Damaged children: three classics of Italian cinema

Culture and Civilisations Stories and Essays

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Three classic Italian films—Vittorio De Sica’s The Children Are Watching Us (1943) and The Bicycle Thieves (1948), and Gianni Amelio’s Stolen Children (1992)— have brilliant child actors. With minimal speech and gestures, their faces register powerful emotions. In these compassionate, realistic films, stripped down to essentials and inexpensive to make, the vulnerable children act as a near-silent conscience that adults lack. They reveal how the families are damaged or broken, and suffer for the deceits or crimes of their parents: adultery, theft or sexual abuse. The camera is placed low, so that viewers feel an affinity with the children, who bravely hold back their tears and express their tragic sadness and loss of security. The De Sica films are set during and after the end of World War II, while Amelio’s takes place nearly fifty years later, but all three explore the same humane theme: how adults fail children.

As a little boy I saw through my mother’s lies about her adulterous lovers and at five years old was sent away to a two-month summer camp to give her more sexual freedom, so I was deeply moved by The Children Are Watching Us. This film has only one child, but he stands for all small and helpless victims.

The film takes place in Rome and in Alassio, a beach resort on the Italian Riviera, 60 miles southwest of Genoa. The unusual name of the four-year-old Pricò suggests his essential qualities: pregiato (prized), prezioso (precious) and precoce (precocious). The boy who played Pricò had recently lost his own mother. De Sica was paternal, and the boy became the darling of the cast, who bought little presents for him.

The film opens as Nina, his apparently devoted mother, takes her only child to the park instead of going to the movies with her gossipy neighbor. After he and his mother watch a violent Punch and Judy puppet show, Pricò sees his mother with her lover Roberto, intuits danger and won’t say goodbye to him. Like Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Nina must choose between responsibility for her little boy and passion for her lover. He’s taken a new job in Genoa and wants her to come with him, but he can’t marry her. (There was no legal divorce in Italy until 1970.)

Pricò’s father Andrea, heartbroken when he realises his wife has run away, cannot bear to hear the canary sing and sadly covers its cage in the boy’s room. A decent but dull accountant, tied to his adding machine, he has to ask a colleague’s advice about how to dress elegantly. Unlike the dashing Roberto, he suppresses his feelings and lacks charisma. He first sends Pricò to his wife’s sister, the child’s aunt, a corset-maker busy with her obese clients. But she feigns ignorance about Nina’s affair and does not respond to Andrea’s pleas for sympathy.

He then sends Pricò to his sickly paternal grandmother in the country. On his brief stay Pricò shares a bedroom with the maid, Paolina, who gets up in the night and leaves to meet her lover in secret. When he discovers her absence the boy becomes resentful and cruel, and to punish her for his mother’s desertion pushes a potted plant from the balcony onto her head. Paolina recalls the violence of the Punch and Judy show when she reappears the next day crowned with a huge bandage. The young, slim, selfish Paolina contrasts strongly with the older, plump, devoted Agnese, the family maid in Rome. The grandmother blames her son for marrying the worthless Nina, and he claims it was not his fault that she left. She then rejects Pricò and shouts, “I want to live in peace.”

Pricò gets sick and the penitential Nina, overcome by guilt and shame, returns home. But she’s not allowed to stay in their flat, so she pleads with Andrea to “take me back again”, and he reluctantly agrees for Pricò’s sake. Andrea attempts to please her by arranging a special birthday dinner with flowers and champagne and by giving her an expensive wristwatch. They go on holiday to Alassio, he allows her to stay on when he returns to work in Rome, and buys new curtains to replace the ones she dislikes.

Roberto, a diabolical tempter, turns up three times—in the park, brazenly in Nina’s home and at the beach in Alassio—and is watched by Pricò every time. Roberto wants to revive their old love and make Nina forget that she’s a mother. She tells him that she’s finally found the strength to leave him and begs him to go. Pricò takes revenge by biting his hand. In a similar recurrent pattern Nina leaves the family after Roberto’s visit to the park and, as Andrea forgives her, after she meets Roberto in Alassio.

At the beach flirtatious women and dissolute men first encourage and then condemn her affair with Roberto. De Sica has a suggestive shot of Nina lying on her back on the beach and Roberto leaning over her as if they were having sex. The ever-vigilant Pricò sees them kissing. Echoing his mother’s disappearance, he runs away, tries to buy a ticket to Rome, decides to walk there without realising that it’s 370 miles away and is nearly hit by a train. He’s found and brought back by the carabinieri. Nina is scorned by the guests in the pensione — she had been seen by her neighbours in Rome — for deserting her child and endangering his life. Nina had refused to eat dinner at home before secretly running away; now Pricò refuses to eat on the train back from Alassio.

