appearance of Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City in 1945 and lasted well into the middle of the Fifties, when the polemics aroused by the international success of Fed- erico Fellini's La Strada in 1954 brought about what has been called, somewhat incorrectly, the 'crisis' of neorealism - a crisis primarily among leftist critics and film historians who did not approve of the direc- tion Italian cinema was then taking. The intellectual debate produced some of the cinema's greatest critical writings, including those on Italian neorealism by André Bazin. The debt of the French New Wave to Rossellini and his compatriots, as well as the emergence of a new generation of Italian filmmakers in the Sixties who took neoreâl- ist cinema as the foundation for their own revolutionary work - including Bernardo Bertolucci, the Taviani brothers, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Francesco Rosi - would guar- antee for Italian neorealism a place in the textbooks on film history.

Vittorio De Sica's crucial contribution to the birth and critical success of neorealism is evident from a screening of three of his greatest works - The Children Are Watching Us (1942), Miracle in Milan (1950), and

The Children Are Watching Us (photo courtesy Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive)

Umberto D. (1951) - all digitally remastered with new subtitles in new VHS videotapes. A viewing of these three new tapes, however, combined with two other works that should be remastered to join this collection - Shoeshine (1946), and The Bicycle Thief (1948) - will raise numerous interesting critical questions about the stereotypical vision of Italian neorealism that has all too often been enshrined in our textbooks. Con- sider the following statement:

We should make films that are extremely simple and spare in staging without using arti- ficial sets - films that are shot as much as pos- sible from reality. In fact , realism is precisely what is lacking in our films. It is necessary to go right out into the street , to take the movie camera into the streets , the courtyards, the barracks , and the train stations. To make a natural and logical Italian film , it would be enough to go out in the street , to stop any- where at all and observe what happens during a half hour with attentive eyes and with no preconceptions about style.1

This manifesto might be mistaken for a citation from the too-often quoted but rarely analyzed manifesto on Italian neorealism by Cesare Zavattinì,2 the scriptwriter who collaborated with De Sica on each of the films under review here. But it was writ- ten, instead, by Leo Longanesi, an Italian journalist who, at the time (1933), was a fer- vent fascist who is even reported to have invented the slogan "Mussolini ha sempre ragione !" ("Mussolini is always right!"). We have been taught that not only was neorealism a return to 'realism,' as opposed to tra- ditional studio or Hollywood practice (Zavattini's thesis), but that it was also a fundamentally antifascist cinema as well. Yet, both Longanesi and Zavattini have the same desire for a simple, nonconventional, essentially Italian 'reality' as the goal of the nation's filmmakers. Their assumption is that this Italian reality can be captured by returning the camera's eye to its primary function as a machine that merely documents, without altering or manipulating, the material that passes before its lens.

The three films by De Sica span the deci- sive years between the fall of the fascist regime and the postwar birth of the international art-film phenomenon known as neorealism. What they reveal about this moment in film history is revealing. The example of The Children Are Watching Us is particularly important, since its real locations, nonprofessional actors, and social issues (not to mention the collaboration of De Sica with Zavattini) - usually cited as typical of postwar neorealism - come direct-

Miracfe in Milan (photo courtesy Photofest)

ly from the highly polished and sophisticat- ed cinema during the fascist period. Neore- alist scriptwriters, directors, and technicians learned their trade during Mussolini's era (since the regime was very much in support of the cinematic art form, and not merely for propaganda purposes); they did not emerge full blown after the fall of Mussoli- ni's regime and take their cameras into the streets like amateurs.

De Sica's brand of neorealism, markedly different from the more obviously experi- mental film style typical of Roberto Rosselli- ni, represents a fascinating blend of some characteristics film historians traditionally associate with neorealism (nonprofessional actors on occasion, real locations, social themes) with the most highly developed techniques of international cinema - deep focus photography, highly literate scripts (there was no improvisation in anything De Sica or Zavattini ever did together), and professional performances from nonprofessional actors. One of De Sica's most individ- ual traits - his prowess in directing children or nonprofessionals - may be explained more by his own personality as a matinee idol actor in fascist Italy and his keen under- standing of the craft of screen acting from personal experience, rather than some abstract neorealist principle espousing the theory that only nonprofessionals are 'realis- tic.'

