1947 Winner, Shoeshine

Shoeshine

Director:  Vittorio De Sica

Distributed by:  Lopert Pictures

Released:  April 1946

Country:  Italy

In 1956, Federico Fellini won the first competitive Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for LaStrada, and it made him internationally famous.  He is the most widely known director from the country, Italy, that has won the most Best Foreign Film statues.  But before the Academy started the competitive award, it handed out eight Honorary Awards to films made in a language other than English in order to promote more of a relationship between American and International film.  The very first one of these special awards was given to Shoeshine, a neorealist film by Italian director and actor Vittorio De Sica.  De Sica may not be as known to Americans as Fellini is, but Shoeshine is the first of four Oscar winners De Sica would win during his long career.  That's as many as Fellini won.

Pasquale and Giuseppe bargain with the fortune teller

Shoeshine is a film about two young Italian chums, Giuseppe and Pasquale, who have a common goal: to own their own horse.  To earn money to achieve this, they shine the shoes of passers-by on the streets of post-war Rome.  They both know that they could shine a thousand pairs apiece and still not have enough to buy and board the horse they want, so when the opportunity comes to make some real dough, they jump on it.  Giuseppe’s older brother is in with some crooks who ask the boys to sell some expensive (and presumably stolen) blankets to a nearby fortune teller.  The boys are told that the higher they negotiate the price, the more they will get.  But during the negotiations, the police swoop in and accuse the boys of selling stolen goods, taking them away.  Only the police look a heck of a lot like the criminals who gave them the blankets to sell in the first place.  The fake cops take the boys out of the apartment and tell them to hit the bricks, allowing them to keep whatever the woman gave them for the blankets.  They are so happy to have enough to buy their horse that they don’t even consider what Giuseppe’s brother and his friends really had in mind—to rob the fortune teller blind.

No more shines for these two.

So Giuseppe and Pasquale are riding along on their new horse like war heroes through the streets of Rome when some real police and the fortune teller stop them.  She insists these are the boys that set up the robbery of her place, and not being stool pigeons, they keep their mouths shut.  Giuseppe, the younger and the more plucky of the two, is adamant that they not rat out his brother.  The boys are put in juvenile detention while they await their fate, split up and put into cells with four other kids each.  They will have to make it without each other for a while, and make new friends and avoid new enemies.  You get the feeling it won’t end well.

Shoeshine is a story about loyalty and what the definition of that word means.  As a prime example of Italian neorealism, like De Sica’s masterpiece of two years later, The Bicycle Thief, the characters are played by non-actors, making it seem all the more true-to-life.  It’s hard not to hope for the best for these boys, yet there is always a sinking feeling that it won’t work out.  It’s like being a Cleveland sports fan.

"Hey Tommy, now go home and get your !@#$% shinebox!"

The Title: Sciuscià.  The job of a shoeshine boy was important in post-war Italy, what with all the poverty.  Believe it or not, there are a number of famous folks who started out as shoeshine boys, such as Malcolm X, Sammy Sosa, and James Brown.  Most notably, Tommy DeVito in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas was a shoeshine boy when he was a kid, as Billy Batts, mobster fresh out of prison, reminds him repeatedly.  Batts doesn’t make too many more memories after that.

The culture:  Poverty in post-war Europe led to desperation in some cases, with crime rising as the best way to feed your family.  Certainly the shoeshine boys mixed up in the rip-off of the fortune teller looked the other way so they could forget about their miserable lives for a little and live the dream of having their own horse. 

Agenda danger:  The movie gives a hard look at how to deal with kids who aren’t quite as bad as the

The Bowery Boys, a.k.a, the Dead End Kids

crimes they commit.  Giuseppe and Pasquale both are good kids at heart, but once they get thrown into a prison of kids that look like the Bowery Boys, they have to adapt to survive.  The film pulls no punches in showing how bleak and soul-sucking such an atmosphere can be for kids who one would hope still have a chance to turn things around.

Best Picture that year:  Gentleman’s Agreement

Rating:  The Bicycle Thief is rightly and widely praised as one of the greatest films ever made, but De Sica made three other films that won Best Foreign Film (including Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis), and Shoeshine should not be overlooked as one of Italy’s great films.  Like De Sica is somewhat overlooked in comparison to Fellini, Shoeshine is overshadowed by the greatness that is The Bicycle Thief.  And that is indeed a real crime.

