The horse
Notice how the horse is harnessed to a carriage and loses freedom in the same way as the boys. Masterpiece!
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MovieChat Forums > Sciuscià (1947) Discussion > The horse
Must admit that one slipped by me. I've just finished watching it, and have to say I'm frankly appalled that there are only THREE topics on this film, when crap like War of the Worlds gets page after page.
This film was way ahead of it's time, and deserves a lot more attention. To think that the children weren't professional actors makes it all the more remarkable, and the dialogue is extraordinary for a 61 year old film.
I've been a fan of B&W cinema for a long time, as long as I can remember, and, more recently, of Italian cinema. This brings the two together perfectly. The last film I saw like this was Luis Buñuel's 'Los Olvidados', which I thought was remarkable, and like this ahead of it's time. The fact that this was made four years prior to that does it great credit.
The 400 Blows receives great acclaim, and I do admire Truffaut as a director. I have to say I think these two film run rings around Truffaut, who for me produced his best work in "L'Enfant Sauvage". Don't get me wrong, The 400 Blows was very good, but not the masterpiece it is claimed to be, at least not in my humble opinion. It was nowhere near as gritty or realistic as Shoeshine or Los Olvidados, and was all a little too "jolly" for my liking. I guess it goes to show what I know about cinema when 400 Blows receives over 11,000, and this masterpiece has only just managed to amass 600 votes. Even Los Olvidados has only 2500 votes... I really don't understand why early Italian cinema is so overlooked, and yet early French cinema, particularly Truffaut is so revered.
Agreed.
shareYeah I prefer De Sica and Shoeshine myself, but it seems to me that 400 Blows is trying to do something altogether different, and never intended to be neo-realist to begin with. Antoine Doinel is a much more ambiguous and problematic character than any of the boys in Shoeshine, and his actions are not always comprehensible in the way that those of Giuseppe and Pasquale are. With De Sica, it's quite clear that the inhumane social systems are the predominant corrupting influence, but with with Truffaut and the New Wavers, the message is not quite so blunt.
shareIt was nowhere near as gritty or realistic as Shoeshine or Los Olvidados, and was all a little too "jolly" for my liking.Well, it certainly isn't as gritty as those two films - but then again, it wasn't trying to be. Though the French New Wave borrowed many elements of neorealism, the aims of New Wave filmmakers were very different from the aims of neorealist filmmakers. For one, the New Wave films tended to be a lot more "playful" than the Neorealist films - even when they were about serious subjects like juvenile delinquents and gangsters and prostitutes.
I guess it goes to show what I know about cinema when 400 Blows receives over 11,000, and this masterpiece has only just managed to amass 600 votes.This kind of faux humility doesn't become you. I'm quite certain that you know as well as I do that the number of ratings on IMDb has nothing to do with quality. There have been hundreds of thousands of films made over the past 120 years - for a variety of reasons (including availability), certain films are naturally going to overshadow other worthy films. I have no doubt that there are thousands of great films on the IMDb that have far fewer votes than Shoeshine. Some of them are just waiting to be rediscovered, while others will probably never get the acclaim they deserve.
Incidentally, putting the number of IMDb votes aside, Shoeshine is almost always listed as one of the landmarks of neorealist filmmaking, is generally considered one of De Sica's very best movies, and was the first ever winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture (in fact, they created the award just so they could honor this movie.) In other words, it's not really that obscure, and a lot of people do recognize its greatness.
On a different note:
I really don't understand why early Italian cinema is so overlooked, and yet early French cinema, particularly Truffaut is so revered.Since when does Truffaut count as "early French cinema?" The French had been making films for more than 60 years before Truffaut came along. To put it another way, The 400 Blows was made closer in time to the present day (53 years later) than it was to the beginnings of cinema (70 or so years earlier.)
France has had a healthy film industry since the mid-1890s - in fact, French filmmakers like the Lumiere brothers and Alice Guy and Georges Melies were among the pioneers of the art form. Similarly, one of the pioneering silent films that helped establish the language of narrative, feature-length cinema (and which was a big influence on Griffith) - Pastrone's Cabiria - came out in Italy more than 30 years before Shoeshine.
Besides, I wouldn't take these two films' number of ratings as an indicator of the relative popularity of one nation's cinema over another. The 400 Blows just happens to be one of the most iconic and famous films ever made - however, other famous Italian films such as 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita and Nights of Cabiria made around the same time have tens of thousands of votes. Going back a decade, Italian films like Rome Open City and De Sica's Bicycle Thieves also have thousands of votes.
I suppose on a clear day you can see the class struggle from here share
Humm... great point there, tony-weston.
I didn't catch that particular detail.
I was in agony thinking something terrible would happen to the horse when the boys were put in jail. At least, he had a job and would be fed as long as he was pulling the cart and he would be with his stablemates. Not ideal, but better to be standing in his stall than standing in the butcher shop.
shareNotice how at the end the horse turns around and trots back to the stable.
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