Most young people today complain of living hard lives and having their futures stolen by the greed and incompetence of earlier generations. While there is an increasing number of valid arguments for such a notion, most of today’s youngsters, at least those living in Western countries, are unaware how lucky they still are, enjoying things that they take for granted and people their age a few generations ago could not. Such hard conditions represent the backdrop for Shoeshine, a 1946 Italian drama directed by Vittorio De Sica, known as one of the classics of Italian neorealism.
In Italy, the film is known under the title Suscìa, which is Neapolitan word, based on the English phrase “shoeshine”, and which describes boys who during the later stages of WW2 and first years after the war used to make ends meet by shining the shoes of US military servicemen. These two boys – Pasquale Maggi (played by Franco Interlenghi) and Giuseppe Filipucci (played by Rinaldo Smordoni) – are the protagonists. They are best friends who live on the streets of Rome and dream of buying a horse. The opportunity to fulfil this dream comes when Giuseppe’s older brother brings the boys in touch with a gang of petty criminals led by “Stomach” (played by Gino Saltamerenda). They are to sell blankets stolen from the US military to a palm reader (played by Maria Campi), which they do, only to realise that it is a scheme devised by “Stomach” to extort a much larger sum from the woman. She, however, later calls the police and points fingers at the boys, who are arrested and promptly brought to a juvenile detention facility. There they suffer because of overcrowded cells, bad food and cold showers, but the worst ordeal comes when the issue of whether to turn informer or not starts making them turn against each other.
Italian filmmakers created the Neorealist movement out of necessity, being deprived of cinema industry infrastructure which, like the rest of Italy, was in tatters because of the Second World War. That meant shooting at locations, using non-professional actors and, as a consequence, dealing with topics that didn’t stray much from the dark realities of a shattered nation. Vittorio De Sica wasn’t an exception, but he proved to be very inventive in applying the principles of emerging Neorealist cinema into great works of art. Using non-professional actors meant that he had to use child actors, which led to showing late 1940s Italy from the perspective of children, a generation whose innocence was stolen by the horrors of war and moral degradation of an impoverished post-war society.
De Sica was very fortunate to cast two very talented child actors – Rinaldo Smordoni and Franco Interlenghi – in two major roles. They play their characters in a natural and very believable way, making the audience easily accept them as best friends and see how they gradually, but also very believably, turn into bitter enemies. This process is well explained through the script written by Sergio Amidei, Adolfo Franci, Cesare Giulio Viola and Cesare Zavattini, which places it in the context of broader social issues and forces that the two boys can’t fight nor comprehend. The war might have ended and Rome might not have been that ravaged compared with other European capitals, but there are constant reminders of it – either in the form of the US military, references to refugees and displaced people and, finally, the only pieces of cinema shown to juvenile prison inmates being an American WW2 propaganda documentary.
But the war itself isn’t the only issue Italians have to deal with. There is unimaginable poverty that affects everyone, especially the most vulnerable, who are the children. Pasquale is an orphan and thus forced to live on the street. Giuseppe is not, but his family is so poor that it can’t provide food and accommodation, so he doesn’t have any choice but to live on the streets. And in such circumstances all kinds of crime thrive – whether simple thievery, more elaborate schemes from minor gang boss “Stomach” or corruption, suggested in the scene where the palm reader keeps reminding the police that one of their chiefs’ wives is her regular customer.
And, as usual, the long arm of the law catches the weakest and the most innocent, turning Shoeshine from a social drama into a genuine prison film. Scenes that take place in the juvenile prison are incredibly brutal and involve violence that was simply unimaginable in Hollywood films made in the same period. De Sica shows great care for detail, showing things like different attitudes of prison staff towards boys under their care – from crude authoritarianism to empathy – and the way such efforts fail, either from a misunderstanding of youth and limited resources at their disposal. Shoeshine also shows how juvenile prison represents a microcosmic reflection of broader society, with boys separated into different cells creating their own mini-gangs and more assertive personalities like Arcangeli (played by Bruno Ortenzi), a doctor’s son claiming to be a vicious gangster, using violence and intimidation to become leaders.
Yet, despite all that brutality and violence, De Sica doesn’t stray from showing clear sympathy for his protagonists. They are led to a violent path due to the inhumanity of war, poverty and social neglect. Forces stacked against them are best shown in the scenes when their friends – all little children – come to see the trial and they look so small compared with the grandiosity of the courthouse and large statues.
Shoeshine is a very raw and authentic film, but it looks a little bit more mellow and tidied up compared with Rossellini’s early Neorealist works dealing with the war itself. This can be seen in Alessandro Cicognini’s music soundtrack, with its cheerful theme representing the protagonists’ childhood dreams and aspirations, which represents such an effective contrast to the brutal reality of adulthood. Some might view such content, just like the conveniently melodramatic finale, as something too Hollywood-like to belong in a “proper” arthouse cinéma vérité classic, but the audience in Italy had a different opinion.
Unlike many Neorealist films, which had turned audiences away, Shoeshine was greeted with enthusiasm and became a great hit and, among other things, inspired an eponymous long-running comic strip series. De Sica secured his place among the great Italian directors and further confirmed it two years later with Bicycle Thieves, a Neorealist classic that would become one of the most celebrated works in the history of cinema. Young Franco Interlenghi, unlike his partner Rinaldo Smordoni, continued his acting career as an adult and became one of the highly respected names of Italian cinema. Shoeshine became popular even outside Italian borders, was highly praised by critics and had the honour of becoming the very first film to win an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. That honour was well deserved.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
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