VITTORIO DE SICA'S BICYCLE THIEVES (Ladri di BICICLETTE, 1948; 90 mins.)

PRINCIPAL CAST
Actor	Role
Lamberto Maggiorani	Antonio Ricci
Lianella Carell	Maria Ricci
Enzo Staiola	Bruno Ricci
Gino Saltamerenda	Baiocco
Vittorio Antonucci	The Thief
Giulio Ciari	The Old Man
Elena Altieri	The Mission Patroness
Fausto Guerzoni	Amateur Actor

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Producer	Vittorio De Sica
Director	Vittorio De Sica
Screenwriters	Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica, Oreste Biancoli, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Adolfo Franci, Gherardo Gherardi, Gerardo Guerrieri, from an original story by Zavattini based on the novel Ladri di biciclette (1948) by Luigi Bartolini
Cinematographer	Carlo Montuori
Art Director	Antonio Traverso
Editor	Eraldo Da Roma
Sound	Bruno Brunacci
Composer	Alessandro Cicognini

DIRECTOR

Vittorio De Sica (1902-1974) was a producer, director, and screenwriter, as well as an actor in more than one hundred films.^[1] Three of his films explore problems of life in post–World War II Italy: Sciuscià (Shoeshine, 1946), Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves, 1948)—which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film as well as many other prestigious awards worldwide—and Umberto D. (1952). Two of his later films won Oscars as Best Foreign Language Film: Ieri, oggi, domani (Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, 1963) and Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, 1971). He also directed Là ciociara (Two Women, 1961), for which Sophia Loren won an Oscar as Best Actress.

TITLE

The Italian title, Ladri di biciclette, literally means "bicycle thieves." Because some American prints are incorrectly titled The Bicycle Thief, many writers refer to the film using this mistranslation.^[2] The correct title reveals more than Italian grammar, however; it tells us that more than one thief appears in this movie.

CINEMATIC SOURCE: ITALIAN NEOREALISM

During World War II, the cinema movement known as Italian neorealism was developed by theorist, screenwriter, and director Cesare Zavattini and directors Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, and Luchino Visconti. Simply put, they wanted to break away from conventional cinematic storytelling, to find a new way to present "realistic" subject matter. Insofar as it points to both what we see on the screen and how we see it, Italian neorealism is both a genre and a style.

Italian neorealist films examine then-contemporary social conditions; they focus on the lives of real people struggling under Benito Mussolini's fascist rule during World War II and with such postwar conditions as widespread unemployment, poverty, child labor, government corruption, and inadequate housing. The films tend to deal with the working class and to be humanist, antiauthoritarian, antibureaucratic, socialist or communist, and skeptical of the Catholic Church. Striving for sincerity and authenticity in their depiction of life, they concentrate more on showing what is happening than on using dialogue to explain things; in fact, the dialogue is often as spare as it can be in a talking picture.

Because the war had either restricted or destroyed the Italian movie studios, the neorealist filmmakers devised new methods of production. They shot their films on location, using nonprofessional "actors" and employing available light. Their informal, flexible style of cinematography aimed for the rougher-hewn look of nonfiction films, often photographing real-time events using techniques that preserved the look of the actual space.

Bicycle Thieves is a textbook example of neorealism. Film scholar Christopher Williams calls it "an astute blending of realistic elements—the work-and-theft situation, the central characters, the social relations and some aspects of the ways they are shown—with anti-realist ones—the tragic structure, the frequent parallels, the architectural qualities of the treatment, the music."^[3] Although every scene was shot either in the streets or in actual, not studio-made, locations, De Sica and his collaborators exercised every bit as much control over the setting, cinematography, and lighting as if they had been working in the most sophisticated studio. The filmmakers turned the open streets and wide squares into existential battlegrounds, photographing them in shadows that accentuated their depth and the central characters' loneliness and alienation. The sounds are natural, recorded on the spot, and only the music's haunting melody undercuts the film's apparent objectivity. Indeed, much of the film's power resides in its relative silence—its lack of talking. Like the great films made before the coming of sound, it demonstrates the intensity of silent acting, here done by nonprofessionals. Before appearing in Bicycle Thieves, Lamberto Maggiorani was a factory worker and Lianella Carell was a journalist; Enzo Staiola was simply a boy De Sica saw on the street.

