The Children Are Watching Us (The Criterion Collection)
by Vittorio De Sica
List Price:
Our Price: $24.99
You Save: $4.96 (17%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $12.35 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adriano Rimoldi, Emilio Cigoli, Giovanna Cigoli, Isa Pola, Luciano De AmbrosisDirector: Vittorio De Sica
Brand: Image Entertainment
Writer: Adolfo Franci
Writer: Cesare Giulio Viola
Writer: Cesare Zavattini
Writer: Gherardo Gherardi
Writer: Margherita Maglione
Writer: Maria Doxelofer
Writer: Mario Monicelli
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Italian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 84 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-03-28
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of The Children Are Watching Us (The Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: The sins of the adults through the eyes of a child!
Summary: 5 Stars
Remarkable, heartfelt and touching movie in which we can realize - through the eyes and feelings of an innocent child - how his affective is progressively crumbling when his lovable mother decides to commit adultery.
But the what Vittorio De Sica makes the approach around this one thousand told story is what makes the difference. Since this early opus, we may appreciate how a simple story becomes a treasured movie. As a matter of fact, the poetic of the image and the clever close ups, the melting process, slender camera handle and marvelous traveling throughout this captivating and sensitive film.
I have the haunch this work inspired to Truffaut at the moment to make his renowned "400 blows."
Summary of The Children Are Watching Us (The Criterion Collection)
CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US - DVD MovieVittoria 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 Pricò, 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 Pricò 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 Pricò's parents, both of whom love the boy equally but are ill-equipped to avoid the disintegration of the relationship. This places Pricò 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
Contempt (The Criterion Collection)Release date: 2002-12-10; DVD
Best price: $17.99
Price in other shops:
Le Cercle Rouge (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2003-10-28; Published: 2003-10-01; DVD
Best price: $19.99
Price in other shops:
Three Silent Classics by Josef Von Sternberg (Underworld / Last Command / Docks of New York) (The Criterion Collection)IMG; Release date: 2010-08-24; DVD
Best price: $41.99
Price in other shops:
Trafic (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2008-07-15; DVD
Best price: $19.99
Price in other shops:
Belle de Jour (Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2012-01-17; DVD
Best price: $19.59
Price in other shops:
Essential Art: Forbidden GamesImage Entertainment; Release date: 2009-06-16; DVD
Best price: $9.65
Price in other shops:
Senso (The Criterion Collection)IMG; Release date: 2011-02-22; DVD
Best price: $15.67
Price in other shops:
Port of Shadows (The Criterion Collection)GABIN,JEAN; Release date: 2004-07-20; DVD
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops:
Umberto D. (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2003-07-22; DVD
Best price: $17.90
Price in other shops:
ShoeshineE1E; Release date: 2011-05-17; DVD
Best price: $16.76
Price in other shops: