Vittorio De Sica
Birthday	Sunday, July 07, 1901
Birthplace	Sora, Lazio, Italy
Died	Wednesday, November 13, 1974
Occupation	Director, actor

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

De Sica, Vittorio

Born July 7, 1901, in Sora; died Nov. 13, 1974, in Paris. Italian film actor and director.

De Sica began appearing in films in the 1930’s and began directing in 1940. The film The Children Are Watching Us (1943) marked the beginning of De Sica’s collaboration with the scenario writer C. Zavattini. Developing the artistic principles of neorealism, a school of which he was one of the founders, De Sica made the films Shoe shine (1946), The Bicycle Thief (1948), Umberto D. (1951), Miracle in Milan (1951), and The Roof (1956). His work was extremely social and humanistic, imbued with protest against the injustices and cruelty of bourgeois society and against fascism and war. De Sica’s acting and directing was marked by high skill and fine artistic taste. His works were distinguished by a variety of genres, a combination of psychological depth and sharp satire, and elegant, subtle humor. The role of Bertone in the film General Delia Rovere (1959) was one of his best acting roles. He directed the films La Ciociara (1960, after the novel of A. Moravia), The Last Judgment (1961), The Condemned ofAltona (1962, after the play of J. P. Sartre), Yesterday, Today , and Tomorrow (1963), Boom (1963), Marriage, Italian -Style (1964, after the play of De Filippo, Filumena Marturano), The Sunflowers (1970, a joint Italian-French production with the collaboration of the Mosfil’m Film Studio), and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971, after the novel of G. Bassani).

REFERENCES

Bogemskii, G. Vittorio de Sika. Moscow, 1963.
Bazin, A. Vittorio De Sica, Parma, 1953.

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

Per Vittorio De Sica Il viaggio pirandelliano non e che un'ottima occasione per pennellare un semplice affresco di tenerezze, per ritagliare uno scorcio di amori infranti e di passioni umiliate dai casi della vita.

Alberto Moravia e lo "pseudopensiero" di Pirandello: Il viaggio, la scrittura e il cinema

The fine-grained examination of Vittorio De Sica's career during the Fascist Era is also insightful, as are comparisons between different types on stardom in adaptations of Malombra (1917, 1942).

Stardom, Italian Style: Screen Performance and Personality in Italian Cinema

Vittorio de Sica's well-known film Ladri di biciclette (1948) is a key part of the Italian neo-realist genre that sparked similar films in Spain.

Carmen's illusive technicolor fantasy in Miguel Delibes's Cinco horas con Mario

Vittorio De Sica's landmark film Ladri di biciclette, whose protagonist attempts desperately to enter the work force, and Maurizio Nichetti's pastiche of De Sica's film, Ladri di saponette (1989), whose protagonist remains buried beneath a heap of consumer products, serve as convenient cinematic bookends for this period.

That obscure commodity of desire: the lure to labor in Italian film from the dopoguerra to the sorpasso

These pieces resonate with period Neorealist poverty--think of the films of Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica that address the slicer hardship of Italy during the deprivations of World War II and its aftermath.

Alberto Burri: Luxembourg & Dayan

It is difficult to imagine two narrative features more different than Vittorio De Sica's neorealist masterwork Bicycle Thieves (1945, Italy) and Steven Spielberg's early blockbuster Jaws (1975, US).

Pedal pushers: Spielberg, De Sica, and dismemberment

of Economics, Turkey) provides introductory and contextual essays and writes: "[This book] is aimed, as Bazin would want, not only at scholars, teachers, and critics of film but also at educated or cultivated moviegoers and students of the cinema at all levels." Among the directors and films discussed: Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, The Roof, Forbidden Christ, Umberto D., and Senso.

Andre Bazin and Italian neorealism

His face lights up at the mention of Vittorio De Sica, a leading light of Italy's neo-realist movement and director of one of the country's most heartbreaking films, 1948's Bicycle Thieves.

Italian cinema finds magic in the everyday

Writing shortly after Vittorio De Sica's film was released in December, 1970, the author let his feelings be known in no uncertain terms in an essay entitled "Il giardino tradito," The Betrayed Garden (included in the collection Di la dal cuore, Milan: Mondadori, 1984, pp.

In the garden of betrayal: text to film, language to language