Bicycle Thieves

Bicycle Thieves

Directed by Vittorio De Sica

93 minutes

Bicycle Thieves (1948) directed by Vittorio De Sica belongs to the Italian neo realism movement (others include Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini), a movement addressing the poor and social conditions post World War 11 and guerilla film techniques, such as location shooting and the use of unprofessional actors. Although, Italian neorealism declined in the early 50s, Antonioni and Fellini continued to explore these themes in their work. The movement was also a major influenced on the French New Wave.

Bicycle Thieves is pretty much as the title suggests, thieves that steal bikes. Main protagonist Antonio Ricci (lamberto Maggiorani) has a wife, Maria (Lianella Carell) and son, Bruno (Enzo Staiola) and like the rest of the community, is poor. Through the narrative’s glimmer of hope, Antonio get’s an opportunity to work for the government, meaning decent pay.  However, this job requires a bike. Even though Antonio doesn’t own one Maria and Antonio sell their bed linen to raise enough money to buy a secondhand bike and make it happen. Antonio is successful in the interview and start’s the job, the next day.  However, the glimmer of hope is thwarted when Antonio’s bike is stolen. The Police are unable to provide relief, nor is the thief caught. Bicycle Thieves is a journey into a series of unfortunate events and darkness.

Vittorio De Sica visionary is natural and grim, watching Bicycle Thieves felt like a social statement and concept, than following a classical structure. However, Lamberto’s acting is not flat, and there is a slow progression to his character. Antonio goes from showing hope prior to the news of getting the job, into deterioration where he stalks an old man and falsely accuses a stranger to the point of collapsing. Antonio becomes so obsessed with the ideal of having money it turns him into the perfect concoction of despair and insanity. Then, the film’s finale conclusion, Antonio is the thief himself. Although Antonio is believable, the situation and characterisation does come across as quite dramatic, this serves the film better as a social statement than perhaps and believe it or not, naturalism. Equally, you feel sorry for Antonio initially but when he becomes a thief himself, it changes the way you had previously emphasized with him, challenging the scenario and the film’s outcome. Adjacent to this, one of the more sincere and sad moments is a restaurant scene between Antonio and Bruno. The scene demonstrates the splitting in rich and poor. Antonio rules out hope of getting his bike back and decides to drown his misery spending the little money he has with Bruno. The tragedy comes when Bruno is unable to use the restaurant’s cutlery. The scene is problematised by a middleclass boy around the same age using knifes and forks confidently sneering at Bruno.

Bicycle Thieves is a beautiful but sad film, one of those key essential landmarks to cinema. This is not a film that has dated over time, or ambiguous as to why Bicycle Thieves should be regarded as important viewing. Knowing there is no hope to the community, De Sica has created, is quite hard to watch. The constructs of reality and bare cinema techniques is a statement in itself and at the same time makes this a pleasure to watch.