The old man is played by Carlo Battisti, then 70, a university lecturer who had not acted before. Police disperse an organized street demonstration of elderly men demanding a raise in their meager pensions. With its thought-provoking structure, interweaving story lines, and saturated colors, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s debut feature represented a quantum leap in the audiovisual grammar of Mexican cinema. [1] The film's sets were designed by Virgilio Marchi. Amongst the other examples of Italian Neorealism- that subgenre that so melodramatically depicts lower middle-class lifestyle post-World War II, it may be the best of the best. As Umberto ducks underneath the barrier, we see many people moving in the opposite direction as Umberto, which is a common theme throughout the movie. Umberto D. – włoski dramat z 1952 roku w reżyserii Vittoria De Siki, będący jednym z ostatnich filmów zaliczanych do neorealizmu włoskiego[1]. One of the marchers is Umberto D. Ferrari, a retired government worker. According to Andreotti, De Sica was guilty of “slandering Italy abroad” by “washing dirty linen in public.” Writing in the voice of his party, his government, or the Italian nation—it wasn’t clear which—Andreotti said: “We ask De Sica not to forget the minimal commitment toward a healthy and constructive optimism that can help humanity to move forward and to gain some hope. Umberto is slowly being stripped of his dignity, and even of the desire for dignity. In the ending sequence, after having failed to … Beggars abound in the film, soup kitchens and charity wards extend their provisional shelter; but Zavattini also makes it plain that Umberto needs these resources partly because he ran up debts, while other pensioners are in the clear. The burden of decorum, the futility of culture: the film touches on these themes lightly, almost comically, in its opening sequence, but soon begins to insist upon them by positioning Umberto between two characters of contrasting status—apparently the last two people in the world with whom he is still in contact. Critics today tend to like the astringent parts: the long, deliberately undramatic sequences full of mundane activity (such as a housemaid’s morning routine), performed with little or no dialogue and shot as if in real time. Umberto's room has a gaping hole in the wall; the maid tells him it is to become part of an enlarged living room. Umberto Ferrari, aged government-pensioner, attends a street demonstration held by his fellow pensioners. She is three months pregnant, but is unsure which of two soldiers is the father, the tall one from Naples or the short one from Florence. He is the only major character other than the landlady to be played by a trained performer, the canine actor Napoleone. Umberto D tells about Italy in the hard and heavy moment of the post-war re-building, and in a way show a pain and a drama (I would say "tragedy) that the establishment did not want people to know then. Critics today tend to like the astringent parts: the long, deliberately undramatic sequences full of mundane activity (such as a housemaid’s morning routine), performed with … Umberto D. is a 1952 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. Umberto D starts with a protest in one of Rome’s city squares. Or was the pessimism that offended viewers in 1952 no more objectionable, intrinsically, than the sentimentality that bothers some critics today? The film was hailed by critics as a shining example of the maturity and emotional power of realism. A masterpiece of Italian neorealism, Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D. would also prove to be the last great film from the movement. I have sought with great humility to approach the true, poetic and limpid style of the great Robert Flaherty. By the end of the film, she will literally decorate Umberto out of her house, there being no space for him in her version of the high life. With the dismal release of Umberto D., Italy’s neorealist period came to an end. De Sica (1901-1974) said his method was to form a mental image of a character while working on the screenplay with his longtime collaborator Cesare Zavattini. Umberto D. is perhaps the most astringent film ever made about a poor old man and his dog. He returns to his room, and finds that his landlady has rented it out for an hour to an amorous couple. Umberto D. Directed by Vittorio De Sica • 1952 • Italy Starring Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio. Most of the actors were non-professional, including Carlo Battisti who plays the title role of Umberto Domenico Ferrari, a poor elderly man in Rome who is desperately trying to keep his rented room. His parting advice to the maid is to get rid of the boyfriend from Florence. "Umberto D" is one of the most successful demonstrations of that theory. In Umberto D., two very smart filmmakers had the courage to jerk tears, and created a masterpiece. Which brings us back to Flike. Neorealism intends to provide nothing but realism and the tedious aspects of life, but its dramatization is a desperate attempt, a cry, rather, for reform within the infrastructure of societal and economic norms. Umberto attempts to find a place for Flike, first with a couple who board dogs, then a little girl he knows, but the latter's nanny