Eisenstein on De Sica: A Formalist Review of Umberto D.

By
Mike Allen

Umberto D. by Italian director Vittorio De Sica, while a charming tale, is nonetheless an

exercise in frivolity. Filled with needlessly long shots, within needlessly long scenes,
Umberto D. moves at a snails pace and does little to expand filmic art. Vittorio De Sica,
as a founding member of the Italian Neorealistic movement shows that he cares little for
the application of intellectual montage and instead chooses to focus unblinkingly on the
harrowing misfortune of one elderly gentleman, Mr. Umberto D. Ferrari. The lack of
direction for the plot forces the viewer to submit to the viewpoint that the film is
ultimately pointless and without meaning. De Sica does little to inflect the story with any
purpose or loftier ideas. He simply sets up the camera, records, and cuts together the
scenes without ever utilizing the natural strengths of the cinema.
There is no mastery to De Sicas work here, no understanding or use of form. The
complete lack of anything resembling intellectual montage is upsetting to an informed
film critic and gives Umberto D. an amateurish feeling. Every moment of tragedy in the
film is undercut by a far off camera and long lengths of uncut footage. This cinematic
apathy does little for an audience who wants to be involved in the story intellectually. De
Sicas camera does nothing to imply subjectivity to the scene, instead opting to remain
detached and objective. However this attempt at objectivity rings false when it is
followed by scenes fraught with instances of melodrama. The magic of the edit comes in
the collision of two images as they are placed side by side (Eisenstein 19). The editing
on display in Vittorio De Sicas Umberto D. feels less like a collision of images and more
like a straight line, a worm unaware of the world at large content to writhe in its own dirt.

De Sicas work is formless, the shots uninterestingly composed, the editing uninspired,
and the story never attempts to be about anything larger than itself.
Think for a moment about the scene in which Maria makes coffee in the morning.
Over the course of several minutes Maria wanders about the kitchen, lights the stove, and
makes the coffee. In the scene there is only one cutaway that takes us away from this
action. For a moment Maria walks to the window and looks outside, she watches a cat
walk along an adjacent rooftop. This moment is the closest to abstractness that De Sica
comes. But now, think for a moment about how these two shots interplay with each
other. Shot of Maria by the window, shot of a cat on the rooftop, back to the first shot of
Maria. How do these shots interact with each other? What connection is inferred
between the adjoining shots besides her point of view? What does the combination of
these shots mean? Nothing. Some might call the moment poetic, but I find it aimless.
An uninteresting waste of celluloid. In poetry, especially the Japanese Haiku, there is a
pairing of images to display an overall mood or tone for the piece (Eisenstein 16). In
Umberto D. there is none of this. A shot of children at play is matched with a shot of the
same children at play from another angle. Basic continuity coverage. De Sica refuses to
either shorten or elongate time in any way. This attempt at reflecting life is inherently
dishonest given the construct that is the medium. It completely ignores the fabrication of
the filmic image in its display of real life.
Admittedly the strengths of De Sica as a director lay in his obvious empathy he
has for his ensemble of characters. The plight of poor Umberto is strongly felt by De
Sica, and the Marias loneliness is apparent. However De Sica has a much more
interesting story going on in the background. The story of a man who has lost his money

to a cruel state shows the weakness of democratic bureaucracy, but instead De Sica
focuses on the basic simple and unimportant story of Umberto D. Ferrari. It could be so
much more Vittorio, so much more. Umberto D. is so myopic in its worldview that it is
borderline ignorant in its lack of representation for the similarly oppressed. The only
time the other poor are given screen time is in a few brief scenes where they are seen with
Umberto, and even then their state of poverty if often played for laughs. Why focus on
the misfortunes of one man when there exist thousands suffering from equivalent
injustices?
Of Umberto D. I can only say this; it fails at what is most important, using the
filmic form to express something greater than just the story. Throughout the film there
are moments that seem to drag on forever for no purpose other than to manipulate the
emotions of the audience. But should not a filmmaker strive for more than such paltry
manipulation? Should they not instead attempt to make the audience think about what
they have seen? For my tastes Umberto D. does little of interest. Its indictment of the
state is something I am unable to agree with morally and ethically, and I find it distasteful
in the detrimentally singular viewpoint of the states bureaucracy it insists on holding. It
is dangerously unintellectual, bordering on showing outright contempt for the artistic
potential of the medium, and for that I would not recommend it to any who take film art
seriously.