Bazin calls The Bicycle Thief the first communistįilm, and demonstrates convincingly that every seemingly coincidental episode in the film is in fact carefully chosen to add subtle ammunition to its political point.British director Matt Chambers relocates the Italian classic Bicycle Thieves to present-day London in his feature debut The Bike Thief. When Ricci and a policeman search the apartment in which the thief lives with his mother, the evidence of poverty is appalling. For André Bazin, much of the power of The Bicycle Thief lies in the way De Sica brings alive the political point that social institutions have become so ineffective that the poor are obliged to prey on the poor.8 The boy who steals Ricci's bicycle, it turns out, not only suffers from epilepsy, but is even more impoverished and disadvantaged than Ricci. Whenever the film is revived, it fills theaters. Many claim it as their all-time favorite film. Although there is some relief when the owner does not press charges, Ricci is left at the end of the film without a bicycle and hence is once again without a job.ĭespite the bleakness of its story, people who love movies are passionate about The Bicycle Thief. The owner catches him in the act, calls for help, and Ricci is soon apprehended by an angry crowd. At the end of a long day searching, in terrible frustration at his failed efforts to retrieve his bicycle, and desperate to hold on to his job, Ricci makes a botched attempt to steal a bicycle himself.
The rest of the film follows Ricci and his son Bruno as they desperately search for the stolen bicycle. Then, tragically, on Ricci's first day of work, a thief makes off with his bicycle.
When his wife learns of his dilemma, she pawns the family's linens (which are her dowry, and the last objects of value in the stripped down household) to get Ricci's bicycle out of hock.
In order to accept the job, however, he must have a bicycle, and he has recently had to pawn his bicycle in order to feed his family of four. The film begins on what seems to be Ricci's lucky day: after two years of unemployment, he is finally offered a good government job putting up posters around the city. The story the film tells, given its painful, inconclusive ending, is also characteristically neorealist. De Sica chose him because he was charmed by the way the boy's short trotting gait contrasted with the long strides of the man who plays Bruno's father. The man who plays Ricci was an actual worker in a steel factory.6 According to André Bazin, De Sica was offered millions of lire to film the script with Cary Grant playing the lead, but he refused.7 Ricci's wife is played by a woman who in real life was a journalist and the boy cast as Bruno, Ricci's son, was discovered by De Sica playing in the street.
BICYCLE THIEF MOVIE PROFESSIONAL
Not one professional actor played in the film. Most of the film takes place against the background of overcrowded city streets, or tenement housing for the poor. Photographed in grainy black and white, the entire film-interiors and exteriors alike-was shot on location. The film focuses on the life and misfortunes of Antonio Ricci, a common worker. Unemployment is soaring and the paltry amount of the welfareĬhecks allotted by the government can barely sustain life. Set right after the end of World War II, it depicts an Italy of poverty and desperation. The Bicycle Thief,4 made in 1948, appeared at a time when the Italian economy was improving and the neorealist movement was on the wane, but, even so, to quote André Bazin, "it reaffirm anew the entire aesthetic of neorealism."5 More than any other film of the period, The Bicycle Thiefexemplifies traits associated with Italian neorealism.
0 kommentar(er)
