Bicycle Thieves – Italian Neorealism

Introduction

Film is not just an entertainment, but also a way to express feelings and thoughts. The filmmakers can speak out their ideas to the audience through their films. There is a kind of film that brings put the conditions of historical cases, which is Italian Neorealism. Italian also known as the Golden Age of Italian Cinema. It is a national film movement that describe the difficult economic and moral conditions of post-World War II in Italy. It represents the changes in Italian psyche and conditions of daily life, including poverty, oppression, injustice and desperation.

Theory discussion

            The World War II destroyed the Italy national cinemas and affecting the economic stability of the cinema industries. The Nazis destroyed pre-war European economy and sets up their own economic threshold. But by the end of World War II, the Nazi economy was eliminated. The Marshall Plan which is the European Recovery Program is operated to rebuild the European national industries. This allow the production to go on a large scale. For Italy, due to the early surrender, the production facilities were pretty much intact.

            Cesare Zavattini was the theoretical founder of Neorealism in 1942. He suggests a new form of Italian Cinema that repeal contrived and planned plots, he wants to use real people and locations so that direct contact is established with contemporary social reality. He looked at plots as a fake structure of “everyday life”. The professional actors in Italian Neorealism film are complimented the falsehood. This kind of film unconditional emphasis on the ordinariness of today, today and today.

Synopsis

            Bicycle Thieves or known as Ladri di biciclette in Italian is a 1948 Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica. The story starts with the Rome after World War II, a poor father, Antonio Ricci is desperate for work to support his family. He manages to get a job of posting advertising bills. Unfortunately, his bicycle was stolen on the first day he starts to work. He has no choice but to look for his bicycle with his son, Bruno, or else he will lose his job. Finally, Antonio has no choice but to steal others bicycle but he was caught.

(Source: https://filmandphilosophy.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/bicyclethieveslarge1.jpg)

Theory Application

            This film used mixture of professional actors and non-actors to emphasize the real emotions of the people that suffered in this era. The scene when the film is just started, a group of men gathered around and try to look for a job from a job distributor. I am so shocked when I know that the only professional actor is the job distributor. Others are just non-actors, which means they are the ordinary people even the main character, Antonio, too. I can see they are desperate to get a job to survive in their life. Antonio even lied to the job distributor he has a bicycle so that he can get the job. This shows that after the World War II, the economic is being affected. The people is hard to get a job and this also makes them become more poor. The people who experienced such miserable life do not need a planned plot also be able to involved in those scene as this is totally what happened in their life every day.

            Besides that, the scene when Antonio discuss with his wife, Maria, to get a bicycle. They need to exchange their bed sheets at the pawn shop to get money and uses the money to exchange Antonio's pawned Fides brand bicycle. And there is a shot shows the sheets being added to a mountain of bedding pawned by other families. This shows that the people in this era are very poor, they are willing to pawn anything they have just to survive. The can be proved when the shot that shows the pawn shop is crowded with people.

            About the setting of the film especially the location, we can see that the surrounding is a post-war environment where everything is destroyed in the war. For example, the scene when Antonio meets his wife, Maria, the place that she gets water, the place only fenced with thin wires. The country is being rebuilding, thus old and new buildings can be seen throughout the film. In addition, the scene when Antonio is chasing the suspected old man, the church is crowded with people and they provide barber services and free food for those people. All these shows that the people are suffer after the war. They live in poverty and desperation. People may lose their home, job or family in the war.

         This film also shows socially-conscious and humanistic POV. The film is simple in construction but rich in human insight. For example, the scene when Antonio wants to catch the thief but the neighbourhood around there stop him and blame him. Although Bruno fetches a policeman to search the thief’s apartment but they cannot find anything. The policeman tells Antonio that it is difficult as Antonio has no witnesses and the neighbours are certain to provide the thief the alibi. This shows that this kind of unfair cases always happened in the post-war era. The vulnerable people do not get any help even the police. People simply so something so that they can survive no matter right or wrong. This is unfair. Just like the thief, steal somebody bicycle without getting any punishments.

Conclusion

    In a nutshell, Bicycle Thieves reflect the greatest strengths of the Italian Neorealism which is emotional clarity, social morality, and brutal reality.