UMBERTO D. Review d: Vittorio De Sica

UMBERTO D. (1952)

Direction: Vittorio De Sica

Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari

Screenplay: Cesare Zavattini

Oscar Movies

Flike, Carlo Battisti, Umberto D.

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica

Lost between the glare of The Bicycle Thief (1948) and his later films with Sophia Loren, Vittorio De Sica's 1952 drama Umberto D. stands as an almost forgotten masterpiece of Italian neorealism and one of the last films that could claim to be of that movement alone.

Upon its release, Umberto D. was pilloried by a few cineastes who, unable to understand the chasm between true sentiment and false sentimentality, found it too maudlin, and by myopic critics — mostly left-wing dilettantes — who thought that the formerly middle-class civil servant's tale was not "socially conscious" enough for the filmmaker to waste his talents on. Umberto D. flopped, but it has steadily risen in De Sica's pantheon; it is now thought of as an equal to The Bicycle Thief, or at least right behind it.

The truth is that it is very easy to portray the struggles of the impoverished, as De Sica did in The Bicycle Thief and Shoeshine (1946), when your story is laden with struggling children. But to elicit the grandeur of feeling for an old man, Umberto Domenico Ferrari (Carlo Battisti, a retired college professor from the University of Florence), takes a bit more. This is especially so since the lead character is not a particularly warm person. Though no Ebenezer Scrooge, Umberto is a proud and stubborn man who keeps himself emotionally withdrawn from life.

Umberto is also an everyman, in that he used to be a civil servant, retired with a meager pension. Even as the film opens, we are shown that he is nothing special; just one of dozens of old pensioners marching for a raise, and being derisively jeered by younger people and the police.

Having lived in the same small room for decades, he is harried by a bitch of a bleached-blond social-climbing poseur of a landlady (Lina Gennari), who loathes him for unspecified reasons. In fact, she debases him by renting out his room to horny couples while he's away. A scene in which Umberto returns to his soiled bed after strangers have copulated in it is unforgettable — the look of disdain on Battisti's face is utterly priceless.

The landlady also loathes Maria (Maria-Pia Casilio), her pregnant, unmarried maid, who also happens to be Umberto's lone human friend. His only other companion is his cute little dog, Flike. That is all we ever know of the man. We do not know if he is a lifelong bachelor or perhaps a widower, if he has children or grandchildren.

What we know about him is that he tries to pawn off his few items to meet his harridan landlady's demands. We see the insect-infested building where he lives. Later, we see Umberto ill, though not as much as he claims, heading to the hospital where he can stay rent free. While there, he meets a jovial younger man who instructs him how to scam the nuns into letting him stay longer than necessary by asking for a rosary and faking piety.

Meanwhile, the landlady has literally ripped apart his room, violated his privacy, and allowed Flike to run away. As an animal lover myself, this sort of crisis is equal to losing a child — and to the old man, Flike is his child. He takes a cab to the dog pound, where he see dogs in cages being wheeled en masse into gas chambers; the panic that sets into Umberto's gaze is palpable, reaching out to the viewer. Umberto eventually finds Flike, but the camera doesn't linger on their reunion in sappy Hollywood fashion.

Things don't get better afterwards. On returning home, Umberto realizes he will be forced out of his room. His concern for Flike's welfare is the only thing that keeps him from committing suicide. Following more defeats, a desperate Umberto holds Flike and seems ready to step in front of an oncoming train. (I winced at the scene, a physical reaction I rarely experience while watching films.)

Umberto D. is long on real sentiment, but short on fake sentimentality, something Hollywood types can never discern. The film's defenders, however, are also mostly wrong because they call it Chaplinesque. The thing about Charles Chaplin's Tramp is that he is indefatigable, while Umberto is tired from the first moment we set eyes on him. He is totally beaten; only Flike keeps him alive. Just as old married people often die soon after their spouse's death, so too do old people often die soon after a beloved pet dies.

If Flike had never been found, Umberto D. should have properly ended with Umberto's death. But, since Flike seems a healthy dog in his prime, the film ends on the hopeful note that the two will have some years together. Perhaps something will turn up, even in a city shorn of food, shelter, kindness, and companionship.