437 - Bicycle Thieves, Italy, 1948. Dir. Vittorio de Sica.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

437 - Bicycle Thieves, Italy, 1948.  Dir. Vittorio de Sica.

Bicycle Thieves--for years mistranslated as The Bicycle Thief, when it was clearly in the plural in the Italian--is a film in the Italian neorealism tradition.  It features non-actors in real locations.

Antonio struggles for work.  He has a wife to support--Maria--and two children--Bruno and the baby.  Antonio gets a job posting bills--movie ads--in public locations, and he requires a bicycle in order to fulfill his job.

Maria gives Antonio their bedding to pawn, and with the money he gets his bicycle out of hock.

Someone steals the bicycle.

Antonio and Bruno spend much of the movie searching for it and chasing the man who stole it.  They are thwarted by conspiracies of antagonists.

Finally, Antonio himself is tempted to steal a bicycle.  A crowd erupts to foment justice upon him.  The bicycle's owner is merciful.


The film portrays Antonio as a helpless victim at the mercy of mysterious forces and bad people.  For decades it has been considered a masterpiece, but I have not yet gravitated to it.  For me, it is too heavy handed.  Too accepting of determinism.  It tries to manipulate the viewer's emotions into false sympathy.  So far, I have not been manipulated.