Vittorio De Sica

Like there's always some stronger, some weaker.

I do want to say like incredible talent behind the scenes as well, because it was directed by amazing Italian director Vittorio De Sica and written by Cesar Savatini.

And like they're both huge in Italian cinema.

And so I think that really worked in its favor.

So the score for Cemetery Man was composed by Manuel De Sica.

And he is the son of a legendary Italian neo-realist director, Vittorio De Sica.

But Manuel built a prolific career spanning classical compositions, jazz, and an extensive film score work as well.

And His work on Cemetery Man is widely celebrated for its unique sonic texture.

I don't know really anything about that movie.

And then, of course, our man Vittorio De Sica, who we have covered before and is essential to Italian cinema and therefore global cinema, with Shoeshine, which is the first film to win Best International Feature.

Yeah, I mean, that was, I know we considered that pretty seriously, but we have fairly recently talked about De Sica, but that's a landmark Italian neorealist film.

And I haven't seen, have you seen that one? I haven't.

I started this process two years ago of diving in to Bergman's films and honestly I had kept them at arm's length.

They seemed by reputation to be to be dense and overly art for art's sake and out of reach and out of touch and psychologically complicated in a way that wasn't inviting to me in the way some other filmmakers from his same time period, for me in particular, Antonioni, Godard, Fellini, De Sica, people I had done an examination of.

And so I was a little wary two years ago, but I started with Persona.

And within the first three minutes of that film, I was so drawn in and it felt very of this moment.

Well, question number one.

Sophia Loren famously performed a striptease for Marcello Mastroianni in Vittorio De Sica's 1963 comedy Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

What does that have to do with this evening? Well, in which Altman comedy do the two repeat the scene, only to have M- Marcello fall asleep before Sophia could finish?

Pret-a-Porter.

And I'm just going to jump right into it.

Bicycle Thieves, also known as The Bicycle Thief, is a 1948 Italian neorealist drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica.

It follows the story of a poor father searching in post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job, which was to be the salvation of his young family.

Adapted for the screen by Cesar Zavattini from the 1946 novel by Luigi Bartolini, and starring Lamberto Maggiorani, probably butchering all of those, as the desperate father, and Enzo Staiola as his plucky young son.

Film was voted number three on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo and number four in Empire Magazine's 100 Best Films of World Cinema in 2010.

It was also included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian Films to be Saved, a list of 100 films that have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978.

This was produced by Giuseppe Amato and Vittorio De Sica.

Also starring Leonela Carell, played the wife, I believe.

With the cellphone, he calls Kahane's house.

Kahane's girlfriend, an artist named June Goodman's daughter, informs Griffin that Kahane isn't home, but instead he's out at the movies at a theater in Pasadena watching Vittorio De Sica's classic 1948 Italian neorealist film, The Bicycle Thief, or Bicycle Thieves, as it's also known.

Let's not ignore the creep factor here, the red flags that are immediately going off with our guy Griffin, who has this very long and very intimate conversation with June while watching her paint and work through the window of her home.

Before now, Griffin has just been this pompous Hollywood douchebag, but there's something darker here that we're seeing, and that darkness leads him to Pasadena, where he goes to the theater, buys a ticket, and catches the last few minutes of The Bicycle Thief.

terrible terrible i don't remember it being that bad it's

it's a bad movie generally but tucci is also uniquely bad in it like it is it's a genuinely embarrassing performance interesting okay uh dishonorable mentions uh going further up the list olivier and marathon man uh robert loja in jagged edge doesn't get much to do but he gets uh like not doesn't get much to do doesn't get anything to do um but he gets bumped up a few spots for having that killer you know final line of fuck him he's trash um michael shannon in nocturnal animals um also doesn't have a ton to do but at the very least he's you know reliable and Michael Shannon-ish Gig Young Jack Palance Vittorio De Sica honestly I would maybe put Frank Morgan lower on the list looking at the ones that he's above I might I might drop him down below what you call it Robert Locha there

yeah Anyway, let's get to the top.

Let's get to the good ones.

For our friend here who might not spend their weekends reading film theory, neorealism was this massive post-World War II movement in Italy.

Directors like De Sica and Rossellini working in the rubble of Rome, taking cameras into the actual streets, using natural lighting, capturing the raw, unpolished lives of the working class.

Fejos is doing that in America in 1928.

The scenes where Jim and Mary are getting up in a hurry, brushing their teeth, traveling to work on the crowded subway, navigating the actual street crowds, he skillfully blended funny situations into actual natural scenery.