1956 Winner, La Strada

La Strada

Director:        Federico Fellini

Distributed by:  Lopert Pictures Corporation

Released:  May 1957

Country:  Italy

Well, life is a road, it's a motorway

And the road gets rocky along the way

But if it gets too smooth it's time to call it a day

--“The Road,” by The Kinks

“The Road,” or in Italian, “La Strada,” is used as a metaphor for “Life” in literature, in song, and in film.  Life is full of anger, of innocence, and of course, of silliness. And sometimes those three experiences exist for us simultaneously, each at battle with the others for superiority within ourselves.  That’s maybe too heady for an amateur film reviewer like myself to ponder, but I think it is exactly what Federico Fellini’s 1956 film La Strada is dealing with.

Anthony Quinn as Zampanò

The story centers on Zampanò, played by American actor Anthony Quinn.  He is a brutal and angry street performer whose main talents seem to be bullying and getting drunk.  His performing assistant has died, so he is replacing her, pretty involuntarily, with her sister Gelsomina, played by Giulietta Masina, Fellini’s actress-wife.  Gelsomina isn’t all that bright, but she is sweet and sincere, which is what Zampanò needs in his life.  The two of them stop every so often to perform their act, which includes her comedic intro to his show of strength, in which he wraps chains around himself and puffing his muscles out, breaks out of them.  She isn’t thrilled with his brutishness, but he teaches her how to play an instrument or two and she begins to take to him a little, the way a mistreated dog might take to its master.  Zampanò is determined to be the same lout he has always been, but he can’t help but benefit a bit from Gelsomina’s wide-eyed innocence.

Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina

Eventually, she has enough of his boorishness and tries to escape Zampanò, running away and joining a traveling carnival.  There, she meets a clownish tightrope-walker simply referred to as “The Fool,” played by another American, Richard Basehart.  When Zampanò comes looking for his assistant to get her back, he encounters The Fool, and it’s clear they know each other.  Zampanò cannot stand The Fool, as he has no sense of humor; The Fool doesn’t seem to dislike Zampanò really, but cannot stop himself from constantly mocking him constantly.  Gelsomina eventually goes back with Zampanò, but she wishes he could lighten up a little.  The Fool, really a friend to Gelsomina, and Zampanò will collide again, and Gelsomina will have to decide if Zampanò is worth staying with.

When the anger of Zampanò encounters the innocence and naiveté of Gelsomina, the question that could be asked is which will be affected by the other more?  By the movie’s end, the question will be answered fully, though perhaps not giving the viewer much satisfaction.  I will say that though this was one of those endings that confused me for its abruptness, after some thought, I believe it to be brilliant.

Richard Basehart as The Fool

La Strada deserves the distinction of being the first Best Foreign Film to win the award in competition with other nominees (the first eight movies given an award were given Honorary Awards with no competition).  Fellini was still in the neo-realism phase of his career, so while there is some symbolism in this story, it’s gritty and real with no dreams or bizarre asides.  Fellini’s frequent musical collaborator, Nino Rota, composed a score that included a lilting tune that his wife, Giulietta Masina, requested be played at her funeral.  The pretty tune seems an appropriate sendoff for when the actress, who represents innocence in this film, came to the end of her road.

The Title:  The Road.

The culture:  It’s interesting how when Gelsomina’s sister dies at the beginning of the film, her mother essentially sells her to Zampanò for 10,000 lire.  The country was still suffering vast abject poverty following the war.  Also interesting is Fellini’s use of American actors.  If you watch the film in Italian, Quinn and Basehart are dubbed; watch the English version and you will hear their voices, with Masina’s voice oddly dubbed.  Fellini had no issue using actors who didn’t speak Italian, a method used later by Sergio Leone.

Agenda danger:  Unlike earlier neo-realist films, like De Sica’s The Bicycle Theives, this film is largely without a political bent.  While there is a real theme—the co-existence in society of brutality and innocence—Fellini doesn’t appear to be hitting us with a message.

Best Picture that year:  Around the World in 80 Days.

Rating:  Martin Scorsese asserts that this film is the best introduction to Fellini, and having seen Nights of Cabaria, 8½, and Amacord, I agree. The characters draw you in, and while his is vile and hateful, Zampanò is someone you cannot help but hope the best for.  His own self-loathing is what harms him, and his introduction to the simple Gelsomina is his chance for redemption.  I thought this was a terrific movie.