Nina brings Pricò home from the station in a taxi and continues alone to meet Roberto for her second desertion. In a poignant confessional close-up scene, as Andrea closely questions the troubled Pricò about Nina’s behavior in Alassio, he lies to protect her and implicates himself in her betrayal. An express letter arrives to confirm that she’s left the family again.

The kind maid Agnese says, “He’ll be fine with me.” But Andrea wants to protect Pricò from the neighbours’ malicious gossip and remove him from the morally polluted flat. He’s also contemplating suicide and wants to arrange a secure place for his son in a Catholic boarding school. In a parallel scene to his aunt’s corset shop, Pricò is fitted at a tailor’s shop for an oversized military school uniform, well before he’s prepared to assume a more grown-up role. Andrea hands him over to the priest and leaves the school. Pricò runs after him, rightly fearing that he will never see his father again.

De Sica wisely leaves the viewer to interpret the motives for Andrea’s off-screen suicide by defenestration. Andrea has twice suffered public shame and humiliation; he’s completely misjudged Nina’s apparent repentance and forgiven her when she returned; and he’s no longer able to live with or without her. Nina comes to the school to comfort and reclaim her son; and a priest, referring to both Andrea and herself, tells her: “It’s been a terrible blow for a little boy.” Nina, he suggests, is also responsible for driving her husband to suicide. Pricò, permanently scarred by his parents’ crimes, rejects his mother and seeks comfort from Agnese.

De Sica refused to have a happy ending. Pricò has lost all love for Nina and cannot forgive her. He chooses school over mother, tells her “I’d rather be here,” walks away from her and seems lost in the enormous high-ceilinged room. Children is tightly structured by a series of cruel betrayals by Roberto, Nina and Andrea. The aunt lies to protect her sister, the grandmother blames Andrea for his disastrous marriage, but neither helps the child.

Pricò is the moral center of the film. He watches— silent, passive and vulnerable—as his parents ruin his life and we see them through his eyes. Though only four years old, he is sensitive, observant and perceptive, with an extraordinary understanding of what is happening as his tragedy unfolds. His weak mother surrenders to the passion she never had with her husband, and sacrifices her son for a dubious lover who ruins her reputation and cannot marry her. She destroys Pricò’s innocence and forces her child to suffer a lonely and tragic life.

II

The Bicycle Thieves—both words are plural in the Italian title and there are two thieves in the film—is set in decayed, soul-destroying blocks of flats at the outer edge of Rome. A pervasive sadness and poetic misery envelops this movie. Unlike the pretty and delicate Pricò, the eight-year-old Bruno has a snub nose and an old man’s face. But like Pricò, he watches carefully and says very little. He’s had to leave school to work in a gas station and is streetwise. When searching for his father’s stolen bicycle, he fends off an old pederast who offers to buy him a bike bell. He wears a boiler suit like his father, Antonio, and keeps looking up to him for reassurance and guidance.

The film opens at an outdoor labour market where the boss, like the Capo in a rural village, hands out scarce work to a mob of poor suppliants. Antonio luckily secures the job of pasting advertising posters onto walls, but must find a way to redeem his bicycle, essential to get and keep his job, from a pawn shop. He meets his wife, Maria, who’s carrying two heavy buckets (there’s no running water in their run-down flat) and while distraught doesn’t help her till they reach a small incline. She reluctantly sells the best sheets from her trousseau to get his bike out of hock, and the ceiling-high stacks of pawned sheets in the shop reveal the desperation of the poor. She sews the band on Antonio’s new hat which (like Pricò’s military hat) confirms his new position. The family enjoys a brief moment of security and happiness before disaster strikes.

After arriving at the office clutching his precious bike, Antonio glues his first poster, advertising a movie with Rita Hayworth. She’d danced with Fred Astaire in romantic comedies, and in 1943 had married Orson Welles, an actor and director like De Sica. While Antonio is on the ladder and absorbed in his work, a thief steals his bike. An accomplice sends Antonio in the wrong direction and allows the thief to escape. The thief wears and is identified by the cap of the German army that, after the invasion of Sicily and fall of Mussolini, had occupied much of Italy in 1943. The bridge over the Tiber and soccer stadium have fascist sculpture, and many of the unemployed young men in the streets are army veterans. De Sica’s sombre film portrays the poverty and unemployment that followed the Italian defeat in the recent war.

Antonio files a complaint, but the police are not interested in the multitude of stolen bikes. Appealing to authority, Antonio twice calls the cops: to examine a painted bike that might be his and to search the thief’s room for the stolen bike. Both attempts are futile. Maria, by contrast, appeals to the fantasies of a rapacious fortune teller, who fails to warn her of the imminent disaster. Foreign seminary students sheltering next to Antonio during a rainstorm represent the possibility of a spiritual life where bikes are not needed to succeed. Antonio then seeks help from his fat, kind, optimistic garbage-man friend (who looks like Zero Mostel) in his hopeless quest for the bike. The friend uses his cumbersome garbage truck, like a taxi, to drive Antonio and Bruno around the city. Despite his lowly job, the friend has an artistic side and directs a group of amateur actors and musicians.