Set in Rome in 1947, the movie depicts events from three consecutive days in the lives of the Ricci family: Antonio, a laborer; Maria, his wife; and Bruno, their approximately eight-year-old son, who works twelve hours a day in a gas station. Although the family lives in a modern housing project on the outskirts of Rome, its condition is precarious because Antonio has been unemployed for two years, since the end of the war. 

On Friday morning, Antonio meets with other workers to hear what jobs are available that day, a process so contradictory that it says much about the governmental bureaucracy. Unlike the other men, who eagerly hope to hear their names called, Antonio sits in despair apart from them. He gets a job, however, with the understanding that his duties—hanging movie posters—requires a bicycle. Maria pawns the family linen and gives Antonio the money so he can reclaim his bicycle from the pawnshop and take the job. On Saturday morning, just after Antonio begins work, his bicycle is stolen. That evening, reluctant to confront his wife with the truth, he seeks help from his friends in the labor union. On Sunday morning, Antonio and Bruno search for but fail to find the bike. When Antonio later spots the young man who stole the bike, their confrontation only brings more trouble in the neighborhood where the man lives. Driven even further to despair, Antonio faces a moral dilemma: should he, too, become a bicycle thief? He steals a bike, but is caught immediately. The bike's owner and friends publicly humiliate Antonio, but the owner decides to forget the matter because he does not want any trouble. Antonio and Bruno, both crying, walk off into the dusk as the film ends. Their hand-holding, according to French film theorist André Bazin, is "the most solemn gesture that could ever mark the relations between a father and son: one that makes them equals."^[4]

Bazin, one of the great champions of cinematic realism, calls Bicycle Thieves "pure cinema"; that is, it tells a simple story composed of "real" events involving "real" people in "real" places. The truth of its extraordinary emotional impact is another element of the story's purity, as Bazin notes:

Thus the thesis of the film is hidden behind an objective reality which in turn moves into the background of the moral and psychological drama which could of itself justify the film. The idea of the boy is a stroke of genius, and one does not know definitely whether it came from the script or in the process of directing, so little does this distinction mean here any more. It is the child who gives to the workman's adventure its ethical dimension and fashions, from an individual moral standpoint, a drama that might well have been only social. Remove the boy, and the story remains the same. . . . But he is the intimate witness of the tragedy, its private chorus. (53)

In motion pictures, it is a device as old as Charlie Chaplin's earliest films (e.g., The Kid, 1921) to mirror the adventures of a man with those of a boy, and De Sica is one of the very few subsequent directors to manage this as delicately as Chaplin. Despite his age, Bruno already plays a mature role in the family, thanks to his job. Nonetheless, dressed like his father in overalls, he remains at his father's side or in his shadow. We first see him proudly cleaning the newly reclaimed bicycle, and he gently rebukes his father for not complaining to the pawnshop workers about a dent for which they are responsible. Bruno's self-assured walk and obedience to his father's authority are nothing compared to the love for his father we see in his eyes. In addition, Bruno serves as his father's moral compass: "What are you, my conscience?" Antonio asks, annoyed, moments after striking him. As his father's conscience, but also as his son and friend, Bruno suffers public humiliation with him.

The story is presented to us by an objective, omniscient camera, and the events are arranged straightforwardly and chronologically. Part of De Sica's magic in telling this natural story is his use of details, such as the towering piles of pawned laundry, which show that the Ricci family is not alone in its economic plight, or the brand name of Antonio's bicycle, Fides, which means "faith" or, even more ironically for this story, "reliance." (Nothing could be less reliable than that red bicycle.) He also uses many seemingly random events that ultimately serve a purpose. For example, after Antonio's bicycle is stolen, a man attempts to help him catch the thief, but this apparent helper is actually the thief's accomplice. As Antonio and Bruno pursue an old man who can identify the thief, they are delayed by a rainstorm that lets him get away. While some critics believe the story is too insignificant to support such details and time-consuming events, De Sica's use of them maintains his film's focus on the details of ordinary lives, and it reminds us that chance plays a major role in life itself.

INTERPRETATION

A stolen bicycle may amount to very little in this movie's world and ours. When Antonio reports the theft of his bicycle to the police, the officer on duty says, "It's only a bicycle." Perhaps it's only a bicycle to the policeman, who already has a job and is eager to leave the office to attend some kind of union rally, but to Antonio the bicycle is the difference between existence and starvation, between self-esteem and despair.  

