Vittorio De Sica Collection Three

Beautifully remastered imported set from South Korea made for the entire USA/Canada/Korea (NTSC, All-Region) with the original Italian soundtracks with English subtitles.These are the INITIAL theatrical releases as envisioned by De Sica. BICYCLE THIEVES: A beautiful, simple story of a man in post-war Rome who needs his bicycles in order to work at his job. No sooner does he retrieve it from pawn, then it is stolen. The heart-wrenching search teaches the man and his son much about the meaning of life and just how far we will go when pushed to the edge. Winner of a special Academy Award. SHOE-SHINE: Rarely available to the North America, the first major work directed by De Sica. It tells the story of two shoe-shine boys who get into trouble with the police after trying to find the money to buy a horse. One of the great Italian masterpieces - the quintessential neoclassic example. Product Description

DiSica And Minimilism

I have fond memories of DiSica's Shoeshine from a viewing in 1976 in a little theatre in Cleveland, Ohio. It was a powerful and sad film on my first viewing and has lost none of it's effectiveness now. Filmed just after WWII in locations around Rome using amateur and non-actors gives the film an immediacy and reality that is palable. It is a beautiful film told by a master storyteller who trusts his audience to understand the circumstances and ensuing emotions of the characters. Truly one of the great films.
While the extras are negligible, they are extremely informative to a student/fan of film. They touch on the DiSica's craft, his screenwriter's working relationship, and they enhance the understanding of what DiSica sought to portray. Not that he needed help, the films stand tall on their own. Great films for any student of good film. Amazing. October 28, 2008

Two Masterpieces

These films are so groundbreaking, it is difficult to find a place to begin. Let me just say that the engineers who remastered these films deserve much credit. There are no more annoying pops and crackling sounds such as can be found on the PAL version that I have of Shoeshine. The video portion is equally as good.

I will spend my time talking about the film Shoeshine, since this was the groundbreaking film that started it all. Shoeshine is a simple film that involves two boys, Giuseppe and Pasquale in 1945 Italy, who manage to get locked up for committing a petty crime. After being imprisoned in a youth detention center, both boys become very disillusioned and bitter over their fate.

Shoeshine has the distinction of being the very first film to win an Academy Award for best foreign film in 1947, when no Academy Awards for foreign films existed! There was not an Academy Awards classification for foreign films until 1956 !! Shoeshine was also well received at the Cannes film festival. The cinematographer, Gianpiero Brunetta remarked that this was quite a statement, since the French still had a lot of hostility towards the Italians after the war. Regardless of this animosity, many French film makers embraced the concept of neorealism immediately.

What is a neorealist film? As an amateur, I will do my best to describe what it is, using Shoeshine as an example. A neorealist film uses a natural background as opposed to a studio one. Amateur actors are used and the topic usually involves simple stories in an impoverished setting. To enhance the simple stories, the use of camera positions and the subject's relationship to the camera is also an important factor. For example, Nannarella, a frail little girlfriend of Giuseppe, is filmed walking away from the camera, to the other side of the street. In a way, she could represent the rebirth of Italy after having just freed herself from fascism. In another scene, this same girl is seen looking forlorned as her two friends, Giuseppe and Pasquale are being driven away to the youth detention center. Her eyes are fixed on the lens as she is filmed walking towards the camera as the camera moves away from her. There are many other examples of the neorealist style on this film, so I will allow you to discover what they are on your own.

The remastering of Shoeshine and Bicycle Thieves were done in Korea. They are in the NTSC version which means they will play on your DVD player. The subtitles are yellow which is a significant improvement from the old days of white subtitles. In addition, the default language is Korean, so be sure to take a few moments to set the subtitles to English before viewing each time. Enjoy these masterpieces! September 6, 2008

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