The team of writer Cesare Zavattini and director Vittorio De Sica were responsible for the best Italian comedies of the 1960s. Earlier, they were responsible for three of the greatest neorealist tear-jerkers: Shoeshine (1946), The Bicycle Thief (1948), and Umberto D (1952, ). "Umberto D" was De Sica's favorite of his movies rather than the best. It has a wrenching performance by a non-actor, retired University of Florence philology professor Carlo Battisti, as Umberto Domenico Ferrari. His memorable performance is matched by that of his dog Flike. The sweet servant girl who tries to help Umberto was played by De Sica discovery Maria-Pia Casilio, whom he cast as a good luck charm in all his subsequent movie was a natural, as De Sica realized. (She says that she had never even seen a movie, let alone thought about being in one.) In an interview included on the Criterion DVD she says that De Sica acted out exactly what he wanted from her and Battisti (who, she recalled, had difficulty remembering lines). I don't know if he also did this for the dog, but I swear the dog conveys the emotions the director wanted. (Napoleone was the name of the dog playing Flike and was one of only two trained performers in the cast—the other being the snippy landlady.)

Also on a DVD bonus feature, a now-famous Umberto (Eco) speculated on why the movie flopped in Italy (and, indeed, Europe) on its initial release ("Umberto D" is an instance of recognition stemming from the US). The hard times that were universal immediately after World War II in Italy were giving way to prosperity, though it was uneven, and Eco suggests that Italians did not want to be reminded that segments of the society (state pensioners in this instance) were still suffering. Public Works retiree Umberto D is being evicted by an upwardly mobile, very hard blonde (Lina Gennari) who resembles (a later, soap-opera queen, phase of) Lana Turner.

In liner notes, De Sica himself made the important point that "it would have been easy to make [Umberto] a sentimental, conventional, pathetic old man in order to make him more acceptable and pleasing, but Umberto is an old 'bourgeois,' whose former life we do not know. His past does not matter to us. What matters is Umberto today [1952], in his seventies, alone near the close of his life, with all the burden of bitterness and past struggles that have made him an irritable old man, almost unpleasant. In his behavior he is neither pathetic nor sentimental. He is good only to the good, and extremely disagreeable to those who are not good to him," notably his landlady. He cares greatly about Flike and quite a bit about Maria (Casilio) as she desperately tries to figure out which of her two soldier boyfriends (a tall one from Naples, a squatter one from Florence) impregnated her and/or which of them will take responsibility ("do the right thing" by her). There's little she can do to keep him in a household in which her own position is tenuous. Umberto tries to get help from acquaintances who ignore the neediness the audience see but that they do not want to acknowledge—any more than the Italian government did.

The movie was denounced by Italian communists and by the ruling Christian Democrats (in the person of seven-time prime minister and reputed Mafia-tool Giulio Andreotti as too pessimistic. Andreotti, who controlled film production and censorship in Italy at the time accused De Sica and Zavattini of "slandering Italy abroad" and "washing our dirty linen in public," demanding "a healthy and constructive optimism" in place of showing the plight of pensioners unable to live (let alone live with any dignity) on their pensions. The New York Film Critics voted "Umberto D" the best foreign-language film of the year and Zavattini received an Oscar nomination, and the movie now seems to border on being too sentimental rather than too harsh, but is a lauded forerunner of "today's cinema of the steady gaze." (The phrase is Stuart Klawans's.)

With Italy facing a mounting crisis of an aging population and with government pensioners being squeezed almost as tightly as they were during the inflation of the early 1950s, the movie is all-too-relevant. The way De Sica did not single out Umberto in the opening scene of an unathorized demonstration by pensioners that is broken up by the police subtly makes clear that his plight is far from unique. Immediately after fleeing to safety, one of his acquaintances berates the organizers for not getting a permit for the demonstration, which introduces the theme of the pressures of decorum instilled into these old men hanging on to shreds of their dignity as (former) officials (not one of the burdens of the unemployed "Bicycle Thief" or of the lumpenproleteriat shoeshine boys in "Shoeshine").

The musical soundtrack by De Sica regular —at least through one more movie beyond "Umberto D"—Alessandro Cicognini is coercively throbbing neo-Puccini. Perhaps its unsubtelty made it possible to rely little on dialogue and still make clear what Umberto was thinking?

Although the running time is only 89 minutes, it is a slow 89 minutes with no real drama. There are confrontations, but mostly there are failures of sympathy and understanding. Umberto is mostly a victim of these, but also shows little interest and less ability in understanding anyone other than Maria.

For more on the plot (I'm astounded there could be that much to say about that little!) and a discerning thematical analysis of "Umberto D." see the review by review by metalluk.

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In writing a review I did not intend to write, I've drawn on the very unvain interview of Maria-Pia Casilio the liner notes from De Sica and Suart Klwans and the on-disc essay by Umberto Eco. It also includes an entertaining text with two good stories by long-time De Sica assistant director Luisa ALessandri, and a brief, not particularly consequential one by Carlo Battisti about being cast in the title role.

I almost failed to mention the crisp images and clear sound of the remastered Criterion DVD. The remastering deserves the highest praise, and the subtitles (when there is dialogue) are clearly readable (no white on white!).

The disc also includes a 2001 Italian television documentary "That's Life: Vittorio De Sica," directed by Sandro Lai, drawing heavily on a late-1960s retrospect hosted by De Sica. This 55-minute feature is enjoyable for someone interested in De Sica's movie. It is, however, devoid of information on his early life and influences, and devotes little attention to his long acting career (IMD lists 177 appearances). The exception is some footage from the making of Rosselini's great "Il Generale della Rovere," which contains De Sica's greatest performance). There is a puzzling abundance of references to the difficulties of getting "The Last Judgment" funded. (It was made in 1961, starring Alberto Sordi.)

The only real substance is an explanation for using non-actors (for their faces, but also for inhabiting parts of society unfamiliar to actors). This is more than a bit ironic in that in addition to Italian stars Sophia Loren (multiple times), Alberto Sordi, Vitorio Gassman, Rossano Brazzi, Elsa Martinelli, and Marcello Matroianni, in the 1960s De Sica made movies starring Peter Sellers, Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine, Fredric March, Alan Arkin, Robert Wagner, Victore Mature, Lex Barker, Maxmillian Schell, Helmut Berger, and Philippe Noiret. (No one speaks authoritatively about De Sica other than De Sica herein).

The shy writer Cesare Zavattini , who worked with De Sica on at least 20 completed movies (and all of the best ones), is included in De Sica's suave self-presentation from the late-1960s television piece. There is, however, no real insight into what De Sica and Zavattini accomplished or sought to accomplish in/with theirmovies. Watching him direct scenes from "Two Women" and "The Condemned of Altona" are interesting, as it watching Sophia Loren waiting patiently in the background of two 1960s press appearances by De Sica. (It would have been better to ask her to recollect working with the director who helmsed nearly all of her best work. On the disc this is remedied to a degree by the very insightful remarks about working with De Sica from Maria-Pia Casilio.)

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My other De Sica/Zavattini reviews
Shoeshine (1946)
After the Fox (1966)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
A Brief Vacation (1973)



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD