World Famous Comics: Ileana Simova Umberto D. - Criterion Collection
Ileana Simova Umberto D. - Criterion Collection
Starring: Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari, Ileana Simova, Elena Rea Directed By: Vittorio De Sica Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: Unrated Binding: DVD Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC Label: Criterion Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: July 22, 2003 Running Time: 91 minutes Theatrical Release Date: November 07, 1955
Description: Shot on location with a cast of nonprofessional actors, Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist masterpiece follows Umberto D., an elderly pensioner, as he struggles to make ends meet during Italy’s postwar economic boom. Alone except for his dog, Flike, Umberto strives to maintain his dignity while trying to survive in a city where traditional human kindness seems to have lost out to the forces of modernization. Umberto’s simple quest to fulfill the most fundamental human needs—food, shelter, companionship—is one of the most heartbreaking stories ever filmed and an essential classic of world cinema.
Amazon.com: Umberto D. is one of the enduring masterpieces of Italian neorealism, considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made. Everything that neorealism represents can be found in this simple, heartbreaking story of an aged Roman named Umberto (played by Carlo Battisti, non-professional actor and retired college professor) who struggles to survive in a city plagued by passive disregard for the post-World War II plight of the elderly. With his little dog, Flike, as his only companion, Umberto faces imminent eviction, and his insufficient pension and failed attempts to raise money lead him to contemplate suicide... if he can find a home for Flike. His dilemma--and director Vittorio De Sica's compassionate, unsentimental handling of it--results in a film of uncompromising grace and authenticity. Like De Sica's earlier masterpieces Shoeshine and The Bicycle Thief, Umberto D. earns its teardrops honestly; if this timeless classic doesn't make you smile and cry, you'd better check for a pulse. --Jeff Shannon
Great Lost between the glare of his earlier The Bicycle Thief, and his later films with Sophia Loren, Vittorio De Sica's 1952 film Umberto D. stands as an almost forgotten masterpiece of Italian Neo-Realism, and one of the last films that could claim to be of that movement alone. It was pilloried by myopic critics upon its opening- mostly Left Wing dilettantes who thought that the formerly middle class civil servant's tale was not `socially conscious' enough for the filmmaker to waste his talents on, and a few cineastes who felt it too maudlin and weepy. They simply did not understand the chasm between true sentiment and false sentimentality. The film flopped, but has steadily risen in De Sica's pantheon to being thought of as an equal to The Bicycle Thief, or right behind it. The truth is that it is very easy to portray the struggles of the impoverished, as De Sica did in The Bicycle Thief, and Shoeshine before it, as both were laden with struggling children, but to elicit the grandeur of feelings for an old man, Umberto (Carlo Battisti, non-professional actor and retired college professor from the University of Florence), alone in the world, takes a bit more. This is especially so since the lead character is not a particularly warm man. No, he's no Ebenezer Scrooge, but he's a proud and stubborn man who keeps himself emotionally withdrawn from life. He's an everyman, in that he was a civil servant, retired with a meager pension, and has lived in the same small room for decades, harried by a bitch of a bleached blond social climbing poseur of a landlady (Lina Garrari), who loathes him for unspecified reasons- she says he's behind on the rent, but how many people have never been in such a predicament, and are not treated the way she scorns this old gentleman? She even debases him by renting out his room to horny couples while he's away, and a scene of him returning to his soiled bed after strangers have copulated in it is precious- the look of disdain on Battisti's face is utterly priceless. That some people have also misread the film to indict the old man for failing to prepare for the consequences of old age shows how out of touch with reality many critics, then and now, are. These are the same people who would deny Social Security to their grandparents who contributed to it for years, and claim the old are selfish for wanting their fair share. Yes, Umberto is behind on his rent- but he was also living in a time of runaway inflation, that would have eaten up any of his meager savings. And, despite the characterizations of Umberto as cold, at times, he is never disrespectful, not in the blatantly obvious ways the landlady is to him. Thus, when one reads criticism of the film that jab at Umberto's character, or defend the landlady's sadistic actions, one is misreading the very `realism' that this Neo-Realistic