My Favorite Vittorio De Sica Film

I fully intended to write this installment about "Bicycle Thieves," one of those absolutely perfect, heartbreaking pieces of cinema that stands as a great argument for the existence of the entire medium. It is an indisputable classic, a landmark of the Neorealist movement, and the reason I tackled Vittorio De Sica's filmography in the first place. And yet, I don't get a tenth of the pleasure watching it as I do watching Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren do battle in "Marriage, Italian Style," one of De Sica's comedies from the 1960s.

For a long time I only associated De Sica with his dramatic Neorealist films. However, he was as adept at comedy as he was at drama, and became one of the major contributors to Commedia all'Italiana, a genre that rose to prominence in the late '50s. Commedia all'Italiana films are farcical, but also frequently melancholic, incorporating elements of irony and satire. And there's plenty of that in "Marriage, Italian Style," where both of the leads are playing terrible people trying to gain the upper hand in a troubled relationship. Like many other De Sica films there are elements of tragedy and highlighting social ills, but there's also a cynical attitude that's very distinct.

One reason that the film had such an impact on me is because it was my first Sophia Loren film. This wasn't the first time I'd seen her in the movie, but it was the first time I saw her in a leading role, commanding the screen as only she could. Here, she plays Filumena, an aging prostitute, who has been taken advantage of by her unfaithful lover for years, and now faces the prospect of him marrying someone else. The big twist is that she's spent all those years taking advantage of him as well, and when the time comes, she's perfectly willing to play dirty to get what she wants. Many of her actions are awful, but feel perfectly justified in context because she's up against Marcello Mastroianni's unscrupulous Domenico, who seduced her as a teenager and has been stringing her along ever since. The two end up together, more or less happily, but it takes a lot of backstabbing and arm-twisting to get there.

Loren and Mastroianni are fantastic together onscreen, both when they're in love and at odds with each other. They were frequently paired in other films, and Loren worked often with De Sica, but this was a rare occasion when all three were on the same picture. Mastroianni had also starred in Pietro Germi's "Divorce Italian Style" three years earlier, which "Marriage Italian Style" was trying to capitalize on the success of. "Divorce" was also about skewering the moral hypocrisies of the Italians, though from a different angle, and Mastroianni played a sad sack trying to escape a loveless marriage. The character of Domenico takes quite a bit from the protagonist of "Divorce" - there's the same cowardice and cravenness, despite a handsome, admirable exterior. In "Mariage," however, he's not nearly as sympathetic, essentially the villain of the piece whose despicable acts drive our heroine to desperate behavior. Domenico is shown to be redeemable, but only after extreme measures are deployed by the far more loveable Filumena.

And there's no question that this is Loren's movie. She plays Filumena at several different ages and stages of her life, from naive innocent, to traffic-stopping bombshell, to devoted, loving mother. She displays absolutely no shame about engaging in co-habitation or prostitution to get by, still considered taboo subjects by polite society at the time. Despite barely knowing how to write her own name, she survives and prevails due to her own wits and daring. And her screen presence is so charismatic and so vivacious that it's impossible not to root for her. De Sica's camera is certainly on her side, making her look sexy, virtuous, self-sacrificing, and heroic by turns.

You can see the influence of De Sica's personal experiences on the film's attitudes toward love and marriage. Like Filumena, he grew up a poor Neapolitan, who wasn't above bending the rules to get by. LIke Domenico, he had competing loyalties to different women. He essentially had two different families, after falling in love with Spanish actress Maria Mercader, but maintained the illusion of monogamy for years for the sake of his children. When he finally divorced, a difficult process for an Italian and a Roman Catholic, it was to legitimize his sons with Mercader.

"Marriage, Italian Style," unlike most of the Commedia all'Italiana films, ends happily, so it's often not counted as part of the genre. However, I don't think you could really categorize it as anything else, considering the status of its characters, their circumstances and their obsessions. And I appreciate that De Sica decided to be kind to them, letting us laugh at their foibles, but letting everyone win in the end.

What I've Seen - Vittorio De Sica

The Children Are Watching Us (1943)
Shoeshine (1946)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Miracle in Milan (1951)
Umberto D. (1952)
Terminal Station (1953)
Two Women (1960)
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)
Marriage Italian Style (1964)
Sunflower (1970)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)

---