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Join us on June 9 at 1 p.m. for our weekly Sunday screening series, featuring director Vittoria De Sica’s unforgettable “Umberto D.” (1952) in 2K DCP projection.
UMBERTO D. | 1952 | DIRECTOR: Vittorio De Sica | WITH: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari | RUNNING TIME: 1H 29M | UNRATED no offensive material | 2K DIGITAL PROJECTION
This neorealist masterpiece by Vittorio De Sica follows an elderly pensioner as he strives to make ends meet during Italy’s postwar economic recovery. Alone except for his dog, Flike, Umberto struggles to maintain his dignity in a city where human kindness seems to have been swallowed up by the forces of modernization.
His simple quest to satisfy his basic needs—food, shelter, companionship—makes for one of the most heartbreaking stories ever filmed, and an essential classic of world cinema.
“Umberto D. is perhaps the most astringent film ever made about a poor old man and his dog. 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. People who admire the work of such contemporary filmmakers as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Chantal Akerman, and Abbas Kiarostami can see something up-to-date in this aspect of Umberto D., and even recognize in it a principal source of today’s cinema of the steady gaze.
These same critics generally dislike the pooch. They feel that screenwriter Cesare Zavattini and director Vittorio De Sica did enough to immiserate their title character by depriving him of youth, family, friends, health, money, and home. Surely an audience needs no further prompting to feel the isolation of Umberto Domenico Ferrari.
“That the filmmakers also make him go everywhere with little Flike—clutching him to his breast, fretting over his well-being, ultimately begging the dog to come play with him—seems to these viewers an almost invasive ploy, as if Zavattini and De Sica were trying to force into their hands an already soggy handkerchief.
“But as someone who begins weeping at the first notes of the title music—someone who thinks this film’s long, undramatic sequences can be seen best when watched through tears—I wouldn’t want Zavattini and De Sica to have backed off. I believe their greatest work, which surely includes Umberto D., kept touch faithfully with popular sentiment, even while helping to create the decidedly unpopular tradition of the art-house film.
“Perhaps today’s division between auteurist productions and mass-market movies might be eased, and contemporary cinema enlivened, if our filmmakers would more often put themselves at risk as Zavattini and De Sica did with Umberto D.” — Stuart Klawans
The screening will be introduced by Bill Cosford Cinema manager Rene Rodriguez. Tickets are $5 and available at link above. Students use code UMSTUDENT at checkout for free admission. Cane card must be shown at the door.
