#12 - THE BICYCLE THIEF (1948)
Directed by - Vittorio De Sica (Italy)
Having mentioned neorealism a number of times, its time to directly reference it via one of its most celebrated and influential outputs - The Bicycle Thief by Vittorio De Sica.
Italian neorealism was an Italian national film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class. Most of its titles were produced in the immediate post-World II period, but even before the end of the war, filmmakers such as Luchino Visconti - whose 1943 film Obsession is regarded as the first official neorealist film - and Cesare Zavattini, had started to develop this particular style of films, which opposed fiercefully the escapism of fickle middle class comedies identified as "Telefoni Bianchi" (translated as White Telephones, due to their plots advancing often through exposition on telephone conversations.)
Interestingly, De Sica was actually a beloved actor of these rather more instantly pleasing commercial endeavours. But his ambitions as auteur were very different.
In his 1948 film, he followed one man's desperate need for employment. When his bicycle, which his hob as a poster hanger depends upon, is stolen from him, the film follows him on a desperate search for it through Rome, with his son. The simplicity of its plot, and its reward of its singular melodramatic event, is as fascinating as the social realist and cultural exploration of Rome of its time. Without particularly emphasizing any of its aspects to an overbearing degree, we walk alongside the characters through street vendors, pawn shops and fortune tellers. We are even aware of the reliance on child labour as well as the emasculating effect of a lack of work. Even the pivotal act of thievery is more an act of desperation than delinquency, and the whole thing comes at a full circle in its poetic and tragic finale. The storyline of The Bicycle Thief has been directly responsible for the storyline of many other films that followed it.