DeSica

Vittorio De Sica ( , ; 7 July 1901 – 13 November 1974) was an Italian film director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement.

Widely considered one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, four of the films he directed won Academy Awards: '' Sciuscià'' and ''Bicycle Thieves'' (honorary), while ''Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow'', and '' Il giardino dei Finzi Contini'' won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Indeed, the great critical success of ''Sciuscià'' (the first foreign film to be so recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) and ''Bicycle Thieves'' helped establish the permanent Best Foreign Film Award. These two films are considered part of the canon of classic cinema. ''Bicycle Thieves'' was deemed the greatest film of all time by ''Sight & Sound'' magazine's poll of filmmakers and critics in 1952, and was cited by Turner Classic Movies as one of the 15 most influential films in cinema history.

De Sica was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing Major Rinaldi in American director Charles Vidor's 1957 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's ''A Farewell to Arms'', a movie that was panned by critics and proved a box office flop. De Sica's acting was considered the highlight of the film.

Early life

De Sica was born on 7 July 1901 in Sora, Lazio. His father Umberto De Sica was from Giffoni Valle Piana, Campania; he was a journalist, and in the later years worked for the Bank of Italy. Teresa Manfredi, his mother, had Neapolitan origins. De Sica was baptised in the church of San Giovanni Battista in Sora under the name Vittorio Domenico Stanislao Gaetano Sorano De Sica. He had a very close relationship with his father and later dedicated to him the film '' Umberto D.'' The first interest in cinema sparked in Vittorio due to his father's occasional performances in silent movies: he filled in for the pianists. As an adult, Vittorio De Sica described their family state in his early years as 'tragic and aristocratic poverty'.

In 1914, the family moved to Naples. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, they moved to Florence. Eventually, they settled down in Rome. At the age of 15, De Sica started performing as an actor in amateur plays staged in hospitals for recovering soldiers. He started studying to become an accountant when in 1917 through a family friend Edoardo Bencivenga he got a small part in the Alfredo De Antoni film ''The Clemenceau Affair''.

Career

Theatre

De Sica was laureated in 1923. Described as strikingly handsome, already in the early 1920s he began his career as a theatre actor and joined Tatiana Pavlova's theatre company in 1923. With Pavlova he worked for two years and toured South America. In 1925, he joined the company of Italia Almirante Manzini and was soon referred to as the second-best in her troupe. Two years later he joined the company of Luigi Almirante, Sergio Tofano and Giuditta Rissone. De Sica debuted as a romantic protagonist in Ferenc Molnár's ''Gli occhi azzurri dell'imperatore''. During that period he met Umberto Melnati, an actor from Livorno, with whom formed a successful comic duo and collaborated in many films and theatre plays. On 3 October 1930, they premiered in Teatro Manzoni with ''L'isola meravigliosa'' based on Ugo Betti's play. They were soon spotted by Mario Mattoli who was then an impresario in Teatro Mazoni. Mattoli was impressed by the quality of their rehearsals and offered to join his company ''Za-Bum''. With ''Za-Bum'', De Sica, Rissone and Melnati played in ''Una segretaria per tutti'', ''Un cattivo soggetto'', ''Il signore desidera?'', ''Lisetta'', and many other revues written by Mattoli and Luciano Ramo. The duo became famous on the national level after the success of radio sketch ''Düra minga, dura no'' and a popular song ''Lodovico sei dolce come un fico'' sang by De Sica.

In 1933, De Sica, Rissone, and Tofano founded their own company. The period of Tofano-Rissone-De Sica was notable also due to De Sica's acquaintance to Aldo De Benedetti and Gherardo Gherardi, the screenwriters with whom he had a long and fruitful collaboration. Tofano-Rissone-De Sica performed mostly light comedies, but they also staged plays by Beaumarchais and worked with famous directors like Luchino Visconti. In 1936, the company was reformed into Rissone-De Sica-Melnati, and eventually disbanded in 1939. The play ''Due dozzine di rose scarlatte'', written by Aldo De Benedetti, premiered on 11 March 1936, in Teatro Argentina. It is considered the best Italian comedy of the 1930s.

