Director: Vittorio De Sica
Writer: Cesare Zavattini
Photography: G.R. Aldo
Music: Alessandro Cicognini
Editor: Eraldo Da Roma
Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari, Napoleone
Here at the fuzzy end of Italian neorealism director Vittorio De Sica is using much the same strategies as his greatly celebrated 1948 Bicycle Thieves, though postwar growth and wealth in Italy were slowly but surely on the rise by the early 1950s. The cast, including Carlo Battisti as Umberto Domenico Ferrari, is largely nonprofessional, the sets are the streets and some interiors mostly as found, the film stock is affordable, and the focus is on social injustice. In this case the issue is public pensioners and cost-of-living adjustments (now a built-in feature in many plans known as COLAs). Umberto D. put in 30 years as a government worker and now his pension does not even afford him the room where he has lived for 20 years, let alone food, medicine, and other necessities. It’s a complicated issue but the script makes it all more palpable by throwing in an adorable pet dog, Flike (Napoleone), and a cruel opera-singer landlady who wants to evict him because she wants to use his room to expand her living room.
Flike (rhymes with Mike) is basically the same idea as the son Bruno in Bicycle Thieves—the innocent our hero is trying to shield from the harsh realities, not to mention preserve his own dignity. It is arguably a shameless ploy. After all, there’s a whole website called Does the Dog Die? that is dedicated to judging and issuing warnings about the violence in movies. Personally, as a pet caretaker, I don’t have a problem with movies and TV that use dogs, cats, and other pets as emotional touchpoints. I have my limits but, as is probably the case with most people, they are indeterminate or possibly based on fluctuating mood. I love Courage of Lassie (it’s the best of the Lassie movies!), for just one example, but I suspect many could find it screechingly maudlin and manipulative. My sense with Umberto D. is that De Sica didn’t really know what to do with the dog—pull back dispassionately or milk it to death. This confusion and inconsistency of tone end up sadly undermining the picture overall.
Here at the fuzzy end of Italian neorealism director Vittorio De Sica is using much the same strategies as his greatly celebrated 1948 Bicycle Thieves, though postwar growth and wealth in Italy were slowly but surely on the rise by the early 1950s. The cast, including Carlo Battisti as Umberto Domenico Ferrari, is largely nonprofessional, the sets are the streets and some interiors mostly as found, the film stock is affordable, and the focus is on social injustice. In this case the issue is public pensioners and cost-of-living adjustments (now a built-in feature in many plans known as COLAs). Umberto D. put in 30 years as a government worker and now his pension does not even afford him the room where he has lived for 20 years, let alone food, medicine, and other necessities. It’s a complicated issue but the script makes it all more palpable by throwing in an adorable pet dog, Flike (Napoleone), and a cruel opera-singer landlady who wants to evict him because she wants to use his room to expand her living room.
Flike (rhymes with Mike) is basically the same idea as the son Bruno in Bicycle Thieves—the innocent our hero is trying to shield from the harsh realities, not to mention preserve his own dignity. It is arguably a shameless ploy. After all, there’s a whole website called Does the Dog Die? that is dedicated to judging and issuing warnings about the violence in movies. Personally, as a pet caretaker, I don’t have a problem with movies and TV that use dogs, cats, and other pets as emotional touchpoints. I have my limits but, as is probably the case with most people, they are indeterminate or possibly based on fluctuating mood. I love Courage of Lassie (it’s the best of the Lassie movies!), for just one example, but I suspect many could find it screechingly maudlin and manipulative. My sense with Umberto D. is that De Sica didn’t really know what to do with the dog—pull back dispassionately or milk it to death. This confusion and inconsistency of tone end up sadly undermining the picture overall.
As someone now fully of age I come already sympathizing with the issue at hand here. The picture starts with a street protest march by dozens or hundreds of retired pensioners, striking for a better deal. Umberto D. explains his situation to a fellow marcher: “I have no one, no son or brother.” He does have the dog, but at the same time his source of comfort makes him more vulnerable, as he struggles just to feed himself. He’s also in a terrible situation with his rented room and home for 20 years. He’s behind on the rent and there’s no sustainable way for him to make ends meet. He is selling off his things, like watches, but that’s almost gone now. His landlady (Lina Gennari) makes herself plain. She’s going to evict him as soon as she can.
The young maid working there, Maria (Maria Pia Casilio), is the other main character here. She sympathizes with Umberto D. and helps him every way she can, but the landlady is cruel and she is Maria’s boss. Maria is also three months pregnant and knows she will be fired when the landlady finds out. To make matters worse, she can’t be sure which of two handsome soldiers is the father. She’s in quite a predicament all right. Pia Casilio doesn’t have to do much more here than look young and pretty, but she did go on from this picture to have a long career.
Umberto D. does not feel particularly compelling to me because the crises facing this man seem now to be more of just historical interest. Many elderly, including me, are better off, with better conditions than those imposed on Umberto D. I can understand his panic in many ways, because I suspect I would react similarly if confronted by the things that confront him. He finds himself reduced to begging on the street, for example, which I can just barely imagine. I know things like this are going on now, often as a matter of medical debt. I have to count myself as grateful for my good fortune, there but for the grace, etc. Still, honestly, the movie barely reached me on that level.
I’m more confused about the dog thread, which is practically invisible and certainly dispassionate for the first hour and then comes to dominate the last third and finish. Umberto D. has lost his room. He’s homeless. He knows or thinks he can’t care for the dog anymore. He tries handing him off to people, or boarding him, he tries hiding when Flike runs away and comes looking for him. Then there is some back and forth between them, which among other things seemed unlikely in terms of dog behavior and only there to prolong the agony. I can almost feel it, but something seems distant or artificial about it. I suspect Umberto D. might work better for me another time in a more receptive mood, but it did not the other day.
The young maid working there, Maria (Maria Pia Casilio), is the other main character here. She sympathizes with Umberto D. and helps him every way she can, but the landlady is cruel and she is Maria’s boss. Maria is also three months pregnant and knows she will be fired when the landlady finds out. To make matters worse, she can’t be sure which of two handsome soldiers is the father. She’s in quite a predicament all right. Pia Casilio doesn’t have to do much more here than look young and pretty, but she did go on from this picture to have a long career.
Umberto D. does not feel particularly compelling to me because the crises facing this man seem now to be more of just historical interest. Many elderly, including me, are better off, with better conditions than those imposed on Umberto D. I can understand his panic in many ways, because I suspect I would react similarly if confronted by the things that confront him. He finds himself reduced to begging on the street, for example, which I can just barely imagine. I know things like this are going on now, often as a matter of medical debt. I have to count myself as grateful for my good fortune, there but for the grace, etc. Still, honestly, the movie barely reached me on that level.
I’m more confused about the dog thread, which is practically invisible and certainly dispassionate for the first hour and then comes to dominate the last third and finish. Umberto D. has lost his room. He’s homeless. He knows or thinks he can’t care for the dog anymore. He tries handing him off to people, or boarding him, he tries hiding when Flike runs away and comes looking for him. Then there is some back and forth between them, which among other things seemed unlikely in terms of dog behavior and only there to prolong the agony. I can almost feel it, but something seems distant or artificial about it. I suspect Umberto D. might work better for me another time in a more receptive mood, but it did not the other day.
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