I BAMBINI CI GUARDONO (THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING)

Italy, 1943, 91 minutes, Black and white.
Luciano de Ambrosis, Isa Pola.
Directed by Vittorio de Sica.

The Children Are Watching is an early film by Vittorio de Sica, made during World War Two. He was to make The Bicycle Thieves and Shoe Shine after World War Two, two masterpieces, also showing life from the point of view of children. He went on to act in a great number of films as well as direct many including Umberto D and Miracle in Milan. He was to win an Oscar in the 1970s with The Garden of the Finzi-Contini?.

The film is vivid black and white photography of an Italian town and the countryside. The film focuses on the young boy, his mother leaving him and his father for her lover, her attempt at return when he is ill. However, it has a very strong and dramatic ending when the boy refuses to be reconciled to his mother.

The film is a reminder of the skills of Italian directors in the 1940s – and how they became directors with world-wide reputations.

1. The work of Vittorio de Sica? The importance of his contribution to film-making, Italian neo-realism? His focus on the ordinary citizen, the poor and the suffering, the oppressed? His characteristically Italian perspective? The place of this film in his work? Development from such film as this?

2. The black and white photography, visual style: apartments, city, Alassio, the beach, the school? Atmosphere? Realistic style? Characters within the situations? Black and white photography, light and dark. shadows? The score and its orchestrations, the use of strings?

3. The Italian sensibility: background sensitivity? The universal appeal of characters and situations? Audiences' emotional response?

4. The opening and its feeling: the apartment, neighbours, mother and son, the Punch and Judy show - and the ironic beating and laughter? The drama: sad and funny? Play. the scooter, not letting the poor boy play? The mother and Roberto? The setting? The father and his punctilious style, the meeting and issues - the lifts, Agnese? The goodbye?

5. The repercussions: the father and his grief, anger? Agnese? The boy? The neighbour and her inquisitiveness? The resort to the sister: her fashion work, lifestyle? Prico playing? The workers and their gossip - about the affair? The grandmother and the boys playing, the farm? Slinging off and defence?

6. The return and the motives? For Prico - 'Don't go'? The bonds, the birthday, the flowers and the gift? The husband and the accounting, the clothes, the holiday?

7. The atmosphere of the holiday and its importance: society and the types, the boys and girls with the mud, the swimming, happiness, photos - the possibilities of reconciliation and building?

8. Roberto? As a character, at the door, talk. bite, the mother's refusal? The explanation to the sister? Picco running away and its effect?

9. The return and his mother absent? The tension? The letter? Grief? School, the padre and the explanations about the school, the farewell to his father?

10. The dead father, the neighbours, the mother, Father Michele?

11. Agnese and her dignity, support? Hugged at the end? Influence on Prico's life?

12. The final injunction that the boy should go to his mother? His refusal to kiss her? Its summing up the experience of losing her, her betrayal of him, the death of his father? What future?

13. The boy and his experience, seeing things through his eyes, his world? Sensitive, spoilt? Loving? The bonds with the parents? The effects of the suffering, the joy? His lies to his father on behalf of his mother? His final stance and the effect on his life?

14. The drawing of the mother: audience sympathy for her, the liaison, the break, the attempt at reconciliation, the second betrayal, her letter? Losing audience sympathy as well as that of her son? The father and his fussiness but his fidelity to his son, gaining audience sympathy? Betraying it with his death?

15. Basic themes of family, love and fidelity, infidelity? The effect of the lives and love of parents on children? Within the Italian setting? In the World War Two setting?