In interpreting this film, we might discuss its almost perfect adherence to the principles of neorealism and how those principles shape the telling of a simple story. Indeed, the most striking aspect of the film may be its simplicity: the simplicity of the story of a good man caught in a difficult and seemingly hopeless world he can neither understand nor control; the simplicity of these working-class people, whose faces are a moving fresco of humanity and for whom everything seems to go wrong. 

Everything seems simple here except the ambiguous ending. It is ambiguous not only because it can be interpreted in different ways but also because the movie does not tell us what to think. Although we have a clear idea of who the characters are and what they are doing, we have to make certain assumptions about them based on what we see and hear. Take, for example, the issue of male-female relations. What is the role of women here? Antonio's wife, the fortune-teller, the prostitutes, and the mother of the alleged thief are all strong characters. Can we interpret such strength as a reflection of Italian culture? Is it a comment on what war does for women—or what it does to men? What does it say about postwar social equilibrium that the mob (both the organized Mafia and the street mob) seem to have replaced the church and the government as upholders of morality and civility? Does war bring changes both good and bad?

Bicycle Thieves takes on large themes—morality, men and women, the postwar environment, family, brotherhood, society—and does not suggest that any one of them is more important than another. The film neither condemns nor approves Antonio's theft of the bicycle but presents it from Antonio's point of view, emphasizing his moral quandary by showing him pacing back and forth before he steals the bike. And it does not interpret the final shot, which we can't really consider an "ending." We might say that Bicycle Thieves presents only a slice of life, since no real change has occurred. The film begins and ends with Antonio out of work because he does not have a bicycle. He and his family will awaken the next day to find the same world.

No justice exists in that world, except the ironic justice of the crowd, which protects the first thief but beats Antonio. No faith exists, except in the hollow prophecies of a fortune-teller.

Here, in Italy, where the Catholic Church is virtually inseparable from all aspects of society, people turn to seers for their salvation. Even though the Riccis seem to be believers—they have a crucifix in their bedroom—they do not attend church on Sunday morning, when things are at their worst; moreover, Bruno mocks the older boys in the mission church when he kneels and makes the sign of the cross. The only government is a labyrinthine bureaucracy that does not serve its citizens. The labor union is also powerless, simply blaming the government for society's ills, funding a theater group but not helping Antonio to replace his bicycle. The rich are smug and secure in their wealth (e.g., the society ladies and lawyer who volunteer their services to the church mission). On the other end of the social scale, the young man who stole Antonio's bicycle is protected by his mother, the Mafia, the prostitutes in the brothel, and the men on the street. As institutions and groups of people fail to help, only individuals offer hope: in the opening scene, an unidentified good Samaritan tells Antonio his name has been called; at the end, the bicycle owner lets him go. (Ironically, at that moment, a man tells Antonio to "thank God" for being released.)

Bazin emphasizes the Marxist implications in the story: "in the world where this workman lives, the poor must steal from each other in order to survive." But perhaps the film also suggests that in the end, only bonds between individuals matter. That is, we might say that although Antonio is driven to theft, caught, and publicly shamed before he is released, the family's bond is even stronger at the end than it was at the beginning. Family, love, and brotherhood transcend the immediate predicament. 

FOR FURTHER READING

Cardullo, Bert. Vittorio De Sica: Director, Actor, Screenwriter. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002.

Samuels, Charles Thomas. Encountering Directors. New York: Putnam, 1972.

Snyder, Stephen, and Howard Curle, eds. Vittorio De Sica: Contemporary Perspectives. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

BACK TO TOP

^[1]See Vittorio De Sica, The Bicycle Thieves: A Film, trans. Simon Hartog (London: Lorimer Publishing, 1968), and John Darretta, Vittorio De Sica: A Guide to References and Resources (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1983), which contains an excellent bibliography.

^[2]In Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1982), Peter Bondanella writes, "Time and time again before the theft of his bicycle, Ricci leaves his bicycle leaning against various buildings, and since the Italian title of the film is 'Bicycle Thieves,' not 'Bicycle Thief,' we should be prepared for the impending disaster" (61).

^[3]Christopher Williams, "After the Classic, the Classical and Ideology: The Differences of Realism," in Reinventing Film Studies, ed. Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams (London: Arnold, 2000), 218.

^[4] André Bazin, "Bicycle Thief," in What Is Cinema? sel. and trans. Hugh Gray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967–71), 2:54.