4/28 - Shoeshine

Year: 1946
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Country: Italy

Shoeshine, Joe?

From Allmovie.com:

Vittorio DeSica's Shoeshine (Sciuscia) is a must-see example of Italian neorealist cinema, ranking with such other neorealist classics as DeSica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Umberto D. (1952) and Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945). Using nonprofessional actors, DeSica and co-screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, also one of neorealism's leading figures, paint an uncompromising picture of the lives of Italian street children abandoned by their parents at the end of World War II.

The film concentrates on two such children, Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smerdoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi). With no one else to turn to, the boys form a solid friendship, as well as a "corporation" of sorts: they eke out a living shining the boots of American GIs.

A failure in Italy (director DeSica noted that postwar Italian audiences preferred the glossy escapism emanating from Hollywood), Shoeshine was a huge success worldwide, as well as the winner of a special Academy Awards, which can be said as the first ever Academy Award For Best Foreign Language Film.

Monday, 7 pm, at Joe's.