Around the World in 24 11.13.09: Bicycle Thieves
Posted by Len Archibald on 11.13.2009
Neorealism begins here, in a tale about a man, his son and his bicycle.
The Rant
Pretty simple - I start shooting my movie on Sunday. I start receiving FAFSA stuff from the Academy of Art sometime in the middle of next week, and seven days from now will be a momentous occasion for Around the World...; keep reading to find out!
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I love movies. They represent escapism, art, intellect and spirituality. Some are nothing more than popcorn flicks, designed to ease the burden of "real-life" for a couple of hours. Some bring important issues to the forefront that challenges how we perceive our surroundings. The most important thing for me – if one is a serious film-goer – is to constantly expand and discover new movies. This includes experiencing stories told outside of North America.
Yes, I know: "I don't like to read while I watch movies". Well, neither do I, but I won't use that to prevent me from finding a great story within the screen. It is important, as human beings to discover other cultures and expand our perceptions of those different from us and how they see the world. There are reasons that Bergman, Kurosawa, Fellini, Ozu and Truffaut are important in the movie world – They are just great at what they do.
I intend to highlight a new film every week that is considered "foreign-language"; now that definition is simple, yet broad and complex. For example, if you need subtitles to understand the events of the plot, I will discuss it. If it is a film from a primarily English-speaking nation, but is *NOT* in English (i.e. Leolo or Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner from Canada), I will discuss. If it is a film from outside the U.S. and it *is* in English, I will not discuss (sorry, Brits & Aussies) – for now. My goal is to shed light on some of these gems, and help quell the insatiable appetites for those who can't live without seeing a new movie. Enjoy!
Ladri di biciclette: Bicycle Thieves aka The Bicycle Thief (1949)
Italy
Dir: Vittorio De Sica
Runtime: 93 min
In light of the recent economic crunch and struggle, I re-visited Italian director Vittorio De Sica's most prized film, Bicycle Thieves, and was once again swept up in its raw power, its unflinching gaze at poverty and whisked away by the sheer power of film-making. It is the simplest of stories: A man in need of work gets some; he needs a bicycle to perform the work. He has one. It gets stolen. He must find it to continue working and provide for his family. I've always said it – sometimes the simplest stories are the most powerful, and there may be no film more to the point and packs more to the punch than this 93 minute masterpiece.
For the longest time, when naming the greatest films of all time, this was the only one that would constantly give Citizen Kane a run for its money. Hailed as a masterful piece of art by such names as Marlon Brando, Stanley Kubrick and John Huston, it was awarded the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film and received a nomination for the screenplay, co-written by De Sica and Cesare Zavattini, which was uncanny for a foreign-language film 60 years ago. It is so cliché to pop this off as one of the best films of all time that it is easy to fall under the weight of cynicism and feel it may be overrated and underwhelming upon first viewing because of such lofty expectations.
Bicycle Thieves is considered ground zero in helping form the Italian neorealism sub-genre. De Sica believed everyone was 100% capable of playing one role perfectly: himself. He was known to visit brothels and wander the poverty stricken streets of post-war Italy for research, casting faces he felt could perfectly portray a mood and environment for his movies. Along the way, he found a factory worker by the name of Lamberto Maggiorani, an untrained and unprofessional actor – whom he would cast as Antonio Ricci, the lead role for Bicycle Thieves.
Ricci attends a queue every morning with dozens, perhaps almost a hundred other men looking for work. I think this opening helped spark inspiration for film maker Elia Kazan, who would shoot dockworkers in Hoboken, N.J., who would stand hopelessly waiting to be called in On the Waterfront. On this particular day, Ricci's name is called out. Ricci, who is probably so used to not finding work is not even around. Another man rushes down the street to find him and let him know his possible fortune. Ricci is assigned the task as a poster-hanger, pasting up movie ads on walls. To do this, he needs a bicycle.
At first, Ricci hesitates – because he truthfully admits the lone bicycle he owns is beat up. He asks if he couldn't just walk around the streets of Rome and perform the task. "No bike, no work." Others join in – they have bicycles and are more than willing to take the work. Ricci understands this may be his only opportunity. He will take the job and use his old bicycle.
