Written by: Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini
Starring Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell
Italy, 1947
Not Rated
Available on VHS and DVD
While many older Italian films have gone unnoticed by Americans, most of them have heard of Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief (actually Bicycle Thieves in Italian), perhaps one of the most popular and beloved Italian films of all time. It was awarded the New York Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1949 and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film in 1950. The setting is post-World War II Rome and the style is classic Italian neo-realism, with non-professional actors and a documentary-like camera style that shows the harsh realities of Roman life after the war.
The story centers on Antonio, a poor man who is offered a job as a poster hanger, a job for which he will need a bicycle. He had a bicycle but it was pawned for money. Reluctantly, his wife pawns the bed linens in order to get the bike back. On the first day of work, while he is pasting a poster of Rita Hayworth on a wall, the bike is stolen. The rest of the film is consumed with the seach for the bike and the bicycle thief.
This wouldn't be nearly as good a film without the depiction of the relationship between the father and his ten-year-old son as they search the city together. The father struggles to keep his composure while keeping his son happy at the same time. The son watches his father constantly with wide eyes and you know that this is one of the days that he will remember for the rest of his life, especially at the end, when he sees his father turn into a thief. Here the movie comes full circle. Instead of being angry at the first thief, we now understand how he could have come to such an act because the hero of the fillm has come to that point himself.
Even though many people hail this as one of the greatest films of all time, there are those that say it is pointless and plotless, boring and banal. Take this reviewer, for example. 1940s neo-realism can have that affect on people. Roberto Rossellini's Open City (1946) is another famous example of neo-realism and many people were turned off by that film as well. Both movies were shot in a pseudo-documentary style, using non-professional actors with very little makeup and shot under harsh, natural lighting. Both relied less on plot and more on showing life how it really was and as it really unfolded. While other movies have clearly defined story lines, these films preferred to let the story flow in a natural direction.
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