Antonio curses his bad luck and laments his loss: “To lose it after only one day.” He sees an old man talking to the thief, follows him and demands the thief’s address. The old man refuses, and Antonio continues to pursue him into church, where poor people, ordered about by their wealthy patrons, are served free pasta and potatoes after attending a service. Despite Antonio’s persistence and threats, the old man still refuses to divulge the address. When he finally extracts it and goes to the thief’s street, the thief fakes an epileptic fit, his mother and friends fiercely defend him, and chase Antonio away.

When Bruno criticises his father, the frustrated Antonio loses his temper and slaps him. They bond after their quarrel during a sacramental meal in a restaurant they can’t afford. A middle-class, well-dressed family, including an effeminate boy with a high pompadour, enjoy a lavish meal and scorn them. Antonio orders mozzarella on bread and a carafe of wine. Bruno struggles with his knife and fork, and finally picks up the food with his hands as a rubbery string of cheese extends from the plate to his mouth. The lively musicians in the restaurant recall the ones in the amateur play rehearsal.

Antonio sees an isolated bike near an open doorway and is tempted to steal it to replace his own. He’s torn about what to do, finally seizes the bike, but has no confederate to mislead his pursuers. Instead, he is now the thief pursued by a mob, who capture and punch him. The bike owner compassionately says, “This man has enough trouble, let him go.” But he tells Antonio, “You’ve set a fine example for your son.” Antonio is lucky to escape arrest, a fine, even jail. Bruno’s face expresses his shame and fear as he watches his father pursued and beaten, and bravely attempts to rescue Antonio from the mob. After Antonio’s unbearable degradation he tries to restore his father’s dignity, takes his hand to console him. Bruno now has to take care of him.

The ironically named Fides bicycle means freedom; the stolen bike means bondage. (The search for the bike foreshadows the search for the lost dog in De Sica’s Umberto D., 1952.) In The Bicycle Thieves a good man is forced to steal and become another thief, and has bad luck twice. His bike is stolen and he’s caught stealing. He’s now lost his job and has no future. The crowds, in contrast to the isolated figures of Antonio and Bruno, play a major role. They appear at the labour market, in the jammed streetcars, among the thief’s friends, at the soccer stadium, and at the chase and capture. At the end of the film Antonio and Bruno disappear into the crowd, as hopeless and anonymous as they began.

III

The boy and girl in Stolen Children who brilliantly play the brother and sister Rosetta and Luciano—aged eleven and nine—had no previous acting experience. But they convey subtle modulations of feeling, from resentment and fury to trust and love. To encourage their spontaneity, Amelio did not allow them to read the script before shooting the film.

The superb opening scene takes place in the family kitchen in Milan as Luciano broods and seems to be thinking, “How did I ever get trapped in this shitty life?” His mother ignores his depression and tries to bribe him with money to buy ice cream. Rosetta, who has been a child prostitute for two years, is servicing a customer behind closed doors. As another client arrives, the guilt-ridden mother tries to soothe her with forced endearments. Suddenly, the police break in, arrest the mother and the client — who claims “I’m the girl’s relative” — and take the children into protective custody. As they drive away the police siren echoes their cries.

These damaged and difficult children are handed over to the carabiniere Antonio, who is ordered to escort them by train to an orphanage in Civitavecchia, a port near Rome. When they reach Bologna his partner takes off to see his girlfriend, and Antonio must take care of them alone. Later on, another carabiniere tries to lure Rosetta into his room by promising to give her a music tape. By contrast, Antonio is an idealist who studies for his promotion exam, believes in observing the law, disapproves of swindlers and later tells his old grandmother, “I’m honest, just like you taught me.”

The children have no father and their mother has been taken away. To reassure them Antonio removes his uniform, and wears denim jeans and jacket like Rosetta. He says they are all Sicilians and gradually assumes a parental role. But he’s used to dealing with criminals, not children, and is not cut out for this unusual expedition. The sickly Luciano falls into a mute melancholy and refuses to eat as a form of protest and self-punishment. Antonio, who encourages Luciano to express his feelings, asks him, “Don’t you ever cry?” The boy, not understanding that it’s all right to cry if you are sad, replies “I’ve done nothing.”

