Bicycle Thieves
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| Bicycle Thieves | |
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| Directed by | Vittorio De Sica |
| Produced by | Giuseppe Amato |
| Written by | Vittorio De Sica Cesare Zavattini Suso Cecchi D'Amico Gerardo Guerrieri Cesare Zavattini (story) Luigi Bartolini (novel) |
| Starring | Lamberto Maggiorani Enzo Staiola |
| Music by | Alessandro Cicognini |
| Cinematography | Carlo Montuori |
| Editing by | Eraldo Da Roma |
| Distributed by |  Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche Arthur Mayer & Joseph Burstyn |
| Release date(s) | November 24, 1948 December 12, 1949 |
| Running time | 93 min |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
| IMDb profile | |
- The Bicycle Thief redirects here. For the band of the same name, see The Bicycle Thief (band)
Ladri di Biciclette is a 1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was released as Bicycle Thieves in the UK, and as The Bicycle Thief in the USA; the British title is a more accurate translation. It tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Luigi Bartolini and was adapted for the screen by Cesare Zavattini. It stars Lamberto Maggiorani as the father and Enzo Staiola as the son.
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[edit] Title
The original Italian title of the film is literally translated into English as Bicycle Thieves, however the film has also been released in the US as The Bicycle Thief. According to critic Philip French of The Observer, this alternate title is misleading, "because the desperate hero eventually becomes himself a bicycle thief."[1]
[edit] Plot summary
The film tells the story of Antonio, an unemployed worker who gets a job posting flyers in the depressed post-World War II economy of Italy. To keep the job, he must have a bicycle, so his wife sells her wedding sheets to get the money to get his bicycle from the pawnbroker. Early in the film, the bike is stolen, and Antonio and his son spend the remainder of the film searching for it. Antonio manages to locate the thief (who had already sold the bicycle) and summons the police, but with no proof and with the thief’s neighbors willing to give him a false alibi, he abandons this cause. At the end of the film Antonio, desperate to keep his job, attempts to steal a bicycle himself. He is caught and humiliated in front of his son, but the owner of the bicycle declines to press charges, realizing that the humiliation is punishment enough. Antonio and his family face a bleak future as the film ends, coupled with Antonio's realization that he is not morally superior to the thief.
[edit] Style
Bicycle Thieves is the best known neorealist film, a movement begun by Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1943), which attempted to give a new degree of realism to cinema. Following the precepts of the movement, De Sica shot only on location in Rome, and instead of professional actors used ordinary people with no training in performance; for example, Lamberto Maggiorani, the leading actor, was a factory worker. The documentary-style camera work helped convey the feeling that the film is truly about real people.
[edit] Awards
The film won an honorary Academy Award for Foreign Language Film, and the BAFTA Award for Best Film from Any Source, in 1950. It was heavily awarded by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, and is commonly considered a film classic.
[edit] Influence
- Italian director Ettore Scola's film We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974) utilizes the The Bicycle Thief as a major point of admiration as well as criticism. One of the characters, Nico, becomes obsessed with the film. Scola's film is dedicated to De Sica.
- Director Tim Burton has stated that his film Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985) is loosely based on Bicycle Thieves.[citation needed]
- In 1990, Italian director Maurizio Nichetti produced a spoof of Italian neo-realist cinema, named The Icicle Thief.
- Robert Altman's Hollywood satire The Player (1992) uses The Bicycle Thief as an emblem of the perfect non-Hollywood movie, with an unhappy ending of the kind that would not be permitted in Hollywood.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Bicycle Thieves at the Internet Movie Database
- The Bicycle Thief / Bicycle Thieves at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
- Essay on the film
- Interview with Suso Cecchi d'Amico - on writing The Bicycle Thief and other films
| Preceded by Monsieur Vincent |
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1949 (Honorary Award before creation of official award) |
Succeeded by The Walls of Malapaga |
