VITTORIO DE SICA
(Director)
As one of the world's most influential filmmakers, and as an actor who starred in
some 150 movies, Vittorio De Sica built a remarkable film career that spanned half
a century.
De Sica directed 34 feature films, for which he won numerous international prizes.
He was honored with four Academy Awards: two Special Awards, preceding the creation
of the Best Foreign Film category, for "Shoeshine" in 1947, and "The Bicycle Thief"
in 1949, and Best Foreign Film Awards for "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" in 1964, and
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
in 1971.
De Sica was born in 1902 in Sora, near Rome, and grew up in Naples in a middle-class
family. His father, Umberto De Sica, a bank clerk with a penchant for show business,
encouraged his good-looking son to pursue a stage career. At 16, he appeared in
the film "The Clemenceau Affair." His career took off in the 1920s when he joined a local
theater company and became a matinee idol. He later formed his own company, producing
plays and co-starring with his first wife, Giuditta Rissone. At the same time, he made a name for himself as a suave leading man in Italian films, and became immensely
popular with female audiences.
During World War II, De Sica turned to directing. His first four films were routine
light productions in the tradition of the Italian cinema of the day. But his fifth,
"The Children Are Watching Us," was a mature, perceptive, and deeply human work about the impact of adult folly on a child's innocent mind. The film marked the beginning
of De Sica's collaboration with author and screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, a creative
relationship that was to give the world two of the most significant films of the
Italian neorealism movement, "Shoeshine" and "The Bicycle Thief."
With no money available to produce his films, De Sica initiated the use of real locations
and non-professional actors. Using available light and documentary effects, he explored
the relationship between working and lower-class characters in an indifferent, and often hostile social and political environment. The result was gritty and
searing storytelling that not only bared the truth about the harsh conditions inflicted
on Italy's poor, but also represented a radical break from filmmaking conventions.
In 1948, "Shoeshine" received a Special Academy Award, accompanied by a citation which
read: "The high quality of this motion picture, brought to eloquent life in a country
scarred by war, is proof to the world that the creative spirit can triumph over adversity." In fact, the film was the impetus for the creation of an Oscar for Best Foreign
Language Film. Two years later, De Sica would again win a Special Academy Award
for "The Bicycle Thief," a work which is widely accepted as one of the greatest
films of all time.
De Sica's next collaboration with Zavattini was the satirical fantasy, "Miracle in
Milan" (1950), which wavered between optimism and despair in its allegorical treatment
of the plight of the poor in an industrial society. "Umberto D" (1952), a sad, disturbing film-poem about old age and loneliness, was De Sica's last neorealist film and
temporarily his last masterpiece. With the notable exception of "The Roof" (1956)
and "Two Women" (1960), for which Sophia Loren won an Oscar for Best Actress, his
subsequent output as a director was for a long while markedly less inspired and significant.
He had a few box-office hits such as "Marriage Italian Style" and "Yesterday, Today
and Tomorrow," both in 1964, but critics and audiences alike had concluded that the
aging director had lost his touch.
To finance his directorial efforts, De Sica worked as an actor throughout his career.
He turned almost exclusively to acting in the late 1950s, enjoying great popularity
in the role of the rural police officer in Comencini's "Bread Love and Dreams" (1954), and in a subsequent comedy series of the same name co-starring Gina Lollobrigida.
He was at his best playing light roles requiring deft irony and flashy charm, but
proved himself capable of a solid dramatic performance in Rossellini's "General Della
Rovere" (1959).
By the end of the 1960s, De Sica seemed to have settled on ending his directing
career in mediocrity, when he made a dramatic comeback with The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
, produced by Arthur Cohn. The director's next movie was "A Brief Vacation" (1973),
a moving film, also produced by Arthur Cohn, about a working-class Italian woman's
first taste of freedom in a society dominated by males. His last film, "The Voyage"
(1974), was based on a novella by Pirandello.
Vittorio De Sica died in 1974 at the age of 72.
Vittorio De Sica
Director Filmography
1939 "Rose Scarlatte" ("Red Roses")
1940 "Maddelena, Zero in Condotta" ("Maddelena, Zero For Conduct")
1941 "Un Garibaldino al Convento" ("A Garibaldian in the Convent")
1942 "I Bambini ci Guardano" ("The Children Are Watching Us")
1946 "Sciuscia" ("Shoeshine") -- Special Academy Award
"La Porta del Cielo" ("Gate of Heaven")
1948 "Ladri di Biciclette" ("The Bicycle Thief") -- Special Academy Award
1951 "Miracolo a Milano" ("Miracle in Milan")
1952 "Umberto D"
1953 "Stazioni Termini" ("Indiscretion of an American Wife")
1954 "L'Oro di Napoli" ("The Gold of Naples")
1956 "Il Tetto" ("The Roof")
1960 "Anna di Brooklyn" ("Anna of Brooklyn")
1961 "Il Giudizio Universale" ("The Last Judgement")
"La Ciociara" ("Two Women")
1962 "Boccaccio '70" (segment "La Riffa")
1963 "I Sequestrati di Altona" ("The Condemned of Altona")
"Il Boom"
1964 "Matrimonio All'Italiana" ("Marriage Italian Style")
"Ieri, Oggi, Domani" ("Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow") -- Special Academy Award
1966 "Le Streghe" ("The Witches")
"Un Monde Nouveau" ("A New World")
"Caccia alla Volpe" ("After the Fox")
1967 "Sette Volte Donna" ("Woman Times Seven")
1969 "Amanti" ("A Place for Lovers")
1970 "I Girasoli" ("Sunflower")
"The Garden of the Finzi-Continis"
-- Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
"Le Coppie" ("The Couples")
1972 "Lo Chiameremo Andrea" ("We'll Call Him Andrew")
1973 "Una Breve Vacanza" ("A Brief Vacation")
1974 "Il Viaggio" ("The Voyage")
Last Modified 24-October-1996
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