Vittorio De Sica Hits His Neorealistic Stride with the Profound Shoeshine

 

A major work in cinema, 1946’s Shoeshine announced on a global scale a new directorial force in film in the form of actor/writer Vittorio De Sica, who granted audiences an insightful, stark look at Rome, Italy, just after WWII. In detailing the tale of two young impoverished boys, Pasquale and Giuseppe, and how their friendship evolves as they face a series of life-changing events after working to purchase a beloved horse via the title profession and through other avenues, De Sica uses on-location shooting and untried actors to create a remarkably realistic mise-en-scène that lands with shattering impact. In unfolding the moving and straightforward narrative created by frequent De Sica collaborator Cesare Zavattini, along with fellow screenwriters Sergio Amide, Adolfo Franci and Cesare Giulio Viola, De Sica manages to capture a time and place as effectively as anyone, helping the new Neorealism movement in film progress substantially after the previous year’s Rome, Open City from Roberto Rossellini brought the genre to worldwide prominence. Alessandro Cicognini’s alternately poignant and playful score, Ubaldo Arata’s evocative, often documentary-style cinematography and Eraldo Da Roma’s precise editing are other key factors that draws one into the story with immediacy, resulting in an unforgettable and thought-provoking viewing experience.

                Born in 1901, De Sica started his theatrical career as an actor in the 1920s before his entry into Italian films in the 1930s, leading to his debut as director via 1940’s Rose scarlatte, in which he also starred, followed by intriguing fare harboring neorealistic touches such as The Children Are Watching Us and 1945’s The Gate of Heaven. With Shoeshine, De Sica appears to have masterly developed complete control in crafting his artistic vision to film with intelligence and truth, allowing for total involvement in Pasquale and Giuseppe’s plight as the lost youngsters find themselves caught up in a legal system set up to work against them at every turn, leading to vivid scenes in a juvenile detention center wherein De Sica is able to show how ill-equipped postwar Italy was in attempting to care for these abandoned youths. De Sica demonstrates great care and sensitivity in dealing with his cast, from stars Franco Interlenghi and Rinaldo Smordoni as Pasquale and Giuseppe and the peers they encounter in jail, to the adult players such as Emilio Cigoli, Maria Campi, Leo Garavaglia and Irene Smordoni, including those enacting the boys’ relatives and some of the officials overseeing the boys, authority figures who are given a sense of individually and understanding via honest portrayals that show at least some attempt to exhibit compassion along with sterner qualities as they discipline their young charges.

                De Sica spends much of his focus illustrating the harsh conditions the wayward adolescents deal with, lending to some startlingly believable passages, including a scene wherein the gentle, kind, frail Raffaele (Annielo Mele), who has befriended Pasquale, learns his mother cannot come to visit him, and starts to cry. In some hands this moment could come across as forced and maudlin, but De Sica resourcefully captures Raffaele’s disappointment with a simplicity and immediacy that hits an empathic viewer with alarming potency. De Sica draws the audience into the drama with a ”You are There” conviction that is maintained throughout the movie, making the characters and their journeys impossible to forget. Following this remarkable work, De Sica would reteam with Zavattini for an astounding run of influential classics during the next few years, including the Oscar-winning Bicycle Thieves in 1948, Miracle in Milan and Umberto D. De Sica would continue apace with a phenomenal film career as both actor, writer and director, wherein as a performer he gained an Oscar nomination for David Selznick’s 1957’s massive production of A Farewell to Arms, while behind the camera his supreme gifts helped launch Sophia Loren in The Gold of Naples, leading to a fruitful partnership, with Loren’s Oscar-winning work in Two Women, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (which won the Foreign Language Film Oscar), Marriage, Italian Style and his final directorial effort shortly before his passing in 1974, The Voyage, shortly after he helmed other Foreign Film Oscar winner, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and scored a success in a final collaboration with Zavattini, A Brief Vacation.

As Pasquale, the tall, somber older of the two boys, Interlenghi shows an innate gift for intuitive, heartfelt screen acting of the highest order, handling the demanding role with great intensity and sincerity. Pasquale has a demanding character arch wherein he is torn between maintaining silence concerning a specific crime, and his loyalty towards Giuseppe. In one of the most riveting and emotionally charged scenes Pasquale, who believes Giuseppe is in danger, must make a difficult decision, and the manner in which Interlenghi conveys the nervous, conflicted mindset of Pasquale hits a viewer with devasting effect. In every scene Interlenghi appears to react to events and his costars with a fascinating focus, sensitivity and conviction only granted the finest thespians, leading to the final moments of the film, which Interlenghi puts over in dramatically shattering fashion. After this imposing film debut, Interlenghi would become a welcome regular presence in Italian stage and cinema, as well as obtaining roles elsewhere, with screen credits including Fellini’s breakthrough I Vitelloni, The Barefoot Contessa, Ulysses, joining De Sica for A Farewell to Arms and his final film, 2010’s La bella società, before his death in 2015 at age 83.

In the other principal role as the alternately tough and naive Giuseppe, Rinaldo Smordoni also makes a compelling film debut, adopting a comfortable and natural acting style impressive in one new to the medium. Smordoni aptly initially displays Giuseppe’s innocence and good-natured attitude towards life in a nice contrast to Pasquale’s more alert and speculative demeanor, helping to make the two friends’ bond indelible and endearing as they traipse around their Rome environs in search of shoeshine patrons and adventure, while joining forces to buy their beloved horse, Bersagliere. Later, after fate causes Giuseppe to become more adversarial and hardened, Smordoni adds more mature and jaded facets to the character’s makeup, bringing tension to Giuseppe’s interactions with his peers as conflicts arise and the dynamics in his friendship with Pasquale are altered. Unlike Interlenghi, Smordoni would only appear onscreen a few more times before his death in 2024, leaving his work as Giuseppe to account for his small but important place in movie history.

In other roles the aforementioned Annielo Mele is a welcomed warm, positive and sincere presence as the supportive Raffaele, possibly the kindest among the wayward boys hoping to get out of detention and find a stable life. The caustic, sleek Bruno Ortenzi holds one’s attention as the ominous Arcangeli, a fellow inmate of Giuseppe who factors importantly in the latter stages of the film after forming an alliance with his cellmates. Lastly, as Nannarella, the serious, weary-eyed little girl loyal to Giuseppe, Anna Pedoni brings a poignant earnestness to her brief role, including a key sequence wherein the distraught Nannarella has a memorable outburst upon hearing an unjust verdict, wherein the distinct Pedoni displays instinctive thespian gifts to match those of her young male costars.

One of the most original and telling works ever committed to film, Shoeshine was overwhelmingly embraced by critics and audiences worldwide after its release in April of 1946, with De Sica and stars Interlenghi and Smordoni gaining universal praise for stellar work in creating one of the cinema’s most penetrating and provocatively true to life dramas. Among accolades, for 1947 the film was cited on the top ten lists from both The New York Times and Time magazine, while also placing third on The National Board of Review’s list. Such was the worldwide power of De Sica’s masterpiece that at the Academy Awards ceremony in March of 1948 Shoeshine was bestowed a special Oscar due to the film’s creativity and overall merit, to go along with an Original Screenplay nomination, indicating how far-reaching reaction to the film was on an international scale. For Cinéastes looking to discover the finest films ever made, the haunting, eloquent Shoeshine offers them an opportunity to partake in a singular classic of undiminished quality and potency.