1948 ‘Ladri di biciclette’ Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Antonio, an unemployed man in the depressed post-WWII economy of Italy, at last finds a good job hanging up posters, the only requirement for which is that he must have his own bicycle. When Antonio’s bicycle is stolen, he and his son are forced to walk the streets of Rome in search of it, or else face ruin.
Lamberto Maggiorani Enzo Staiola Lianella Carell Gino Saltamerenda Vittorio Antonucci Giulio Chiari Elena Altieri Carlo Jachino Michele Sakara Fausto Guerzoni Giulio Battiferri Sergio Leone Mario Meniconi Checco Rissone Peppino Spadaro Nando Bruno Eolo Capritti Memmo Carotenuto Emma Druetti Umberto Spadaro
Cesare Zavattini Oreste Biancoli Suso Cecchi d'Amico Vittorio De Sica Luigi Bartolini Adolfo Franci Gerardo Guerrieri Gherardo Gherardi
It’s been years since a film has moved me to tears. But if there’s one film that can melt even the most stone-hearted of viewers, it is Bicycle Thieves. I can’t quite explain what it’s about because I don’t know, really. It follows a man named Antonio, thin as a scarecrow, as he tries to make a living. He needs a bicycle for the job he is lucky enough to get, but his bicycle gets stolen, and he roams the city trying to get it back, his little son dragging along behind him.
But Bicycle Thieves isn’t about that bicycle, really. It’s about fathers and sons, about the way the poor steal from each other because somebody else steals from…
100
Oh so graceful. Lingering to the touch. A window of endless compassion and perspective. De Sica fluidly portrays individual hardship against the apathetic noise of the collective only to meld its "singular" journey into a systemic reality. Hand and hand, we walk.
I simply can not believe that these people are non-professional actors. There's the malnourished Ricci played by Lamberto Maggiorani who was just a factory worker at the time. And his son Bruno, played by Enzo Staiola who was merely 9 years old! It's inconceivable! The way they put up such a sublime performance without any training.
I would imagine they were not really acting at all and was just going on with their lives as usual, (and somehow De Sica received permission to film them like how they do reality shows now) but I can not ignore the obvious fact that Lamberto and Enzo are not blood related at all.
Still, their depiction of a father and son relationship on…
Featuring untrained actors in starring roles, shot in real locations with no studio sets & using only natural light to capture its drama, Bicycle Thieves (also known as Ladri di Biciclette) is one of the finest & most influential films to come out from Italian Cinema and is amongst the first films that brought neorealism into the world of motion picture filmmaking.
Set in poverty-stricken Rome in post-World War II Italy, the story of Bicycle Thieves concerns a poor father who's scavenging for any kind of work to support his family. Having secured a job after selling his precious possessions to buy a bicycle which is required to carry out the work, the future looks promising but his whole world is turned…
Lamberto Maggiorani (who plays the lead role of Antonio) was laid off from his job as a factory worker shortly after the film was complete. The factory required budget cuts and decided to fire Maggiorani because everyone assumed he was a millionaire movie star when he actually made only 600,000 lira (a little over 30,000 US dollars today, counting inflation). He pretty much spent the rest of his life as a bricklayer desperately trying but failing to land more acting gigs; even de Sica wouldn’t rehire him. Eventually, he died poor, having never regained the success of his first role.
And that is more depressing than the entire film.
The dynamic between Ricci and his son Bruno is second to none; broken, authentic, and beautiful in it's own unique way. It is a poignant, yet subtle message about the effects of poverty that refuses to let you simply walk away without acknowledging such.
I don't know why but I kept expecting it to wrap itself up in a safe, feel-good manner but thankfully it doesn't.
Also, I can't imagine how much work it was wrangling the extras to make Rome come to life. Like how the frick do you get so many people to cooperate while also getting such subtle and articulate emotion out of your actors?
why did my tutors hype this up so much when it was a v e r a g e
also dont make ur kids drink wine
I’m sure this will go up to a higher rating. I personally just wasn’t a fan of the music and thought it was overused. But Josh Safdie has proclaimed that this is his favorite movie, and I’ve been wanting to check this out for a while. It’s free on YouTube and you can watch it here.
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