Bicycle Thieves

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Films

Bicycle Thieves
Directed by	Vittorio De Sica
Produced by	Giuseppe Amato
Written by	Vittorio De Sica Cesare Zavattini Suso Cecchi D'Amico Gerardo Guerrieri Cesare Zavattini (story) Luigi Bartolini (novel)
Starring	Lamberto Maggiorani Enzo Staiola
Music by	Alessandro Cicognini
Cinematography	Carlo Montuori
Editing by	Eraldo Da Roma
Distributed by	Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche Arthur Mayer & Joseph Burstyn
Release date(s)	November 24, 1948 December 12, 1949
Running time	93 min
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
IMDb profile

Ladri di biciclette is a 1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was released as The Bicycle Thief in the USA and as Bicycle Thieves in the UK. It tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Luigi Bartolini and was adapted for the screen by Cesare Zavattini. It stars Lamberto Maggiorani as the father and Enzo Staiola as the son.

Title

The original Italian title of the film is literally translated into English as Bicycle Thieves, but the film has also been released in the USA as The Bicycle Thief. According to critic Philip French of The Observer, this alternate title is misleading, "because the desperate hero eventually becomes himself a bicycle thief."

Plot summary

The film tells the story of Antonio Ricci, an unemployed worker who gets a job posting flyers in the depressed post-World War II economy of Italy. To keep the job, he must have a bicycle, so his wife Maria pawns her wedding sheets to get the money to get his bicycle from the pawnbroker. Early in the film, the bike is stolen, and Antonio and his son Bruno spend the remainder of the film searching for it. Antonio manages to locate the thief (who had already sold the bicycle) and summons the police, but with no proof and with the thief’s neighbors willing to give him a false alibi, he abandons this cause. At the end of the film Antonio, desperate to keep his job, attempts to steal a bicycle himself. He is caught and humiliated in front of Bruno, but the owner of the bicycle declines to press charges, realizing that the humiliation is punishment enough. Antonio and his family face a bleak future as the film ends, coupled with Antonio's realization that he is not morally superior to the thief.

Style

Bicycle Thieves is the best known neorealist film, a movement begun by Luchino Visconti's Ossessione ( 1943), which attempted to give a new degree of realism to cinema. Following the precepts of the movement, De Sica shot only on location in Rome, and instead of professional actors used ordinary people with no training in performance; for example, Lamberto Maggiorani, the leading actor, was a factory worker. The documentary-style camera work helped convey the feeling that the film is truly about real people.

Awards

The film won an honorary Academy Award for Foreign Language Film, and the BAFTA Award for Best Film from Any Source, in 1950. It was heavily awarded by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, and is commonly considered a film classic. It also won Best Foreign Language Film award from New York Film Critics Award for 1949

Influence

• Italian director Ettore Scola's film C'eravamo tanto amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much) ( 1974) utilizes Bicycle Thieves as a major point of admiration as well as criticism. One of the characters, Nico, becomes obsessed with the film. Scola's film is dedicated to De Sica.
• The plot of Pee-wee's Big Adventure ( 1985), which features Pee-wee Herman trying to find his stolen bike, is loosely based on Bicycle Thieves.
• In 1990, Italian director Maurizio Nichetti produced a spoof of Italian neo-realist cinema, named The Icicle Thief.
• Robert Altman's Hollywood satire The Player ( 1992) uses Bicycle Thieves as an emblem of the perfect non-Hollywood movie, with an unhappy ending of the kind that would not be permitted in Hollywood.
• In an episode of My So Called Life Angela attempts to have her first date with Jordan be a screening of "The Bicycle Thief". Brian however mocks her plans, asking "Do you think Jordan Catalano will understand one word of The Bicycle Thief? You only understand it because I explained it to you!"