Ricci returns home to discover that alas, he does not have a bicycle after all. His good-natured and well-intended wife Maria (Lianella Carell) had pawned it away. Upon explaining, she strips the sheets from their bed ("You don't need sheets to sleep," she boldly declares) and pawns the sheets for the bike, which the pawnbroker knows too well. "I know what it looks like," he half-heartedly states. He climbs a ladder to a shelf packed to the ceiling of other people's bedsheets.
There are many moments like that in De Sica's world. In every frame – on every new corner of impoverished Rome lurks the images of poverty. Ricci plasters glamorous images of Rita Heyworth on ugly walls, a subtle juxtaposition of using gloss to cover up the real problems underneath. An old man that Ricci pesters later in a church admits that since he attended mass he has "the right to soup", hammering home that the church was being used by the poor more for its charity than its spirituality.
Ricci tackles the job with his son, Bruno (Enzo Staiola), a cute kid that follows Ricci everywhere he goes with that glance that most sons give to their fathers when they think they are Superman. It is with Bruno's entrance into the story that De Sica has a vehicle to display the heart of what he is trying to accomplish. Bicycle Thieves becomes Bruno's story, just as much – if not by film's end, more so – than Ricci's.
Obviously, the bike is stolen. The eventual theft is teased in an earlier scene where Ricci finds Maria at the house of the Wise Woman, an oracle-like figure who spouts off psychic advice and tidbits for cash, even though she prays to God before giving her divine wisdom (she predicted that Ricci would find work and Maria pays her.) Ricci waits for his wife impatiently, then leaves the bike unattended. He returns and the bike is still propped up against the wall outside the building.
When the bike is finally taken, in a quick moment where it is just out of Ricci's line-of-sight, De Sica transforms his film from a subtle tale of impoverished life to a grand tale of man's fall from grace – and a simple little thriller as well, as we follow Ricci through the crowded streets of Rome, racing, pacing, accusing and darting to find the one item needed to keep his livelihood De Sica glides his camera – using handheld techniques, crane shots, pans and dollies that give the story a gliding ease.
Ricci gives a report to the police, who are of no help. "It's just a bicycle," the officer off-handedly surmises to another. Ricci is told that if he spots it at a pawn shop to call them. He finds a man on a street corner tending to a bike that bears a striking resemblance. He demands to see the serial number. The accused becomes defensive, obviously giving away the fact that the bike he has is perhaps a stolen item, but not Ricci's. Finding a lone bike in a city of thousands is an impossible task. Ricci huffs down the streets, with Bruno waddling and having trouble keeping up. Finally, Ricci succumbs to his fate: "You live, you suffer." He suggests eating a pizza with his son.
I am always taken aback watching Bicycle Thieves and must remind myself constantly that these are not classically trained actors that I am observing. Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola come alive in a restaurant where they order bread with mozzarella cheese and wine. Ricci offers his son a glass. Bruno glances across the room to see a well-to-do family with a son his age eating a plate of spaghetti. The boy gives a half-hearted, posh glance at Bruno, who stretches the mozzarella in his mouth to mimic the pasta he covets. His father notices. "To eat like that," begins Ricci "you must earn a million lira a month." He explains how the bicycle – and the job with it would have helped the family. He dictates numbers to Bruno, who writes the calculations on a napkin.
Eventually, Ricci spots the man who stole the bicycle with an old man and chases them. He finds the old man in a church and bullies him in a way that disrupts mass. Clergy attempt to chase them away. It is at this precise moment we see Ricci's plight: while others pray to God to grant them blessings, Ricci knows his was stolen. From there, we follow Ricci's (and through him, man's) descent into hell under the guise of a poverty-stricken world. It is dog-eat-dog, and unless you have powerful friends either on the side of the law (or as with one particular character), the side of unlawfulness, life is hopeless.
Through Bruno's eyes, we examine Ricci's desperation. He sees his fathers jubilation at the prospect of new work, to the despair of having his bike – and with it, his occupation – stolen. Bruno grows close with his father in a carefree moment and ultimately discovers the darker natures of mankind while observing his father doing anything – literally – to provide for his family, culminating in the glorious sequence where at the stadium during a soccer game Ricci is mocked by hundreds of cyclists riding away and tempted by a lone bicycle leaning against the wall of a building. By film's end, it is Bruno, clutching the hand of his father and leading him into the mass shadows of faceless individuals, who has learned a valuable lesson. It is a moment where the boy takes the leap to become a man.
