Post War Film Study
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Post War Film Study
This essay will analyze two films; the 1947 Shoeshine, directed by Vittorio De Sica and Notorious, a 1946 movie by Alfred Hitchcock. The analysis will focus entirely on their themes, structure, and cinematic language, as well as a comparison with films studied in a class titled The Third Man, a 1949 film by Carol Reed and Bicycle Thieves directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1949. The Third Man is an investigative narrative about an American who goes to his friend for a job only to find him dead (Reed, 1949). While attempting to unravel this mystery, he discovers that his friend is alive and deals with stolen penicillin in black markets. On the other hand, Bicycle Thieves is about the tales of a poor man searching for his bicycle in post-war Rome (De Sica, 1949). Without the bicycle, he will lose his job and hence will not be capable of providing for his family. In his quest to find the lost bicycle, he ends up stealing as well but is caught before he gets away with it.
In Shoeshine, the director plays a proper role in enforcing the complexities of human affairs like accidents, which allow the viewer to relate to the film. De Sica tells a story of two boys in Rome who, due to poverty, end up as shoe shines for soldiers from America. In a bid to gain more earnings, they liaise with conmen to steal blankets they had sold to a fortune teller (De Sica, 1947). The fortune-teller reports to actual police who send the boys to a reform center, which turns out to be unhelpful as the boys are faced with harsh treatment from corrupt officials. Their robust existence leads to Pasquale unknowingly betraying Giuseppe resulting in their bond being destroyed and Giuseppe escaping prison. Giuseppe dies during the escape when he hits his head on the rocks beneath the bridge while Pasquale is left crying in despair over the demise of his friend.
With a focus on Pasquale’s cry, De Sica achieves various themes such as loss of innocence, corruption, war, and poverty. In this film, the main characters, despite being young boys, face high levels of poverty as a consequence of the war such that they shine shoes for others to earn a living with the hope of saving up enough money to buy a horse that would improve their lives. In their quest for improvement, Giuseppe’s sibling influences them into a crime that gets them into juvenile detention where they are faced with cruelty, that eventually damages their bond (De Sica, 1947). Their jobs as shoe shiners and consequent detention force them into early adulthood, preventing them from enjoying their childhood hence loss of innocence.
The quickly changing scenes in this particular sequence, as well as others throughout the story, reveal the film’s emotional force, such as sympathy. The cinematic language of this film also reflects real-life experiences and the vulgarism among street boys who face harsh conditions in Rome. Pasquale’s crying allows the viewer to form mental images and empathize with the boys hoping that their situation improves. The camera focus and editing on this particular sequence help to build upon the main themes with its natural effect. These emotional scenes, such as juvenile treatment and Giuseppe’s death, have helped in achieving better juvenile delinquency reforms in the modern world.
Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock is a love narrative of three people whose lives are intertwined with each other. Alicia, a daughter of a spy, is recruited to infiltrate the life of Sebastian, a Nazi. During negotiations of her posting, she falls in love with her recruiter, Devlin, but they are forced to break their love ties when Alicia goes for the mission and ends up marrying Sebastian (Hitchcock, 1946). As a result of a party where one of the guests seemed nervous about a particular wine bottle, Alicia organizes another party to get the key to the cellar to gather more information. Unfortunately, Devlin breaks one of the bottles, which contains uranium, and they try to conceal this from Sebastian (Hitchcock, 1946). Sebastian finally becomes aware of Alicia and Devlin’s plot and decides to poison Alicia after deliberation with his mother. Alicia is poisoned and left to die in her room, but Devlin comes to her rescue when he is suspicious of her silence. Devlin carries the weary Alicia out of the mansion, driving off without Sebastian despite his persuasion.
The director makes sufficient use of camera techniques such as focusing and back shots of the characters to emphasize on their scenes. For example, when Alicia and Devlin meet, the cameras zoom on important objects as background music plays to foreshadow their relationship and the role of Sebastian in their lives. These camera techniques add meaning to the movie by allowing the viewer to perceive themes such as trust, love, and duty. Sebastian trusts easily while Devlin hardly trusts anyone. Sebastian ends up paying for such character when Alicia, whom he loves, betrays him and risks exposing the Nazis to the rest of the world. Alicia’s and Devlin’s love towards one another is inhibited by their duty to protect America against the Nazis. These techniques thus help to achieve the realism of the post-war period.
In comparison to the films viewed in class, all these movies are focused on themes visible in everyday life, such as corruption, war, poverty, love, murder, and trust. The Third Man seeks to highlight the effects of war and issues such as murder and illicit trades that are a danger to society. Bicycle thieves consequently talk about poverty, which causes many to engage in crime as a way to meet their livelihood (De Sica, 1949). Such frustrations cause the protagonist to also engage in crime to secure his job. Further, all these films make use of unique cinematography techniques, for example, The Third man’s use of more black and white lighting and a unique theme song to portray the emotions after the war. This cinematic language allows the characters to perfectly play their roles such that even the antagonists gain viewer appreciation, such as Sebastian in Notorious.
In conclusion, the above analysis was an illustration of how different films correlate in terms of their themes, structure, and cinematic language. In all the films, the mentioned sequences employ various cinematic methods such as lighting and sound effects to help the directors achieve the themes of their stories as well as capturing the audience’s attention. This is because these techniques allow the viewer to create scenarios in their head and try to view the story from the characters’ point of view. Moreover, these techniques have helped in displaying the state of events after the world wars, which left many crippled in poverty and corrupt systems. The directors’ efforts to highlight typical situations in the real world have thus increased the films’ value.
References
De Sica, V. (1949, December 13). Bicycle Thieves (1948). Retrieved February 7, 2020, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040522/
Hitchcock, A. (1946, September 6). Notorious (1946). Retrieved February 7, 2020, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038787/
De Sica, V. (1947, August 26). Shoeshine (1946). Retrieved February 7, 2020, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038913/
Reed, C. (1949, October 12). The Third Man (1949). Retrieved February 7, 2020, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041959/