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.

1948 Winner, Monsieur Vincent

Monsieur Vincent

Director:  Maurice Cloche

Distributed by:  Lopert Pictures

Released:  December 1948 (in U.S.)

Country:  France

We cannot better assure our eternal happiness than by living and dying in the service of the poor, in the arms of Providence, and with genuine renouncement of ourselves in order to follow Jesus Christ.  –St. Vincent DePaul, 1648

St. Vincent DePaul is the Catholic patron saint of charitable institutions, and if you want to know why that is, this is the movie for you.  Monsieur Vincent is a straight-forward biopic, with none of the gloss or glamour that Hollywood gives to anything of a religious nature.  Vincent was a French-born, highly-educated man who had a calling greater than even the priesthood, though he didn’t know it at first.  Five years after his ordination in 1600, he was abducted by Barbary pirates and was sold into slavery, sold again twice, and remained a slave until he was given his freedom seven years later.  He then studied in Rome and after his return to Paris, was assigned to be the spiritual advisor of a wealthy family in nearby Clichy. 

Pierre Fresnay as Vincent DePaul

This is the point Monsieur Vincent starts its story.  Vincent arrives in the town looking for where he needs to be, but everyone appears to be hiding out in their homes.  A few take shots at him from their windows with rocks.  The village seems to have been plagued with a later edition of the Black Death, and Vincent to them appears to be someone who will do no good but to spread the disease around.  He finds a little girl living with her dying mother, whom no one is willing to risk helping.  But St. Vincent is.  He tends to the woman, allowing her to die with dignity, and eventually takes on the responsibility of the little girl.

When Vincent finds the mansion of the family to whom he is assigned to minister, they want him to stay with them and not venture out into what would be his probable death.  Vincent realizes this is not what God called him to do.  When things simmer down a bit and the folks come out to see who this crazy priest is, he challenges a crowd that has gathered.  He asks which family is at their limit, which family cannot possibly take on another mouth to feed—that is who he wants the little girl to go with.  A woman with a gaggle of kids around her steps forward—what’s one more?  Vincent is showing what charity is—not only for someone to being willing to give, but for someone else to ask the impossible of them.  This is the core of whom St. Vincent DePaul is.

"I'll be happy to give a few francs, as long as it's tax deductible."

The film continues on with Vincent’s life, with a stint aboard a ship powered by convicts, where he volunteers to roll up his sleeves and grab an oar.  Vincent rubs elbows with the rich and poor alike, asking more than all would like to give.  He tolerates the rich who give what they do to feel better about themselves, and challenges a rich woman, Louise de Marillac, to give more than what makes her feel comfortable.  Like the poor woman who took on the orphan girl, Louise rises to the occasion, co-founding the Daughters of Charity with Vincent, and eventually being canonized as a saint herself in 1934.

Monsieur Vincent is an inspirational movie about an inspirational character.  In watching the performance by Pierre Fresnay, I was reminded by Liam Neeson’s portrayal of Oskar Schindler in 1993’s Schindler’s List, when at the end he laments that, as much as he did, he could have done more, could have sold a car or a pin to save just a few more lives, but didn’t.  Vincent displays what charity is—giving and giving, but always being able to do more.  Like Schindler, who says, “I didn’t do enough,” Vincent always thinks he could have done more.

"This pin--two people."

The Title: I’m not sure why he is Mister Vincent, and not Father DePaul.  I come from a time when you called priests by their last name, and no one referred to Father Bill or Father Jason or whatever.

The culture:  Back in the Kingdom of France, in the early days of the Bourbons, you had the haves and the have-nots.  Vincent decided to provide for the latter by asking and asking of the former.

Brendan Gleeson as Fr. James, Calvary

Agenda danger:  It is always a pleasant surprise to see Catholic clergy in film treated with respect and reverence.  Vincent had his flaws, but like Spencer Tracy’s Father Flanagan in Boys Town (1938) or Bing Crosby’s Father O’Malley in The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), he is portrayed as a regular guy who remembers what the calling of the priesthood is.  Though such portrayals may be rare these days, the few that exist are notable. 1972’s The Exorcist focuses on two priests, played by Jason Miller and frequent Best Foreign Film actor Max von Sydow, who make great sacrifice in defeating the Devil.  More recently, Brendan Gleeson’s Father James in 2014’s Calvary is the embodiment of sacrifice and forgiveness.  It’s no wonder the Vatican included Monsieur Vincent on its 1995 list of 45 great films, right up there with Schindler’s List and Best Foreign Films The Bicycle Thief (1949), La Strada (1954), 8½ (1963), Dersu Uzala (1975), and Babette’s Feast (1987).

Best Picture that year:  Hamlet.

Rating:  A inspiring film about a man who gives to God by helping the poor.  They don’t make films like this anymore.