The neorealism movement in film began with Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City in 1945. I have always felt the ultimate companion piece to Bicycle Thieves, both for its style and subject matter was John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath, with Gregg Toland's dark and uncanny cinematography showing off the desolate nature of poor Americans scattered about the barren California landscape. The style is a dirty, dusty mess; not unlike the war-torn streets of Rome in Bicycle Thieves. The stylistic influence of Bicycle Thieves is perhaps rivaled only by the technological advances of Citizen Kane and The Birth of a Nation, and the choppy narrative of Breathless. Of course, though – you can easily decipher the neorealist fingerprints all over the French New Wave.
From neorealism came the more frequent use of hand-held cameras, an effect that is still widespread today and has lead us to the "shaky-cam" phenomenon that we are currently indebted to. Films from all over the spectrum of different genres have taken a spin on De Sica's critically-hailed opus, from Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali to Tim Burton's Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Children of Heaven is a 1999 Iranian film about a boy who loses his sister's shoes. There is a definite parallel thread between this and Bicycle Thieves, especially during a scene where the father takes the boy on the handlebars of his bicycle and rides through a rich neighborhood in search of work.
By now, if you've heard of the film, you may be wondering why I am not referring to it as The Bicycle Thief, which is the film's original English title. There was a bit of a divide in regards to the title, as "ladri" is a plural word in Italian, in which the literal translation is "thieves". The Criterion DVD (which is a hell of a package) gives both titles. Personally, I actually prefer the English title because of the ironic nature of where the story leads. I think the literal Italian translation is in fact, a spoiler.
Vittorio De Sica (1902-1974) reminds me of another filmmaker - John Cassavetes. Both were much in demand as actors since they were handsome men. Both started out in "the system" and eventually found out that their best work was outside of it. De Sica planted the seeds of neorealism that Cassevetes would run with – and in turn, bring about the birth to the independent film industry.
De Sica and other neorealists often used real people instead of actors, and the effect, after being spoon-fed the gloss of MGM, Paramount, RKO and Warner Bros., was a shot to the face of audiences. De Sica's first great film was 1947's Shoeshine, about a pair of shoeshine boys sent to reform school for black-marketeering. He then made Bicycle Thieves, which gave him unanimous praise and heralded a new dimension to film-making as an art form. He would make three more truly great films: Umberto D (1952), about an elderly man and his dog forced into the streets after being evicted, Two Women (1961), about a mother trying to protect her daughter from the horrors of war – which won Sophia Loren the Oscar for Best Actress and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), about an Italian-Jewish family who ignore the predestined doom that is to befall on them.
Vittorio De Sica
As anyone who has been reading my column is aware, I am going back to film school. At the same time, I am engaging in making a movie of my own. Between the past few weeks discussing Ozu and looking back at neorealism, I can truly say that I wear my influences on my sleeve. The film I am making stars a few untrained non-professional actors, and I am using my protagonist's past real-life relationship with each other as a starting block to tell a story in small-town Ohio. It is as bare bones and neorealistic as it can get as I am shooting everything on location and will be running around guerrilla-style to achieve perfect composition without distracting the lives of others who may walk into the camera, unaware of what I am trying to do. There is an idea of what De Sica was constantly striving to achieve. Of course, the bicycle I use will be for a dolly.
{Film Passport Stamped]
Coming Attractions:Around the World... takes a break from the regular format to begin a monstrous multi-part column...Come join me as I begin to alphabetically list the GREATEST FILMS OF THE DECADE!!!~!
Questions or comments? Email me at aa24frames@aol.com!!!
Great movie! Definitely an influential piece for many of the 70s American auteurs, as well as many "serious" films and Oscar bait released today. I've always wondered why its either called The Bicycle Thief or Bicycle Thieves. I think the title you are introduced to it by (for me it was the former) almost influences how you watch the movie.
Looking forward to next week's column and good look on your movie.
Posted By: DaveC (Guest) on November 13, 2009 at 10:54 AM
bro every time i try to watch your movie my computer freeze, so i cant even enjoyed watching them, but your article are great, keep up the good work, love you
Posted By: pauline (Guest) on November 13, 2009 at 11:35 PM
