Bicycle Thieves is a 1948 film directed by Vittorio De Sica. We had learned Italian Neorealism theory in this film.
Italian Neorealism was found out by Cesare Zavattini in 1942. He suggested a new form of Italian Cinema that abolishes contrived and planned plots, use real people and locations so that direct contact is established with contemporary social reality. The plot used by Zavattini is they looked at plots as a fake structure of “everyday life”. Next, the actors are all professional and they will complement the falsehood. Besides that, Italian Neo-realism also stick to contemporary social realism. Neo-realism unconditional emphasis on the ordinaries of Today, Today, Today or we can say that this neorealism emphasis the commonplace of current.
Rome, Open City was the first city that considered the first Neorealism film although Ossessione (1943) (Directed by Luchino Visconti) had vast the element of neo-realism, it wasn’t shown to the world until 1976 due to the similarities to The Postman Always Ring Twice 1981 (Directed by Bob Rafelson). Neorealism has few characters that are first, the shot was mostly using shot-on location which means that all the scenes are the reality, all the passengers are really the citizens, not actors. Second, neorealism used the grainy film stocks, this can give it a newsreel look. Besides, all the soundtracks were all recorded and added after the shoots. Furthermore, neorealism using the mixture of professional actor and non-actors. In the films, there may be one professional actor and all are non-actors. The films are referred to as the contemporary national experience. Next, neorealism has the point of view of socially-conscious and humanistic. The film possesses the melodramatic aspects, such as the music that makes people feel sad and the acting can persuade the feeling of people, etc. Then, the neo-realism give the motivated to rebuilt national reputation.
Neorealism was known as a cinema of poverty and pessimism which is giving the negative thought to the audience. Its decline began in the fifties(1950s) when the times were changing for the better. This neorealism is a new revolution of the film but it happened during a time of non-revolutionary transition towards prosperity and affluence. Italian Neorealism is not economically profitable because it was unpopular in Italy and dependent on foreign appreciation. Furthermore, the Italian government does not favor neorealism and they bring imports of American films.
This film is talking about a man who finds a job but needs a bicycle. His wife took the quilts from the house for a pawn, just to redeem his bicycle. Unfortunately, he lost his bicycle on the first day of work. To find back his bicycle, he brings along his son together and goes around Italy. He found a man who looks likes the thief, but he just misunderstood the man. At the last, he got no idea to find back his bicycle, and he tried to steal one bicycle but been caught by the people around. The bicycle owner forgives him and warns him never to do this again next time.
This film applying the theory in neorealism which is used the mixture of professional actors and non-actors. In the film, there is only one actor who is a professional actor who is at the starting of the scene, there are one people who were distributing the job to Ricci. Only him is a real actor, and the others in the film all are non-actor, especially the main character, Ricci (cast by Lamberto Maggiorani), he is a real working man in real life due to the feeling of his working gesture is nature and not like an actor.
In the film, we can see there have a lot of passengers inside. This is because most of the scene is shot on-location, and all the scenes are in the ruins of the post-war era. The director straight shooting on the street with the passenger. This can show how their life going on after world war 2. For example, when Ricci and his wife go to pawn the quilts, all the people behind is really go to the pawnshop to pawn stuff to go to buy the daily stuff, because, after WWII, there was economic inflation.
Next, in the film, it possesses melodramatic aspects. Melodramatic means that all the music, acting, showing the sadness of the character in a particular situation. For example, after the thief stole Ricci's bicycle and Ricci can't chaise it, there is sad music that comes out to the scene, this makes the audience feel that Ricci is really helpless. Besides that, there still have some music that made people nervous, which is at the most last scene, Ricci plan to steal the bicycle and ask Bruno to go to the bus station, the music makes audiences feel nervous that whether he can steal the bicycle or not.
As a conclusion, Bicycle Thieves had completely explained what is Italian Neorealism. Although Italian Neorealism only stands for the short term, the theory show two faces of people which is kind and one is an eyewitness but never helps others. Last but not least, people in 21st century should be more kindly and friendly although the people who need help is not your friend for the family, just give them a hand, and you won't lose anything.
REFERENCE :
Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040522/
Edinburgh(2013) The Bicycle Thieves and Italian Neorealism
Retrieved from https://filmandphilosophy.com/2013/03/08/the-bicycle-thieves-and-italian-neorealism/
Notes from weekly lecture - Italian Neorealism (Lectured by Joe Yan)
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