Winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1949, "The Bicycle Thief" is one of those films that everyone has heard about, but few have actually seen. It’s constantly popping up on critics’ top film lists and it’s generally hailed as one of the finest examples of Italian neorealism. If you’re one of those film fans who has "heard, but not seen," do me a favor and stop what you’re doing, rush over to your neighborhood video store’s foreign film section and grab a copy of this classic. You can thank me later.
Directed by Vittorio De Sica ("Two Women," "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis"), it’s the heartbreaking story of a man’s search for his stolen bicycle. Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) is an unemployed family man who gets hired to post bills in Rome. The job depends on him having a bicycle. He’s got one, but it’s sitting in a pawn shop. Unable to come up with enough money to get the bike out of hock, he and his wife pawn their bedsheets to get the much-needed bicycle.
Unemployed for so long, this new job makes Antonio giddy with optimism. Finally, it seems, the clouds of poverty are parting and a ray of sunshine is breaking through. But wait, this is neorealism whose purpose is to take an unvarnished view of class struggle. In the movie, as in life, all does not work out for the best. The first day on the job, his bicycle is stolen. Ignored by the police who are too busy to search the busy streets of Rome for one man’s bicycle, the anguished Antonio sets off on his own search accompanied by his son Bruno (Enzo Staiola).
Like "Les Miserables," where a good man is driven to desperation—stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family—"The Bicycle Thief" is a story driven by morality. The film is straightforward, uncluttered with any tricks of the trade. Instead, De Sica concentrates on the truly important stuff of life—things like the devotion of a son to his father. The perfectly-cast Staiola spends most of the film literally looking up to Maggiorani . He is deeply in love with his parent—something you won’t often see in today’s films. Later, his filial devotion is all the more heartbreaking when his father, frustrated at the world, turns and spitefully slaps him on the cheek. You can practically see the shock of betrayal in Staiola’s wide eyes. De Sica doesn’t need dialogue here to make his point. Bruno walks apart from his father, trudging along a high embankment, while Antonio, already ashamed of his behavior, walks slowly down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. There’s now a physical and spiritual gulf between the two of them. It’s one of those great moments in cinema that stick in your head for years to come.
By the way, neither Staiola nor Maggiorani were professional actors before De Sica cast them in the film. Maggiorani was, like his character, an unemployed steel worker struggling to make ends meet in post-war Rome. Staiola was discovered when he was standing in a crowd watching early scenes of "The Bicycle Thief" being filmed. Both "actors" bring the much-needed realism of poverty and struggle to the screen—something trained thespians could have shown, but probably not felt.
The emotion of "The Bicycle Thief" is greatly enhanced by the musical score by Alessandro Cicognini. In most films from this era, the soundtrack can be irritatingly bombastic and intrusive, but here it is deeply moving, a mournful weeping adagio that does exactly what a good score is supposed to do—reflect musically what is taking place on the screen. I think you could probably listen to just the soundtrack and come away with the film’s moral lesson—that’s how fitting Cicognini’s score is.
And there is much to learn from "The Bicycle Thief." I won’t steal anything from De Sica’s film by telling you what the message is—the movie does that all on its own with a remarkable simplicity. Be warned, however: you may find the end of "The Bicycle Thief" to be a letdown. There are no happy endings here. And that’s as it should be. To write a satisfying conclusion, De Sica would have robbed "The Bicycle Thief" of its impact. Sometimes, the film says, things just don’t work out for the best. There’s a brotherhood of suffering that everyone must at some point belong to. It’s what we learn along the way—about ourselves, about the goodness of humanity—that really counts.
A Beautiful, Simple Story Of Man In Post-war Rome Who Needs His, Bicycle In Order To Work At His Job. No Sooner Does He Retrieve, It From Pawn, Then I...More at HotMovieSale.com
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