film purports. And the truth is, that just as the dilemma faced by another aging civil servant, in Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, made the same year as Umberto D., has not changed in half a century or more, and across continents, neither has the dilemma this film shows really changed, and therein lies the timelessness of this tale- which will likely still be as relevant in five hundred years, albeit unfortunately. Sadly, I've known too many real life people like Umberto D., and the foolish criticisms of the film manifest flaws in the critics more so than in the film. The camera movements by Aldo Graziati never intrude on the simple tale penned by longtime De Sica collaborator and novelist Cesare Zavattini, which has some minor things in common with the more recent American film My Dog Skip, another great man and dog film. The DVD by The Criterion Collection is very crisp, and the white subtitles never are obscured, although, like the DVD release of The Bicycle Thief, an English language dubbed soundtrack should have been made, as well as a film commentary by some historian or scholar. The disk does come with a 55 minute Italian tv documentary called This is Life: Vittorio De Sica, a 12 minute interview with Maria Pia Casilio, and writings by Umberto Eco, Luisa Alessandri, and Carlo Battisti. Memories of the film by De Sica, and a new essay by film critic Stuart Klawans, are in the insert. Umberto D. is a great film, and like its kissing cousin, Ikiru, it shows that films on old people can be every bit as engaging as those about the young and beautiful, and not just run of the mill crap like the Grumpy Old Men fare Hollywood spews. Those who criticize this film and its ending are likely the same sort of cretins who find Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard films to be deep and/or moving. Neo-Realism was a movement that should never have flagged, and the world would be better off if a younger wave of filmmakers picked up the banner dropped over half a century ago, for it showed new ways to tell tales and core at the thing that is human in all things- even in the will of a small dog to live with his master, and what that will generates in return.
Crushingly Sad. I don't know what to say. I don't recall ever crying from a movie and I cried when I saw this picture. I'm almost sorry I saw it, but it is indeed a masterpiece.
The sadness I felt surprised me; this movie seemed to strike a nerve with its simplicity: just life as it is. Buddha taught that the first truth is that "life is suffering," and here we see it shot in black-and-white.
I'm not familiar with the film concept of 'neo-realism,' but 'real' is the pointed word for this movie. This movie is set in Italy more than fifty years ago but it seemed a stark and current documentary. Director Vittorio De Sica created that effect without scene-setting, back-grounding or character development. We immediately arrive on the street and take part in the lives of others as we would would in any city of the World: watching, listening and trying to put a context to what we see and hear. As the day fades we go to sleep with the characters and wake up with them the next morning in a continuous timeline: watching, I felt that I had slept the night too, awakening as unrelieved of Mr. Ferrari's dilemma as he is.
Perhaps this movie bothered me so because I too have a little dog who, like Flike, is obedient, devoted and believes I bring up the sun in the morning. Or possibly it is my dawning understanding of why Mr. Ferrari is treated so cruelly by seemingly anyone who crosses his path, even a lady on a park bench who gives a disgusted look at this neatly-dressed and dignified gentleman. It isn't the post-war Italian economy that has caused Mr. Ferrari's problems either, it is the astounding lack of empathy and pity that human beings sometimes have for a person who can not service them or society anymore. His landlady, for example, (who Mr. Ferrari helped and got meat for during the War: she called him 'Grandpa' then) has now ruined him financially by raising his rent until he can't pay it, and only to add his tiny room of twenty years to a parlor for her new socialite friends. She would kill his body if the law would allow but instead kills him body and soul by taking his last worldly resources and mocking him for his debt in a public spectacle. Mr. Ferrari fights as he can for his dignity, citing his 30 years of Ministry service to a crowd that ultimately turns away from him with contempt.
I've watched the ending several times trying to see hope there. Like life, sometimes hope runs out. I've thought, perhaps, that Mr. Ferrari moved to a new town with Flike, a town where his pension could support them; I've worked very hard to find a way for them to go on. But perhaps the children running into the final scene is to mean that we must all go on when our time comes so that youth can bloom in our place. I don't know. I just know I'm very sad from this movie and worse yet, I think I know why.
