September 24, 2019 (XXXIX: 5) Vittorio De Sica: UMBERTO D
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
September 24, 2019 (XXXIX: 5) Vittorio De Sica: UMBERTO D (1952, 98m) The version of this Goldenrod Handout sent out in our Monday mailing, and the one online, has hot links. Spelling and Style—use of italics, quotation marks or nothing at all for titles, e.g.—follows the form of the sources. DIRECTOR Vittorio De Sica WRITING story and screenplay by Cesare Zavattini PRODUCED BY Giuseppe Amato, Vittorio De Sica, and Angelo Rizzoli MUSIC Alessandro Cicognini CINEMATOGRAPHY G.R. Aldo EDITING Eraldo Da Roma The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing (Cesare Zavattini) in 1957. CAST Carlo Battisti...Umberto Domenico Ferrari Maria Pia Casilio...Maria Lina Gennari...Antonia Belloni Best Supporting Actor for playing Major Rinaldi in Ileana Simova...La donna nella camera di Umberto American director Charles Vidor's 1957 adaptation of Elena Rea...La suora all' ospedale Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, a movie that was Memmo Carotenuto...Il degente all' ospedale panned by critics and proved a box office flop. De Sica's acting was considered the highlight of the film. He also VITTORIO DE SICA (b. July 7, 1901 in Sora, Lazio, won the Grand Prize of the Festival for Miracolo a Milano Italy—d. November 13, 1974 (age 73) in Neuilly-sur- (1951), the OCIC Award for Il tetto (1956), and was Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France) was an Italian director (35 nominated three times for the Palm d’Or at the Cannes credits) and actor (161 credits), a leading figure in the Film Festival. These are the other films he directed: Rose neorealist movement (23 writing and 8 producer credits). scarlatte (1940), Maddalena... zero in condotta (1940), His meeting with Cesare Zavattini was a very important Doctor, Beware (1941), Un garibaldino al convento (1942), event: together they created some of the most celebrated The Children Are Watching Us (1944), Indiscretion of an films of the neorealistic age, like Sciuscià (Shoeshine) in American Wife (1953), The Gold of Naples (1954), Two 1946 and Bicycle Thieves (1948), both of which De Sica Women (1960), The Last Judgment (1961), Boccaccio '70 directed. Four of the films he directed won Academy (segment "La riffa") (1962), The Condemned of Altona Awards: Sciuscià and Bicycle Thieves (honorary), while (1962), Marriage Italian Style (1964), Un monde nouveau Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) and Il giardino dei (1966), After the Fox (1966), Woman Times Seven (1967), Finzi Contini (1970) won the Academy Award for Best A Place for Lovers (1968), Sunflower (1970), Lo chiameremo Foreign Language Film. Indeed, the great critical success of Andrea (1972), A Brief Vacation (1973), and The Voyage Sciuscià (the first foreign film to be so recognized by the (1974). And these are some of his other film parts: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) and Bicycle Clemenceau Affair (1917), Beauty of the World (1927), Thieves helped establish the permanent Best Foreign Film Company and the Crazy (1928), The Old Lady (1932), Love Award. These two films are considered part of the canon of Passes By (1933), The Lucky Diamond (1933), Bad Subject classic cinema. Bicycle Thieves was cited by Turner Classic (1933), The Song of the Sun (1934), Mr. Desire (1934), Movies as one of the 15 most influential films in cinema Lohengrin (1936), The Man Who Smiles (1937), Mister history. De Sica was also nominated for the 1957 Oscar for Max (1937), Naples of Former Days (1938), Departure De Sica—UMBERTO D—2 (1938), They've Kidnapped a Man (1938), Department was writing the plot for the comic strip Saturn against the Store (1939), It Always Ends That Way (1939), Manon Earth with Federico Pedrocchi (script) and Giovanni Lescaut (1940), The Two Mothers (1940), The Sinner Scolari (art) for I tre porcellini (1936–1937) and Topolino (1940), The Adventuress from the Floor Above (1941), (1937–1946). In 1935, he met Vittorio De Sica, beginning Doctor, Beware (1941), La guardia del corpo (1942), Our a partnership that produced some twenty films, including Dreams (1943), Responsibility Comes Back (1945), Roma such masterpieces of Italian neorealism as Sciscià (1946), città libera (1946), Lost in the Dark (1947), Heart and Soul Ladri di biciclette (1948), Miracolo a Milano (1951), and (1948), Tomorrow Is Too Late (1950), The Earrings of Umberto D. (1952). In 1952, Zavattini gave an interview Madame De... (1953), It Happened in the Park (1953), to The Italian Film Magazine 2, republished in English as Bread, Love and Dreams (1953), "Some Ideas on the Cinema." The Marriage (1954), The Anatomy of thirteen points Zavattini outlined Love (1954), The Bed (1954), are widely regarded as his manifesto Modern Virgin (1954), The Gold to Italian neorealism. He was of Naples (1954), Too Bad She's nominated for three Oscars Bad (1954), It Happens in Roma throughout his