makes her give the dog back. Directed by Vittorio De Sica. This neorealist masterpiece by Vittorio De Sica follows an elderly pensioner as he strives to make ends meet during Italy’s postwar economic recovery. Unable to bring himself to beg from strangers on the street, Umberto contemplates suicide, but knows he must first see that Flike is taken care of. Umberto D was the last of the great cycle of Italian neo-realist films from director Vittorio de Sica. Umberto D. subtitles. A masterpiece of Italian neorealism, Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D would also prove to be the last great film from the movement. Nor does Umberto D. concern itself with the neorealist theme of economic hardship as such, despite Zavattini’s quickness in telling us, right in the first scene, how many lire Umberto gets for his monthly pension, how much he pays out in rent, and how much he owes. Umberto's lone friend is Maria, servant of the boarding house. Feeling ill, Umberto gets himself admitted to a hospital; it turns out to be tonsillitis, and he is discharged after a few days. A French remake entitled A Man and His Dog premiered in 2008. U mberto D. is perhaps the most astringent film ever made about a poor old man and his dog. Stream ad-free or purchase CD's and MP3s now on Amazon.com. This poignant story about a poor retiree facing eviction dutifully follows the neorealist template, with its plotless narrative, location shooting, and nonprofessional actors. And so, in Italy’s highly politicized film culture, Umberto D. opened without organized support, to compete against the recently revived Cinecittà’s superproductions and such government-subsidized fare as Don Camillo (1952), a nougat-centered clerical farce. Umberto runs after him. The camera glimpses Umberto two or three times during this ruckus, but it does not single him out until the protesters have dispersed, to pronounce curses against their own organizers and recover their breath. Jump to ↓ Selected Key Publications Research Interests Projects . His person—embodied by the nonprofessional actor Carlo Battisti, a Florentine professor of linguistic science—is distinguished by an alert, somewhat rabbity face and fussy manner, which hint at a lifetime of intelligence expended to no real effect on the world. There’s even room for a city bus, which noses forward in the opposite direction of the march, as if to assert the rights of normal routine. Flike becomes frightened, wriggles free and flees. He sells a watch and some books, but only raises a third of the amount. Shoeshine (1946) and Bicycle Thieves (1948) had brought into focus, for domestic and international viewers alike, the intuitions, concerns, and methods of Italy’s best postwar filmmakers, and so had established neorealism as a movement. Meanwhile, the sympathetic maid confides in Umberto that she has her own problems. It seems to us that the world fame that our directors have rightly acquired gives us the right to demand that he accept his duty and fulfill this task.”. Finally in desperation, Umberto takes the dog in his arms and walks on to a railway track as a speeding train approaches. Although Alessandro Cicognini’s music comes on with the throb of verismo opera, the initial view prompts curiosity more than tears. He had spent his life in show business; in his youth, he had been Italy’s most popular star. Unlike other neorealist films, such as Shoeshine or Bicycle Thieves, it is not a story about the working class. ... a band of kids comes sprinting from around the corner and once again headed in the opposite direction of Umberto. During the whole film Umberto is struggling to get by, and is eventually forced to leave his home because he could no longer pay the rent. So Umberto D. introduces its protagonist as one figure among many. For the beginnings of an answer, one need look no further than the first images of Umberto D., which dramatize an impromptu street demonstration by old-age pensioners. The film was directed by Francis Huster, co-written by Huster and Murielle Magellan, and stars Jean-Paul Belmondo in his first role in seven years, alongside Hafsia Herzi, Julika Jenkins and Francis Huster among others. He has been involved in malaria research since 1990 when he carried out the evaluation of the Gambian National programme on insecticide-treated bed nets. A. Richards once remarked that you could characterize an era of history according to a certain choice between anxieties: were people more worried about being thought sentimental or stupid? When I say that Umberto D. pushes neorealism to new extremes, then, it’s not only because of the film’s extraordinary concentration on the mundane but also because of its subject matter, which goes to the limit of social criticism. Prof. Umberto D'Alessandro (MD, MSc, PhD) has a long working experience in Africa, first as a clinician (Benin and Kenya) and later as a clinical epidemiologist (The Gambia). Umberto rushes to the city pound, and is relieved to find his dog. Why Watch Umberto D? The event has the circumstantial brusqueness of a news item—one of those fatti di cronaca that Zavattini liked to use as seeds for his stories. At first Flike warily hides, but eventually Umberto coaxes Flike out to play with a pine cone. 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