The Children Are Watching Us
by Vittorio De Sica
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Actor: Adriano Rimoldi, Emilio Cigoli, Giovanna Cigoli, Isa Pola, Luciano De AmbrosisDirector: Vittorio De Sica
Writer: Vittorio De Sica
Writer: Adolfo Franci
Writer: Cesare Giulio Viola
Writer: Cesare Zavattini
Writer: Gherardo Gherardi
Writer: Margherita Maglione
Writer: Maria Doxelofer
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Subtitled); Italian (Original Language), Analog
Format: Black & White, NTSC
Running Time: 85 minutes
Release Date: 2000-06-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Homevision
Studio: Homevision
VHS Movie Reviews of The Children Are Watching Us
Movie Review: deeply moving movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I won't go into much detail.
It was shot very well. I loved the movie. It moved me and was a heartbreaking situation.
The end was simply stunning. This is about as perfect a masterpiece you can ever watch if you don't mind subtitles.
I highly recommend it...it will stay with you forever in your memory!
Movie Review: moving masterpiece!
Summary: 5 Stars
Oh boy! (when watching this movie, get ready with your hankies).
De Sica is such a marvellous director that I have never seen a work
from this man that I dislike--and this one is stunningly brilliant!
Movie Review: A forgotten classic worth discovering
Summary: 4 Stars
The Children Are Watching Us is for my money a better film than Bicycle Thieves - the unforgiving ending is certainly much harder hitting. Set in the last great summer of Fascist Italy, much of it intriguingly takes place in a Rome and a coastal resort that don't even notice there's a war going on: no shortages, no bomb damage, not even a single army uniform in sight, which in a way gives it a more timeless quality - even the apartment blocks its middle class characters live in can still be found all over Italy. The story is a simple one, with a child caught in the middle of his parents dissolving marriage and finding his loyalties torn as his weak-willed mother constantly returns to her lover, but it's told with a surprising degree of naturalism. It also takes on an extra dimension with the knowledge that De Sica was himself having an affair when he was making it. Very impressive.
The film is beautifully restored and while the extras aren't plentiful - recent interviews with child star Luciano De Ambrosis and critic Callisto Cosulich and a booklet - they make up for in it terms of quality.
Movie Review: A nice film
Summary: 4 Stars
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
This film is about a young boy whose parents seperate and his handling of the problem. He becomes upset and tries to run away.
The film is directed by Vittorio De Sica and has some nice scenes it it.
The DVD contains an interview with the lead actor Luciano De Ambrosis and film scholar Callisto Cosulich.
Movie Review: ' Children' is heart breaking and realistic.
Summary: 5 Stars
THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US was my official introduction to neo-realistic filmmaking and to Vittorio De Sica. After having seen this film i just could not get over how tragic and realistic it was. The story is about a couple and their little boy who seem to live a peaceful existence but the boy knows that his mother is having an affair. Soon after she abandons the family. This causes the father and especially the boy much grief. The father is unable to care for the boy so he sends him to other family members. The boy begins to suffer internally until finally his mother decides to come back and the father reluctantly decides to accept her. The boy is happy once again but the mother's ex lover will not leave her alone and once again tries to make her leave her family for him. Soon after sad consequences follow and an ending which will make you cry enough to supply water for the world population. It is very well directed, acted, and written but it is also at times hard to take because it is so painfully realistic and also because all these tragic things are happening to an innocent child. The black and white color and photography give it in some parts a semi-documentery feel and authentic locations are used in this movie. Most of the story is seen from the child's point of view so it will affect anyone who has gone through similar situations. I could understand the child's grief so it was especially moving for me. The movie is undeniably well made but is not really the kind of movie where you plan to have repeat viewings.
Summary of The Children Are Watching Us
With this brilliant breakthrough film, Oscar?-winner Vittorio De Sica (The Bicycle Thief, Miracle in Milan) developed the themes and realistic style that would shape his career and transform Italian cinema. A devastating portrait of theVittoria De Sica's mastery of neorealism was already well apparent in 1944's The Children Are Watching Us, an excellent, emotionally devastating drama that marked De Sica's first collaboration with renowned screenwriter and longtime partner Cesare Zavattini. While not as well known as De Sica's later masterpieces The Bicycle Thief (1948) and Umberto D. (1952), the film shares many of De Sica's stylistic trademarks, beginning with his exquisite use of real Italian locations in telling the story of Pric?, an observant and inquisitive 4-year-old boy who bears silent witness to his mother's infidelity and the subsequent collapse of his parents' marriage. Like Carol Reed's thematically similar classic The Fallen Idol, De Sica's film is seen almost exclusively through the eyes and perception of this innocent young boy, and the frank treatment of adultery and its effect on Pric? was considered quite shocking for Italian audiences who were emphatically concerned with the sanctity of childhood. What seems dramatically tame by modern standards still retains much of its power, notably due to the remarkable performance of Luciano De Ambrosis, who was barely five years old when the film was shot in the summer of 1942, just before the violence of World War II would erupt all over Italy.
In combining empathy for his characters with the graceful sentimentality that would be refined in his later classics, De Sica refrains from judging the weaknesses of Pric?'s parents, both of whom love the boy equally but are ill-equipped to avoid the disintegration of the relationship. This places Pric? in the middle of a gut-wrenching dilemma, and the boy responds with understandable grief and confusion. In running away, he shifts the story toward a heartbreaking conclusion, lending substance to the film's alternate title (The Little Martyr) with a final image that's simply unforgettable. Criterion's exquisite DVD release presents this potent drama in a new, fully restored high-definition digital transfer, and includes illuminating video interviews with De Ambrosis (well into his sixties, with vivid memories of working with De Sica) and De Sica film scholar Callisto Cosulich. The 24-page booklet features mini-essays by film scholar Peter Brunette (writing about The Children Are Watching Us) and film critic Stuart Klawans on the unique collaboration of De Sica and Zavattini. Considering that The Children Are Watching Us was largely unavailable in any previous film or video format, Criterion's DVD release is cause for celebration. --Jeff Shannon
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