This film, part of the Vittorio De Sica season, also screens on 1st August. Tonight's presentation will be introduced by film scholar and critic Pasquale Iannone. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
Screenwriter Cesare Zavattini likely deserves as much credit as director Vittorio De Sica for such masterpieces of Italian neorealism as The Bicycle Thief (1947) and this 1952 feature about a retired civil servant (schoolteacher Carlo Battisti) who discovers that his meager pension won't pay the rent for his room. He's befriended by a maid in the same flat who's pregnant but unsure of the father's identity; apart from her the only creature he feels close to is his dog, and though he contemplates suicide, he has to find someone to care for it. This simple, almost Chaplinesque story of a man fighting to preserve his dignity is even more moving for its firm grasp of everyday activities. In Italian with subtitles. 89 min.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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