career. These are (1955), The Miller's Beautiful some of the other films he wrote Wife (1955), Roman Tales for: I'll Give a Million (1935), La (1955), Scandal in Sorrento danza delle lancette (1936), Doctor, (1955), The Bigamist (1956), Beware (1941), Don Cesare di Nero's Mistress (1956), A Tailor's Bazan (1942), Our Dreams (1943), Maid (1957), The Guilty (1957), The Children Are Watching Us It Happened in Rome (1957), (1944), The Testimony (1946), Count Max (1957), Casino de Roma città libera (1946), La grande Paris (1957), Sunday Is Always aurora (1947), Guerra alla guerra Sunday (1958), Fast and Sexy (1948), The Walls of Malapaga (1958), Bread, Love and (1949), Miracle in Milan (1951), Andalucia (1958), The Girl of San The Overcoat (1952), Indiscretion of Pietro Square (1958), Venetian Honeymoon (1959), Men an American Wife (1953), A Husband for Anna (1953), The and Noblemen (1959), Il Generale Della Rovere (1959), The Walk (1953), Angels of Darkness (1954), Ali Baba and the Angel Wore Red (1960), The Battle of Austerlitz (1960), The Forty Thieves (1954), The Doll That Took the Town (1957), Millionairess (1960), Love in Rome (1960), The Last Men and Wolves (1957), Lipstick (1960), Two Women Judgment (1961), The Wonders of Aladdin (1961), The (1960), Blood Feud (1961), The Young Rebel (1961), Orderly (1961), The Two Marshals (1961), Lafayette Boccaccio '70 (1962), The Condemned of Altona (1962), (1962), The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), Mysteries of Rome (Documentary) (1963), The Boom An Italian in America (1967), The Biggest Bundle of Them (1963), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), After the All (1968), Dear Caroline (1968), The Shoes of the Fox (1966), Woman Times Seven (1967), A Place for Lovers Fisherman (1968), If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1968), The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970), and The (1969), Twelve Plus One (1969), Cose di Cosa Nostra Children of Sanchez (1978). (1971), Snow Job (1972), The Adventures of Pinocchio (TV Mini-Series) (1972), Blood for Dracula (1974), and The G.R. ALDO (b. January 1, 1905 in Scorzè, Veneto, Hero (TV Movie) (1976). Italy—d. November 14, 1953 (age 48) in Italy) was an Italian cinematographer (14 credits). These are the films he CESARE ZAVATTINI (b. September 29, 1902 in worked on: Couleurs de Venise (Documentary short) Luzzara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy—d. October 13, 1989 (1946), La Terra Trema (1948), Heaven Over the Marshes (age 87) in Rome, Lazio, Italy) was an Italian screenwriter (1949), Sins of Pompeii (1950), Tomorrow Is Too Late (118 credits) and one of the first theorists and proponents (1950), Domani è un altro giorno (1951), Miracle in Milan of the Neorealist movement in Italian cinema. He studied (1951), Othello (1951), Umberto D. (1952), Three law at the University of Parma, but devoted himself to Forbidden Stories (1952), The Wayward Wife (1953), writing. In 1930 he relocated to Milan, and worked for the Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953), Via Padova 46 book and magazine publisher Angelo Rizzoli. After Rizzoli (1954), and Senso (1954). began producing films in 1934, Zavattini received his first screenplay and story credits in 1936. At the same time he De Sica—UMBERTO D—3 CARLO BATTISTI (b. October 10, 1882 in Trento, DS: Neorealism is not shooting films in authentic locales; Tyrol, Austria-Hungary [now Trentino-Alto Adige, it is not reality. It is reality filtered through poetry, reality Italy]—d. March 6, 1977 (age 94) in Florence, Tuscany, transfigured. It is not Zola, not naturalism, verism, things Italy) was an Italian linguist, actor (1 credit), and which are ugly. documentary filmmaker (1 credit), famed for his starring CTS: By poetry do you mean scenes like the one in The role in Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D. (1952). He studied Bicycle Thief, where the father takes his son to the trattoria linguistics at the University of Vienna and founded, along in order to cheer the boy up only to be overcome with the with Ettore Tolomei, the nationalist journal Archivio per weight of his problems? l'Alto Adige in 1906. In the early 1920s he became DS: Ah, that is one of the few light scenes in the film. professor of glottology of the University of Florence. CTS: But sad at the same time. Throughout his life he published numerous books and DS: Yes, that’s what I mean by poetry. articles on a wide gamut of linguistic topics, ranging from phonetics to Italian dialectology to toponomastics and Vulgar Latin. In recognition of his accomplishments and expertise, Battisti was elected to the Italian national language academy, Accademia della Crusca, in 1925. In 1955 he directed the documentary Nozze fassane. MARIA PIA CASILIO (b. May 5, 1935 in San Pio Delle Camere, Abruzzo, Italy—d. April 10, 2012 (age 76) in Rome, Lazio, Italy) was an Italian film actress (35 credits), best known for major roles in Umberto D.