Umberto D. - Criterion Collection (1955)

Crushingly Sad.

*Minor Spoiler at End*
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.

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 I felt I was in that time and place with people I knew. Director Vittorio De Sica created that effect without any of the standard story-telling (and patience-wasting) gimmicks such as scene-setting, back-grounding or character development. 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.

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.

Perhaps this movie anguished 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.
June 5, 2008

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. September 28, 2007

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. June 27, 2007

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. June 19, 2007

A Masterpiece

Umberto D is a masterpiece of neo-realism with many interwoven stories, not just that of poor Umberto. It's also a story of urban life, ageing, poverty, young people and pretension in Italy in the 1950s. A tear jerker for both women and men. February 12, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...