Shoeshine (Masters of Cinema)

Star Review

Italian neorealism, flowering immediately after World War II, was one of the most vibrant movements in film history, proving that engrossing stories could be filmed despite (or even because of) a poverty of means, in extant city streets, without professional actors, movies sets or glamourous settings. And Vittorio De Sica was one of its most accomplished filmmakers, providing veritable bookends to the movement with Shoeshine in 1946 and Umberto D in 1952, each a masterpiece of naturalism, social concern and narrative grace (both, incidentally, were scripted by Bicycle Thieves' Cesare Zavattini).
Shoeshine serves as a shining example of neorealism's provocative mixture of hard-hitting drama and passionate sentiment: two young friends, Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi), accidentally become embroiled with the Roman black market, and are thrown into juvenile prison, where they must quickly learn the life lessons of friendship, loyalty, and personal betrayal. Smordoni and Interlenghi superbly bring conviction and emotional complexity to their characters, but much of the film's potency lies in its matter-of-fact presentation of the children's spiral of neglect, abandonment, exploitation, and punishment by a society that offers them little chance to break free of its tragic structure. Thrown into putrid cells in a multi-storied prison De Sica emphasizes by craning the camera up and down through its interior space, the boys try to assert their personal dignity but for each apparent success, find that they are only falling deeper into positions of powerlessness. By and large, De Sica produces more with less, allowing his performers to behave uninhibitedly and framing their story with a disarming simplicity. (Orson Welles once remarked that with Shoeshine, "the camera disappeared, the screen disappeared; it was just life…") The film also won the first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film the year after its release, helping to solidify the genre's reputation and teach the young cinephiles of the future French New Wave that all the money and resources in the world would never substitute for films made with passion, conviction, and an unerring eye for truth.

Doug Cummings on 14th September 2006

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Film Description

Made two years before Bicycle Thieves, this neo-realist classic (and winner of one of the first Best Foreign Language Film Oscars) focuses on two street urchins who shine shoes for a living, and get involved in a black market scheme with tragic results.

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One of the most famous films in Italian neo realim -- but how will it look in the 21st century? We can now see a healthy helping of melodrama infusing the realistic ob... more >

One of the most famous films in Italian neo realim -- but how will it look in the 21st century? We can now see a healthy helping of melodrama infusing the realistic observation of poverty, friendship and betrayal, but de Sica's masterpiece is none the worse for that -- we’re less prissy about such things than we might once have been. < less

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DVD Extras

• New progressive transfer from a new restoration
• Full length audio commentary by Bert Cardullo (author of Vittorio De Sica: Director, Actor, Screenwriter)
• Through Children's Eyes - De Sica and Shoeshine - documentary with Manuel De Sica, Carlo Lizzani, Orio Caldiron, Italo Moscati, Franco Interlenghi
• Ragazzi (The boys) - Parallel video interviews with Franco Interlenghi and Rinaldo Smordoni
• The neorealist cinema - interview with Giampiero Brunetta
• 24-page booklet featuring the writing of Vittorio De Sica, James Agee, Pauline Kael, and Bert Cardullo.

Film Details

Cast

Franco Interlenghi, Rinaldo Smordoni, Annielo Mele

Technical Details