In 1937, De Sica married Giuditta Rissone, around that time the duo with Melnati was ended. In 1940, the spouses reconciled with Tofano and founded the mutual company again, where all the management tasks were taken over by Tofano. Together they released a series of successful plays: ''La scuola della maldicenza'' (based on Richard Brinsley Sheridan), ''Ma non è una cosa seria'' written by Luigi Pirandello, ''Il paese delle vacanze'' by Ugo Betti, ''Liolà'', etc.

In 1945-46, he played in two spectacles directed by Alessandro Blasetti: ''Il tempo e la famiglia Conway'' written by John Boynton Priestley and ''Ma non è una cosa seria'' by Luigi Pirandello. During the season 1945-46 he spent playing in ''The Marriage of Figaro'' and collaborated with Luchino Visconti, Vivi Gioi and Nino Besozzi. In 1948-49 he acted in two new plays: ''The Time of Your Life'' and ''The Magnificent Cuckold'' written by Fernand Crommelynck and adapted by Mario Chiari. ''The Magnificent Cuckold'' became De Sica's last theatre performance after which he concentrated fully on cinema and TV projects. Between 1923 and 1949 De Sica took part in over 120 theatre performances.

Cinema

In the early years, De Sica combined his theatre and cinema careers: in the summer months, he was engaged in filmmaking and spent the winters performing on stage. In cinema, his first notable role was in 1932 ''Gli uomini, che mascalzoni'' directed by Mario Camerini. The song '' Parlami d'amore Mariù'' became a hit and remained his signature song for many years. In the 1930s his credits included many notable performances such as in '' I'll Give a Million'' (1935), '' Il signor Max'' (1937), ''Department Store'' (1939), ''Manon Lescaut''. Between 1931 and 1940, he starred in and directed 23 productions.

In 1940, supported by producer Giuseppe Amato, De Sica debuted as a director and created '' Rose scarlatte''.

In 1944, De Sica received an invitation from Goebbels to make a film in Prague, but refused, using an offer from the Catholic Film Centre in Rome as an excuse.

De Sica had first met screenwriter Cesare Zavattini in Verona in 1934. For many years they would become inseparable collaborators and created some of the most celebrated films of the post-war neorealistic age, like '' Sciuscià'' (''Shoeshine'') and ''Bicycle Thieves'' (released as ''The Bicycle Thief'' in America), both directed by De Sica.

De Sica's 1946 drama '' Sciuscià'' won the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film in 1947. Despite the film's critical success, it failed in the Italian box office because the public craved easier films and mostly went to comedies. It was also heavily criticized by the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Correction. This alienation by the Italian authorities made it difficult for De Sica to finance his subsequent projects. To produce ''Bicycle Thieves'', De Sica had to invest own money and rely on the support of several Italian businessmen. The film brought De Sica his second Oscar as well as multiple other awards and accolades, however, again the success in Italian box office was tepid. The relationship with the government remained bad, after the release of '' Umberto D.'' prime minister Giulio Andreotti sent De Sica a letter accusing him of 'rendering bad service for the country'.

In 1951, De Sica co-authored (with Alberto Sordi) and played in ''Mamma Mia, What an Impression!'' In 1952, he played along Gina Lollobrigida in ''In Olden Days'' and then again in 1953 in the comedy ''Bread, Love and Dreams''. De Sica's character, Marshal Antonio Carotenuto, immediately became the public's favourite. The film was an enormous success, it was nominated for Academy Awards and won the Silver Bear at Berlinale. It was followed with three sequels: ''Bread, Love and Jealousy'' (1954), ''Scandal in Sorrento'' (1955), and '' Bread, Love and Andalusia'' (1958).

In 1961, he starred in ''The Two Marshals'' alongside ''Totò''.

His 1963 film '' Ieri, oggi, domani (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow)'' and his 1970 film '' Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini'' both won Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language film.

In 1974 he acted in Paul Morrisseys comedy horror film ''Blood for Dracula'' starring Joe Dallesandro and Udo Kier also including Roman Polanski. De Sica wrote his own lines on the set.

Television

In 1959, De Sica appeared in the British television series '' The Four Just Men''.

His final role was in the 1976 television movie ''L'eroe'' by his son, Manuel.

