Bicycle Thieves
Introduction
The neorealist movement began in Italy at the end of World War II as an urgent response to the political turmoil and desperate economic conditions afflicting the country. Directors such as Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Luchino Visconti took up cameras to focus on lower-class characters and their concerns, using nonprofessional actors, outdoor shooting, (necessarily) very small budgets, and a realist aesthetic. The best-known examples remain De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, a critical and popular phenomenon that opened the world’s eyes to this movement, and such key earlier works as Rossellini’s Open City, the first major neorealist production. Other classics of neorealism include De Sica’s Umberto D. and Visconti’s La terra trema, but the tendrils of the movement reach back to De Sica’s The Children Are Watching Us and forward to Rossellini’s The Flowers of St. Francis, as well as to some filmmakers who did their apprenticeships in this school, Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini—and far beyond.
Synopsis
Hailed around the world as one of the greatest movies ever made, the Academy Award–winning Bicycle Thieves, directed by Vittorio De Sica, defined an era in cinema. In poverty-stricken postwar Rome, a man is on his first day of a new job that offers hope of salvation for his desperate family when his bicycle, which he needs for work, is stolen. With his young son in tow, he sets off to track down the thief. Simple in construction and profoundly rich in human insight, Bicycle Thieves embodies the greatest strengths of the Italian neorealist movement: emotional clarity, social rectitude, and brutal honesty.
Analysis
Leaving the Studio
Neorealist films were shot on location, in spaces which were not glamorized for the camera. This gave viewers all over the world a chance to see how Italy, once known for its beauty and landscape, was affected by the war with their own eyes. In regards to “The Bicycle Thief”, the opening scenes reveal, not a country full of excitement or happiness, but a country filled with anger, loneliness and longing. The viewer sees windows missing glass in their frames, dirty old buildings, streets empty of cars and businesses, but filled with people on-foot wandering aimlessly until an opportunity for work or money arises. In Bicycle Thieves, there is a lot of long take on location, new buildings but the roads and bridges are still in damaged condition to suggest the nation building after World War II. Many people turn up in scene where it emphasizes on the present even though the actors are talking. For example, a scene where a lot of people in the truck. Besides, a lot of unemployed men surrounding the employment booth at the beginning of the film.
Used mixture of professional actors and non-actors
Following the precepts of neorealism, De Sica shot only on location (that is, no studio sets) and cast only untrained nonactors. (Lamberto Maggiorani, for example, was a factory worker.) That some actors' roles paralleled their lives off screen added realism to the film.
Ruins of the post-war era
Through mise-en-scene, we are looking on the setting of the film, and it shows that the shooting location in this film is on the post war ruins situation. This characteristic shows in the scene when Ricci gets his job and then on the way he runs back to his house, obviously you can see those building are new built and there are some shot shows the mixture of architecture. For example, Ricci’s apartment, the place that he lives is just build by the authority and when he is on the way to go back to his house, the road that he passed by was undeveloped. In addition, there is also no water supply in their house. This scene was explained by his wife where she has to carry the water from other place. This show that, the shooting location is on post war situation, meaning that, after World War II, the background of the shooting location is form by a lot of new and undeveloped buildings.
Used grainy film stock
The resolution that used in this film was not pure black and white. A lot of scene that being used in this film look gritty is to enhances the aesthetic of neo realism. It is a characteristic of Italian Neo Realism. Besides, the imperfection of grainy stock in this film is to enhance the people’s life were not perfect after the war. For example, everyone in the film was suffered from the poverty and jobless people are everywhere.
Socially-conscious and humanistic POV
Besides that, one of the characteristic of Italian Neorealism is socially conscious and humanistic point of view (POV). Social consciousness is to be defined as social awareness been face by the society .In the movie Bicycle Thieves (1948), we can see that the director focus on societal issues such as poverty. The movie is direct at 1948 during post-World War II Rome where societies are having difficulties in searching for jobs and supporting their life. At the beginning of the movie, a group of men stand around waiting for jobs. Also, the scene while Ricci and his son is eating in a restaurant, his son has no idea on how to eat his meal. It shows a contrast between poverty and rich.
