Bicycle Thieves and Italian Neorealism
Bicycle Thieves, a 1948 film directed by Vittorio De Sica, is a story of the Ricci family of Italy and their struggles post WW2. This film is an example of the Italian Neorealism style of filmmaking that was created once Italy was liberated from the reign of fascism and dictator Benito Mussolini.
After the liberation, Italian filmmakers started forming a new style of film-making to mark this change in media censorship. Italian Neorealism was created. Italian Neorealism films focus on the harsh truth and reality of daily life that the majority of the population faced. Mainly focused on was poverty, which is what most working class Italians experienced in this time.
Bicycle Thieves represents Italian Neorealism in film through the setting and who the movie focuses on. The Ricci family was affected physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually from World War II. The husband, Antonio Ricci, along with his wife Maria, pawn their bedsheets to get money for Antonio to buy a bike to use for his new job. This shows the extreme poverty that many Italians were facing post World War II, many families having to barter essential items for other luxuries, and showing how they had to sacrifice in order to receive anything since they don’t have enough money for it. Another harsh reality of working class life is in store for Antonio when his bike gets stolen on the first day of work. The rest of the movie is following Antonio and his young son, Bruno, around town as they go on a wild goose chase through the streets of the city to look for his bike, and end up empty handed. The plot of this movie is textbook Italian Neorealism as it focuses on the daily life and the problems of the working class in the 1940’s.
Another addition of Italian Neorealism through the movie is the cast itself. These characters in the movie weren’t played by professional actors pretending to be poor. They were cast with ordinary people who have never acted a day in their lives. Thus, adding to the commonality and the focus on working class that is an important factor in Italian Neorealism. Another Italian Neorealistic effect in the film is the use of shooting on location. The lack of set use and rather opting for spaces that were not glamorized for the camera allowed the viewers to see what has happened to the majority of Italy due to the war. The once beautiful Italian landscape was affected by the war and was now left a country filled with anger, loneliness, and longing. The setting which this was filmed, which is simply the streets of real Italy, is depicted with windows missing glass in their frames, dirty old buildings, hundreds of people walking aimlessly through the empty streets begging for an opportunity for work or scrounging for money.
The final representation of Italian Neorealism seen in this film is through the ending. The ending is not typical to many movies that we watch today. Rather than a nice happy ending that ties all loose ends up in a nice package, they leave the audience feeling unsettled. Antonio Ricci never gets his bike back. The film ends. We will never know what happened to the family. But that is exactly what Italian Neorealism in cinema is meant to do. That’s the most realistic ending because that’s the harsh reality of life. Not everything gets resolved and sometimes bad things happen to good people. The main point of Italian Neorealism through cinema is to deal with accurate social, political, and economic situation that Italians were facing at the time, and the treatment of the citizens within the country. A lot of this treatment was unfair, and many citizens felt like their rights were being taken away from them, similarly to how Antonio got his bike taken from him for no reason and without regret.
This film is a perfect example of what the neorealistic Italian filmmakers were trying to portray through their films. The harsh struggle of life for any working class Italian is seen and sympathized through the Ricci family, as they symbolize the Italian population through their struggles and efforts to survive.