Personal life

His passion for gambling was well known and because of it, he often lost large sums of money and accepted work that might not otherwise have interested him. He never kept his gambling a secret from anyone; in fact, he projected it on characters in his own movies, like ''Count Max'' (which he acted in but did not direct) and ''The Gold of Naples'', as well as in ''General Della Rovere'', a film directed by Rossellini in which De Sica played the title role.

In 1937 Vittorio De Sica married the actress Giuditta Rissone, who gave birth to their daughter, Emilia (10 February 1938 – 23 March 2021). In 1942, on the set of ''Un garibaldino al convento'', he met Spanish actress María Mercader (cousin of Ramon Mercader, Leon Trotsky's assassin), with whom he started a relationship. De Sica never parted from his first family: he led a double family life, with double celebrations on holidays. It is said that, at Christmas and on New Year's Eve, he used to put back the clocks by two hours in Mercader's house so that he could make a toast at midnight with both families. Rissone agreed to keep up the facade of a marriage so as not to leave her daughter without a father. After finally divorcing Rissone in France in 1954, he married Mercader in 1959 in Mexico, but this union was not considered valid under Italian law. In 1968 he obtained French citizenship and married Mercader in Paris. Meanwhile, he had already had two sons with her: Manuel (1949-2014), a musician and composer, and Christian (b. 1951), who would follow his father's path as an actor and director. Only when Christian was 18 would the brothers find out they had a half-sister and started communication. Christian's son and Vittorio's grandson Brando De Sica continued the dynasty and became an actor and film director.

He was a Roman Catholic and a communist.

Death

De Sica died on 13 November 1974 after surgery due to lung cancer at the Neuilly-sur-Seine hospital in Paris.

Legacy

Pauline Kael recalls:

Kael quotes Orson Welles as saying: "In handling a camera I feel that I have no peer. But what De Sica can do, that I can't do. I ran his ''Shoeshine'' again recently and the camera disappeared, the screen disappeared, it was just life..."

Awards and nominations

Vittorio De Sica was given the Interfilm Grand Prix in 1971 by the Berlin International Film Festival.
* ''Miracolo a Milano''
** Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Winner
* '' Umberto D.''
** Cannes Film Festival Official Selection
* ''Stazione Termini''
** Cannes Film Festival Official Selection
* ''L'oro di Napoli''
** Cannes Film Festival Official Selection
* '' Il Tetto''
** Cannes Film Festival OCIC Award Winner
* ''Anna di Brooklyn''
** Berlin International Film Festival Official Selection
* ''La Ciociara''
** Cannes Film Festival Official Selection
* '' Matrimonio all'italiana''
** Moscow International Film Festival Official Selection
* '' Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini''
** Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear Winner
** Berlin International Film Festival Interfilm Award Winner – Otto Dibelius Film Award
* Nastro d'Argento for Best Director 1946 for '' Sciuscià''
* Academy Award 1947 Honorary Award to the Italian production for '' Sciuscià (Shoeshine)''
* Academy Award 1949 Special Foreign Language Film Award for ''Bicycle Thieves''
* BAFTA ( British Academy Award) 1950 Best film ''Bicycle Thieves''
* Academy Award 1965 Best Foreign Language film for '' Ieri, oggi, domani (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow)''
* Academy Award 1972 Best Foreign Language film for '' Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini''

Filmography

References

Bibliography

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External links

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Vittorio De Sica director bio for ''The Garden of the Finzi-Continis''
Sony Pictures Entertainment website, retrieved 8 April 2006

Vittorio De Sica Review
Wall Street Journal article, retrieved 9 March 2013

{{DEFAULTSORT:De Sica, Vittorio
1901 births
1974 deaths
People of Campanian descent
Italian Roman Catholics
Italian male comedians
Italian communists
Italian male film actors
Italian film directors
Italian male silent film actors
People from Sora, Lazio
Male actors from Lazio
David di Donatello winners
Nastro d'Argento winners
20th-century Italian male actors
Italian-language film directors
Christian communists
Deaths from lung cancer in France
Directors of Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners
Directors of Palme d'Or winners
Directors of Golden Bear winners
20th-century Italian comedians
Italian neorealism