First of all, it discards all references to traditional movie viewing.
If we only consider the theme of the film, we can attribute it to the appearance of a populist melodrama with social intentions, a defense of the middle-class situation: a retired old man trapped in poverty because there is no one to trust or because of his pet dog. Don't hesitate to kill it and give up suicidal thoughts. However, this last episode is not a moving ending of interlocking dramatic events. Although the traditional concept of "structure" still has a certain meaning here, the time sequence described by De Sica has its own inevitability and has nothing to do with drama. What is the causal relationship between Umberto D’s going to the hospital to treat benign sore throat, his being kicked out of the door by the landlady, and his suicidal thoughts?
In this film, Humberto D’s health does not actually require hospitalization, and hospital life is an easy and pleasant episode, far from requiring us to sympathize with his experience.
Poverty played a decisive role in deepening his despair, but it was only because poverty highlighted his loneliness. Umberto D needed a little help, which alienated his few relatives and friends. If the film involves the middle and lower classes, then it also focuses on showing their poverty and privacy, their selfishness, and their shamelessness. The protagonist gets lonely as he gets older: the only person closest to him who gives him some comfort is the landlady’s little maid, but his gentleness and kindness cannot make her forget her worries about being pregnant and being a mother when she is unmarried. This only friendship is nothing but another cause of despair.
Talk about this film from traditional critical concepts.
The general development of the character's personality and the certain connection of various events are only relied on hindsight. However, the narrative unit of this film is not an episode, an event, a dramatic turn, or a character. It is a series of no primary and secondary importance at every specific moment in life: the equality of ontology fundamentally breaks the category of drama.
There is a wonderful passage that perfectly demonstrates this narrative concept and scene scheduling concept, and it will surely become one of the best structures of the film. This is the scene of the little maid getting up early in the morning. The camera is limited to observing her early morning chores: sleepy eyes, turning around in the kitchen, drowning the ants that broke into the sink, grinding coffee... People easily think that the movie must belong to "The Art of Omission", in this segment, the movie does exactly the opposite.
Ellipsis is a logical and therefore abstract narrative process. It presupposes analysis and selection. It organizes events that must be subordinated to drama in accordance with drama. De Sika and Chavatini did exactly the opposite. They tried their best to divide an event into several small events, and then further subdivided them into small events, until our sense of time has reached the limit.
Maid get up
More trivial: getting up, walking through corridors, drowning ants, etc.
Grinding coffee is divided into a group of moments. For example, the maid stretches out her feet and closes the door with her toes. The camera gradually moved closer and followed the motion of her feet until the camera focused on the movement of her toes against the wooden door.
...Is the asymptote of reality.
Excerpt from "What is a movie?" 》(With deletion)
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