It's time to check off a classic
Directed by Vittorio De Sica • 1951 • Italy
Starring Francesco Golisano, Emma Gramatica, Paolo Stoppa
This warm and wonderful fable by director Vittorio De Sica recounts the story of displaced Europeans gathered in a strife-torn Italian village following World War II. Poor and starving, their rescuer and benefactor comes in the unlikely guise of a young orphan, assisted by a guardian angel sent from heaven, who defeats the cruel profiteers seeking to take advantage of these unfortunate souls. Blending fantasy and reality, MIRACLE IN MILAN illuminates the plight of millions of Europeans dispossessed by the war.
Starring Francesco Golisano, Emma Gramatica, Paolo Stoppa
This warm and wonderful fable by director Vittorio De Sica recounts the story of displaced Europeans gathered in a strife-torn Italian village following World War II. Poor and starving, their rescuer and benefactor comes in the unlikely guise of a young orphan, assisted by a guardian angel sent from heaven, who defeats the cruel profiteers seeking to take advantage of these unfortunate souls. Blending fantasy and reality, MIRACLE IN MILAN illuminates the plight of millions of Europeans dispossessed by the war.
Here it is!! Whenever I find the films I post about on YT, i'll put them in, oh there's a hilarious part where an army general sort of guy is singing with a female opera voice, priceless!! at the 1:11 Mark, one hour and 11 minutes into it!!
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De Sica was one of the greats of the Italian New Wave, and my dad also perks up when I mention him as he starred in The Four Just Men. Sica's other great films I treasure are Bicycle Thieves, and Umberto D, those are his top 2, but maybe his other classics like this and Shoeshine will snuggle up close beside those towering achievements. He also appears in Paul Morrisey's Blood for Dracula, a movie that exists in the Andy Warhol universe. His biggest acting role though was in Max Ophuls' The Earrings of Madame de.... on the CC disc of that one Wes Anderson gives a delightful appreciation of it.
I love the grainy look, a staple of Neorealism
I can imagine someone saying sarcastically Geez, could you make those images any smaller, to that I say, I know currently of no other way to capture images from it, the screenshot option doesn't work when i'm in full screen, and so one must work with it, and zoom in, make the image fill up your screen as much as you can.
There's a I Vitelloni feel here a bit, that's a good one, an early Fellini masterpiece much appreciated by the man himself Martin Scorsese.
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A bit of a parting of the red sea visual effect here
There's also a bit of the vibe Rene Clair established so well in A nous la liberte which was re-made without permission by Chaplin as Modern Times, in Rene's film everything's blowing in the wind and comedically people are rushing about in a funny kind of panic.
46-50, M