When Luciano has an asthma attack in the street and Rosetta gives him the puffer that enables him to breathe, Antonio exclaims, “He needs a woman social worker, not me.” Rosetta is a more complex character than Luciano and even more bitter. Confusing moral accusations with questions of hygiene, she tells Antonio, “They say I am dirty but I always wash myself.” Before taking a shower behind a transparent curtain she modestly tells him to leave the room. At one point Antonio realizes that Rosetta has seized power and can now control him. She can fool people by crying at will and threatens to accuse him of touching her. Placing the children in the orphanage parallels placing Pricò in the boarding school. The nun teaches her class that God loves them, yet the manager cruelly refuses to accept the desperate children. He states that the scarred siblings won’t fit in and, since Rosetta has no medical certificate, fears she is both physically and morally infected.

Luciano sees the grotesque side of the orphanage while wandering through the rooms and encountering a crazy infant. Lying in bed and completely alone in the vast dormitory, the creature has crooked teeth and a shaved head to get rid of lice or prepare for surgery. It stares into a hand-held mirror while babbling about little “fishies” in the sea. Luciano asks, “Are you a boy or girl?” and she points to her earrings and says, “Girl.” He fears he will end up like her if he stays there.

Rejected here, Antonio decides to transport them to another orphanage in Sicily. On the way south they take a bus to visit his family, who own a restaurant on a busy highway and are slowly building an apartment on the upper floor. Antonio pretends they are his friend’s children, and shows them a photo of himself as a little boy dressed in a Zorro costume with cape, tights and sword. The children see the contrast between the human warmth of Antonio’s family in Calabria and their own battered and neglected lives.

In an ironic scene, Rosetta asks a younger girl, who’s just had her First Communion and is dressed in white like a nun, to recite the catechism and define the nature of God. She establishes an immediate friendship with another girl her own age and smiles, showing her pretty teeth, for the first time. But her happiness is short-lived. The mother of her new friend recognizes Rosetta from her photo in a scandalous newspaper and tells her daughter to leave. She interrogates Rosetta, forcing her to lie about her family background, and cruelly states: “Your mom is in prison.” Rosetta realises she can never escape the stigma of her past and tries to run away on the highway. In their first physical contact, Antonio catches, hugs and comforts her as the cars rush by.

They board a ferry to Messina in Sicily. Antonio bonds with these slum children, who’ve never seen a beach with white sand and blue sea, by teaching Luciano how to swim and taking them to an outdoor restaurant. He amuses Luciano by telling puerile jokes about foolish carabinieri; Luciano tells a grown-up joke about a bull wanting to “bang a cow”. Despite Rosetta’s sexual degradation that has deprived her of her childhood, she is still able to establish vital connections with the girl in Calabria and with the two young French tourists she meets at the beach.

While Rosetta is taking a photo of the French girls in front of a cathedral, a young thief snatches their camera and runs away. Antonio chases and catches him (as in The Bicycle Thieves), shows his badge, forces him to drop his knife and arrests him. At the police station the French girls, like the mother in Calabria, discover the real identity of Rosetta, who still cannot escape her stigma. Instead of being praised for capturing the criminal without using violence, Antonio is accused by his superior of disobeying orders and kidnapping the children, and is even suspected of having sex with Rosetta. He’s now become a victim like them, hands over his precious badge and, despite his good intentions, fears his career will be ruined during the investigation. He could say with Miranda in The Tempest: “I have suffered with those that I saw suffer.” Meanwhile—after travelling by train, bus, ferry and car—he’s allowed to take them to their final destination.

When Rosetta is finally able to break the silence about her past and starts to tell Antonio, “He forced me to. . .”, he cannot bear to hear about it and shouts “Basta!” He tries to assure her that she’s now under his protection. The film ends at dawn after their long car drive, while Antonio remains in the car and the children sit at the roadside awaiting their uncertain fate in the next orphanage. In the beginning, Rosetta had physically fought with Luciano; she now protects him from the cold by putting a jacket around his shoulders.

In this poignant, compassionate and unbearably sad film, Rosetta changes from believing that “Nobody wants me” to accepting Antonio’s promise that “I’m your guardian now. . . . Nobody can do anything to you.” In their few days together he gives them the love they never had, and persuades them to trust the adult, whom they once considered an enemy and colleague of the men who arrested them. The children’s lives as well as their bodies have been stolen, and he has stolen them again in order to redeem them.

The Italian title of The Bicycle Thieves, “thieves of bicycles” (Ladri di biciclette), foreshadows “Thieves of Children” (Ladri di bambini), which echoes De Sica’s title and also recalls The Children Are Watching Us (I bambini ci guardano). These three films portray the middle class, the working class and the criminal class with both mother and daughter as prostitutes. The lives of the children in the first two films are ruined at the end; in the third, their lives are destroyed at the beginning. Pricò has lost his family, Bruno’s family has lost its dignity and hope, Rosetta and Luciano have never had a family and seem to have no future.

Jeffrey Meyers will publish both James Salter: Pilot, Screenwriter, Novelist and Parallel Lives: From Freud and Hitler to Arbus and Plath with Louisiana State University Press in 2024.

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