Bibliography
KEY WEST VIDEO INC. (2015, January 15). Keywest. Retrieved from Neorealism: Exemplified by The Bicycle Thief: https://www.keywestvideo.com/corporatevideoblog/neorealism-bicycle-thief/
The Criterion Collection. (2018). Retrieved from Italian Neorealism: https://www.criterion.com/explore/6-italian-neorealism
Associated Press. Published in The New York Times. Lamberto Maggiorani Obituary. April 24, 1983. Last accessed: December 30, 2007
The neorealist movement began in Italy at the end of World War II as an urgent response to the political turmoil and desperate economic conditions afflicting the country. Directors such as Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Luchino Visconti took up cameras to focus on lower-class characters and their concerns, using nonprofessional actors, outdoor shooting, (necessarily) very small budgets, and a realist aesthetic. The best-known examples remain De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, a critical and popular phenomenon that opened the world’s eyes to this movement, and such key earlier works as Rossellini’s Open City, the first major neorealist production. Other classics of neorealism include De Sica’s Umberto D. and Visconti’s La terra trema, but the tendrils of the movement reach back to De Sica’s The Children Are Watching Us and forward to Rossellini’s The Flowers of St. Francis, as well as to some filmmakers who did their apprenticeships in this school, Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini—and far beyond.
Synopsis
Hailed around the world as one of the greatest movies ever made, the Academy Award–winning Bicycle Thieves, directed by Vittorio De Sica, defined an era in cinema. In poverty-stricken postwar Rome, a man is on his first day of a new job that offers hope of salvation for his desperate family when his bicycle, which he needs for work, is stolen. With his young son in tow, he sets off to track down the thief. Simple in construction and profoundly rich in human insight, Bicycle Thieves embodies the greatest strengths of the Italian neorealist movement: emotional clarity, social rectitude, and brutal honesty.
Analysis
Leaving the Studio
Neorealist films were shot on location, in spaces which were not glamorized for the camera. This gave viewers all over the world a chance to see how Italy, once known for its beauty and landscape, was affected by the war with their own eyes. In regards to “The Bicycle Thief”, the opening scenes reveal, not a country full of excitement or happiness, but a country filled with anger, loneliness and longing. The viewer sees windows missing glass in their frames, dirty old buildings, streets empty of cars and businesses, but filled with people on-foot wandering aimlessly until an opportunity for work or money arises. In Bicycle Thieves, there is a lot of long take on location, new buildings but the roads and bridges are still in damaged condition to suggest the nation building after World War II. Many people turn up in scene where it emphasizes on the present even though the actors are talking. For example, a scene where a lot of people in the truck. Besides, a lot of unemployed men surrounding the employment booth at the beginning of the film.
Used mixture of professional actors and non-actors
Following the precepts of neorealism, De Sica shot only on location (that is, no studio sets) and cast only untrained nonactors. (Lamberto Maggiorani, for example, was a factory worker.) That some actors' roles paralleled their lives off screen added realism to the film.
Ruins of the post-war era
Through mise-en-scene, we are looking on the setting of the film, and it shows that the shooting location in this film is on the post war ruins situation. This characteristic shows in the scene when Ricci gets his job and then on the way he runs back to his house, obviously you can see those building are new built and there are some shot shows the mixture of architecture. For example, Ricci’s apartment, the place that he lives is just build by the authority and when he is on the way to go back to his house, the road that he passed by was undeveloped. In addition, there is also no water supply in their house. This scene was explained by his wife where she has to carry the water from other place. This show that, the shooting location is on post war situation, meaning that, after World War II, the background of the shooting location is form by a lot of new and undeveloped buildings.
Used grainy film stock
The resolution that used in this film was not pure black and white. A lot of scene that being used in this film look gritty is to enhances the aesthetic of neo realism. It is a characteristic of Italian Neo Realism. Besides, the imperfection of grainy stock in this film is to enhance the people’s life were not perfect after the war. For example, everyone in the film was suffered from the poverty and jobless people are everywhere.
Socially-conscious and humanistic POV
Besides that, one of the characteristic of Italian Neorealism is socially conscious and humanistic point of view (POV). Social consciousness is to be defined as social awareness been face by the society .In the movie Bicycle Thieves (1948), we can see that the director focus on societal issues such as poverty. The movie is direct at 1948 during post-World War II Rome where societies are having difficulties in searching for jobs and supporting their life. At the beginning of the movie, a group of men stand around waiting for jobs. Also, the scene while Ricci and his son is eating in a restaurant, his son has no idea on how to eat his meal. It shows a contrast between poverty and rich.
Bibliography
KEY WEST VIDEO INC. (2015, January 15). Keywest. Retrieved from Neorealism: Exemplified by The Bicycle Thief: https://www.keywestvideo.com/corporatevideoblog/neorealism-bicycle-thief/
The Criterion Collection. (2018). Retrieved from Italian Neorealism: https://www.criterion.com/explore/6-italian-neorealism
Associated Press. Published in The New York Times. Lamberto Maggiorani Obituary. April 24, 1983. Last accessed: December 30, 2007
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