Vittorio De Sica-Sciuscià ('Shoe Shine') (1946)

Directed by Vittorio De Sica, Shoeshine was filmed on location in postwar Rome using non-professional actors. It was inspired by the real stories of those struggling to overcome the oppressive forces of a corrupt and ineffective political system. Shoeshine is widely regarded as one of the finest films to have emerged from the Italian neorealist cinema. It was also the first foreign film to receive an Oscar. "The high quality of this motion picture," noted the Academy, "brought to eloquent life in a country scarred by war, is proof to the world that the creative spirit can triumph over adversity." dvdbeaver




De Sica's film depicts the troubled lives of two young boys caught up in the chaos of a world plagued by poverty and unemployment. Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi) work on the street, where they shine the shoes of American troops. They dream of a better life, seeking solace in a horse that they ride to escape their harsh reality. When the boys are implicated in a petty crime, they are punished by the society that has robbed them of their innocence, resulting in tragic consequences. dvdbeaver




At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride… The boys meet Attilio, Giuse's much older brother, and his shady friend at a boat on the Tiber. In return for a commission, the boys agree to deliver black market goods to a fortune-teller. Once the woman has paid, Attilio's gang suddenly arrives. Pretending to be cops, they shake the woman down. With a payoff from Attilio, the boys are able to make the final payment and stable their horse in Trastevere over the river… The fortune-teller identifies Pasqua and Giuse. Held at an overcrowded boys' prison, they are separated. Giuse falls under the influence of an older lad in his cell, Arcangeli. During interrogation, Pasqua is tricked into betraying Giuse's brother to the police. With their trial still in the future, the two friends are driven further apart… (http://imdb.com/title/tt0038913/plotsummary)




Co-written by leading Italian neo-realist screenwriter and theorist Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica's Sciuscià (1946) examines the impact of post-Fascist social decay on poverty-stricken children. Bookended by images of a horse that symbolizes Giuseppe's and Pasquale's dreams of innocent fun, Sciuscià captures the hope and despair of the pair's friendship, as they get caught up in a black market scheme and wind up in separate cells in a "reform school" run by corrupt officers. AMG




The dankly claustrophobic jail cells contrast sharply with the difficult but unfettered life that the boys lived on the streets; even a movie night provides little relief from their jailhouse existence. Shot on location with non-professional actors, including Rinaldo Smerdoni and Franco Interlenghi as the tragic friends, Sciuscià exemplified the neo-realist principle of eschewing Hollywood gloss to portray the brutal realities of contemporary life among the postwar Italian poor, and the film ends on a moment of utter bleakness. AMG




Though Sciuscià failed in Italy, it became an international success, like Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945) before it, bolstering neo-realism's worldwide prominence. Nominated for a screenplay Oscar after winning critics' prizes, Sciuscià also won a special Oscar for "superlative quality made under adverse circumstances;" the first special Oscar for "most outstanding foreign film" was awarded two years later, to de Sica's and Zavattini's Bicycle Thieves. AMG