| Miracle in Milan | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Vittorio De Sica |
| Screenplay by | Cesare Zavattini Vittorio De Sica Suso Cecchi d'Amico Mario Chiari Adolfo Franci |
| Based on | Totò il buono a 1943 novel by Cesare Zavattini |
| Produced by | Vittorio De Sica |
| Starring | Emma Gramatica Paolo Stoppa Francesco Golisano Brunella Bovo |
| Cinematography | G.R. Aldo |
| Edited by | Eraldo Da Roma |
| Music by | Alessandro Cicognini |
Production companies | Produzioni De Sica Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche (ENIC) |
| Distributed by | ENIC (Italy) Joseph Burstyn Inc. (US) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Languages | Italian Milanese |
Miracle in Milan (Italian:Miracolo a Milano) is a 1951 Italianfantasy comedy film directed byVittorio De Sica.[1] Thescreenplay was co-written byCesare Zavattini and De Sica, based on Zavattini's 1943 novelTotò il Buono. Told as aneo-realistfable, the film depicts the lives of a poverty-stricken group inpost-WWIIMilan, Italy, led by Totò, a kind and cheerful orphan. The film starsFrancesco Golisano as Totò, alongside an ensemble cast that includesEmma Gramatica,Paolo Stoppa,Guglielmo Barnabò, andBrunella Bovo.[2][3]
In 2008,Miracle in Milan was included on theItalian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's list of100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."[4]
Lolotta, a kind old woman,discovers a baby in her cabbage patch and adopts the boy, who she names Totò. She teaches him things like math, but also instills him with joy and wonder, and they live together happily until he is 11, when Lolotta dies. Totò is sent to anorphanage, where he stays until reaching adulthood. Cast out alone into the cold Milanese winter, Totò, who has not lost his openhearted optimism, winds up settling in ashantytown on the outskirts of the city.[5]
Totò's presence initiates a transformation in the shantytown, and soon it begins to become a real community, with the inhabitants working together to build sturdier and more elaborate structures along named streets surrounding a central square. New arrivals are welcomed, and the community grows. One day, Brambi and Mobbi, two wealthy businessmen, come to look at the plot of land on which the squatters are living, as Mobbi is considering purchasing it from Brambi. Totò invites them to warm their hands at a small fire, and an uncomfortable Mobbi, who does not like Brambi's price for the land anyway, makes a speech saying the squatters should not have to move, and that they are all brothers. The squatters cheer Mobbi as he and Brambi beat a hasty retreat.
During a celebration, as a hole is being dug for amaypole, oil is discovered beneath the shantytown, though the residents initially mistake the clear liquid for water. Rappi, a scheming resident who does not get along with his neighbors, alerts Mobbi in exchange for a reward, and Mobbi promptly purchases the land and sends one of his employees to tell the squatters to leave. The residents drive the man away, and Totò brings the leaders of the settlement to talk with Mobbi, as he believes the magnate's earlier speech was sincere.
While he delays the leadership of the shantytown in his office, Mobbi sends his personal police force to begin the evictions, and Totò and his comrades return to discover their neighbors defeated. They lead a charge that pushes back the officers, but then Mobbi arrives with more forces, and the residents are driven back against the railroad tracks by smoke bombs. Totò climbs the maypole and waves his handkerchief as a white flag, but, just then, the ghostly spirit of Lolotta comes down from the sky and gives him a magical dove, saying it will allow him to do whatever he wants, before she flies off, chased by two angels.
Using the dove, Totò drives away Mobbi and his troops. His neighbors have noticed the miraculous occurrences, however, and they start to ask him for things. Some requests are practical, and many are not, but he does not discriminate, and spends the next several hours granting as many wishes as he can.
With difficulty, Totò eventually slips away to talk with Edvige, a young woman with whom he is smitten. She is initially frightened of him, but he denies there is anything magical or holy about him, and she gradually relaxes. All she can think to ask for is a new pair of shoes, but, after they kiss, Totò offers to give Edvige the Sun. As they watch it rise (after having set not long before), the angels take back the dove.
Unfortunately, Mobbi's regrouped troops made a plan to attack at sunrise. They storm into the shantytown and quickly overrun the residents and herd them into police wagons. Edvige evades capture and finds a dove, which she hurries to bring to Totò, handing him the bird through the bars just as the squatters are being taken pastMilan's central square. It is just an ordinary dove, but Lolotta almost immediately appears and swaps it for the magical one, which she has retrieved from the angels, who then take her and the ordinary dove up to heaven.
Totò makes the police wagons fall apart and yells for the squatters to grab broomsticks from the workers sweeping the square. They take off, flying over theMilan Cathedral on their way "towards a land where 'good morning' really means 'good morning'!"
De Sica wrote that he made the film in order to show how the "common man" can exist, given the realities of life: "It is true that my people have already attained happiness after their own fashion; precisely because they are destitute, these people still feel – as the majority of ordinary men perhaps no longer do – the living warmth of a ray of winter sunshine, the simple poetry of the wind. They greet water with the same pure joy asSaint Francis did."[6] Inneo-realist fashion, De Sica used both professional and non-professional actors in the film.[7][8]
The film's principal location was a wasteland near Milan'sLambrate railway station. TheMilan Cathedral serves as the location of the finale, and can be viewed as symbolic of the miracle to which the film's title refers.[9]
American special effects specialist Ned Mann was hired to work on the film.[10]
Miracle in Milan premiered in Italy on 8 February 1951, before it was presented at theCannes Film Festival on April 11. It opened in the United States on 17 December.
Bosley Crowther, film critic forThe New York Times, liked the film, saying: "The rich vein of sly, compassionate humor thatCharlie Chaplin andRené Clair used to mine with unparalleled genius when they were turning out their best satiric films, has been tapped by Vittorio De Sica in hisMiracle in Milan, the widely proclaimed Italian picture that arrived at the World yesterday. And although this uncommon vein of fancy is away from De Sica's previous line, the great director has brought up from his digging a liberal return of purest gold."[11] The staff atVariety magazine also gave the film a positive review, writing: "The sharp satire on the oil-greedy industrialist is handled in a broader, perhaps exaggerated manner, and pic is liberally sprinkled with intelligent humor, much of it ironic. Performances by pros and tyros alike are flawless."[12] The film ranked 3rd on the first ofCahiers du Cinéma'slists of the top 10 films of the year.[13]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 92% of 13 critics' reviews of the film are positive.[14]
In April 2019, a restored version of the film was selected to be shown in the Cannes Classics section atthat year's Cannes Film Festival.[15]
Wins
Nominations
Authority control databases: National |
|---|