De Sica`s greatest work This is one of the greatest works of Italian cinema.It is a lamentable chronicle of a poor retiree trying to maintain his dignity and hold on to his dog.There are some depressing elements here,but those who can really feel for it`s protagonist will not find it "too depressing " or "boring "as some reveiwers have said;and while a few dramatic devices may be used ;I think this movie gives a faithful account of social conditions in postwar Italy,and is a good neorealist effort.If you want to see a real powerhouse of a drama,this movie is for you.
Umberto D. Portraying the plight of the elderly dispossessed in an acknowledged masterpiece of the neorealist style, De Sica's "Umberto D." may surpass his own "Bicycle Thief" for heartbreaking poignancy. What in less skillful hands could have been treacly melodrama becomes instead a wrenchingly honest tale about a forgotten human being searching in vain for some shred of human kindness. Half a century later, "Umberto D." remains a monumental achievement of simple, eloquent storytelling.
A masterpiece of neorealism Having seen the film I read a bit about it. The Criterion Collection provides a booklet with an excellent review by Stuart Klawans and a bit of an interview with director Vittorio De Sica. What I learned was that Umberto D. was a big flop at the box office in Italy primarily because the Italian government didn't like the film because they thought it was insulting since it made Italy seem so unfeeling, poverty-stricken, and mercantile. I was struck by this because, yes, poor Umberto and his dog are pretty much set out to pasture without so much as some grass and a bone. But to say that such a film reflects upon an entire people is perhaps to protest too much.
Italy was devastated by the failure of fascism and was just beginning to recover from the war when this film was made, and nobody wanted any downers. Vittorio De Sica's film is perhaps not so much of a downer as the early critics thought. The ending is ambiguous and while not hopeful for Umberto, is somewhat inspiring in the youthfulness of his dog and in the sweet humanity of the maid Maria who shoulders her situation with alacrity while showing affection and kindness toward a bitter old man.
I was not moved to tears as some have been in watching this. Umberto's troubles seem to me (from my privileged vantage point in time and place) somewhat of his own doing. I imagined that he supported the fascists, and I saw his poverty in his old age as a direct result of that support. Barring that, I imagined that he had planned poorly for his old age, and at any rate his values, represented by his always wearing a suit and tie and hat, and his inability to beg or to take some kind of job, disqualified him for tears. Of course I was unfair.
Even so my sympathy was with him, and I respected the decision he finally makes--although whether he will be able to carry it out is unclear. I respect his dignity, and identify with him in his struggle with the Teutonic and utterly bourgeois landlord who holds sway over him, played with a deliberately heavy presence by Lina Gennari, whom De Sica photographs up close and low to her large body to emphasize her strength and to make it clear to us that Umberto has no chance in his struggle with her.
Both Carlo Battisti who played Umberto and Maria Pia Casilio who played Maria, were considered amateur actors, very much in keeping with the neorealistic school of film; yet for me they were both excellent and natural, whereas Gennari, who was a professional, seemed artificial. But that impression is an artifact of the neorealist school (which they say died with this film). The very fact of no flourishes and no modeling and certainly no flights of creativity by the actors, it was believed, helped to make the film realistic, about real people in real situations.
Today of course this is a celebrated film, considered one of De Sica's best. He himself believed from the very beginning that it was one of his best even though he knew it would be hard-pressed to make any money for its producers.
A word about the dog (the other professional actor in the film). Flike is extraordinarily well-trained, so much so he becomes part of the psychology of the film and is at the very heart of the denouement. The scene near the end where Umberto dips under the rail guard as the train approaches, Flike held close to his chest--and the scene after--is of one of the great sequences in cinema, and, ironically, as in a commercial film, stars a dog! Umberto D. is in fact one of the greatest dog films ever made. All dog lovers will appreciate the love that Umberto feels for his dog and the love that is returned AND the gutty realism that the dog displays.
The DVD includes a documentary about De Sica that I didn't have a chance to view, excellent subtitles, and a video interview with Maria Pia Casilio.
I would almost say, see this for the dog, but do see this for Vittorio De Sica, one of cinema's greats, here at his best, and for Cesare Zavattini who wrote the compelling script.
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