One of the most persistent myths many American critics tenaciously hold to is that the Italian neorealist cinema represented a dramatic break with national tractions. Naturally, individuals such as Rossellini, Antonioni, or Visconti, who under normal circumstances might be considered as at least 'fellow travelers' with the former regime after 1945, since many of them enjoyed close ties to Mussolini's cinephile son Vittorio or his journal Cinema , did not

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Umberto D. (photo courtesy Photofest)

emphasize how they and many others had learned their trade during the 1922-43 period when Mussolini was the undisputed ruler of the peninsula. Politically, it was far more expedient to proclaim an entirely new direc- tion in Italian film, beginning history over again, in a sense, with the fall of the regime.

From an esthetic perspective, however, there is very little question that the surpris- ing appearance of Italian neorealism on the international scene with the international success of Romay città aperta in 1945 con- cealed the essential continuity of much of what was best and most valuable in the cinema of Italy during the fascist period. The myth of a radical break between the past and the present not only put aside any embar- rassing questions of such compromising links to the past, but it also served to con- vince international audiences that some- thing new and exciting had emerged from the rubble of the bombed-out buildings all over the country and photographed so bril- liantly in the films these individuals offered to their publics. Films such as Rossellini's Paisà could justifiably be said to represent a new cinematic esthetic, but the works of a director such as De Sica - when examined today in the cold light of a dispassionate glance at the works spanning the late Thir- ties and the mid-Forties- argue for the essential continuity of Italian cinematic tradition before and after the war. Indeed, it would be impossible to imagine where the obvious cinematic skills of De Sica came from if not from a preexisting tradition of what the French would later call a "cinema of quality."

The three films* now available in newly mastered videotapes testify to the diversity, rather than to the stylistic or ideological homogeneity, of Italian neorealism. The Children Are Watching Us is a brilliant examination of how a child's innocence is destroyed by the adults around him. It con- tains the first of De Sica's great nonprofessional performances by a child. Umberto D.

is a heartrending account of the despair of old age, a film that is brilliant yet almost unbearable to watch. Its stylist use of deep- focus photography to create an atmosphere of loneliness and anguish, as well as its real- time unfolding of narrative time, make it a prime example of a work that combines tra- ditional cinematic technique with neorealist innovation. It was quite rightly considered a masterpiece by Bazin.

What will represent the greatest surprise to the viewer unfamiliar with De Sica's early works, however, is Miracle in Milan, which presents the familiar neorealist concern with poverty and unemployment typical of such films as The Bicycle Thief in a comic, surreal- istic atmosphere indebted to René Clair, fantasy, parable, and the fairy tale. In con- trast to De Sica's other works, where he obtains amazing professionalism from amateurs, this film also employs some of Italy's most famous dramatic actors.

The three videotapes, now in a new and far more accurate format than has been available for many years, represent three authentic masterpieces. Now that the defini- tion of Italian neorealism represents a topic for academic study rather than a burning intellectual issue among filmmakers and film audiences, a viewing of these marvelous works raises one important question: Why is Vittorio De Sica the least studied Italian director among all the many important fig- ures that have produced the postwar Italian cinema? If De Sica had made only these three films during his entire career, he would have deserved far more attention from film historians, biographers, and critics than he has received to date. At the present time, there is not a single English-lan- guage monograph on De Sica available (although one is promised from the Cam- bridge University Press Film Classics Series). This relative obscurity among American film critics and historians of an authentic genius speaks volumes about their ideological preoccupations and scholarly blind spots. ■

1 Leo Longanesi, "The Glass Eye," in Adriano Aprà and Patrizia Pistagnesi, eds., The Fabulous Thirties: Italian Cinema 1929-1944 (Milan: Electa International, 1979), p. 50. 2 Two different English versions of Zavattini's manifesto exist: "Some Ideas on the Cinema," in Richard Dyer MacCann, Film: A Montage of Theories (NY: Dut- ton, 1966), pp. 216-28; and "A Thesis on Neo-Real- ism," in David Overbey, ed., Springtime in Italy: A Reader on Neo-Realism (Hamden, CT: Archon Press, 1978), pp. 67-78. Distribution Source: The Children Are Watching Us: Directed by Vittorio De Sica; VHS, black and white, 85 mins., Italian dialog with English subtitles. Umberto D.: Directed by Vittorio De Sica; VHS, black and white, 99 mins., Italian dialog with English subtitles. Miracle in Milan: Directed by Vittorio De Sica; VHS, black and white, 96 mins., Italian dialog with English subtitles. Distributed by Home Vision Cinema, 5547 N. Ravenswood Avenue, Chicago, IL 60640-1199, phone (800) 826-3456.

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Three Neorealist Classics