Bicycle Thieves

Bicycle Thieves

Directed by Vittorio De Sica

Produced by Giuseppe Amato

Written by Screenplay:
Vittorio De Sica
Cesare Zavattini
Suso Cecchi D'Amico
Gerardo Guerrieri
Oreste Biancoli
Adolfo Franci

Story:Luigi Bartolini

Starring: Lamberto Maggiorani
Enzo Staiola

Music by Alessandro Cicognini

Cinematography Carlo Montuori

Editing by Eraldo Da Roma

Distributed by
Italy:
Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche
United States:
Arthur Mayer
Joseph Burstyn

Release date(s) Nov. 24, 1948
Dec. 12, 1949
Running time 93 minutes
Country Italy
Language Italian

The Bicycle Thief redirects here. For the band of the same name, see The Bicycle Thief (band)
Ladri di biciclette (known in English as The Bicycle Thief or Bicycle Thieves) is a 1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Luigi Bartolini and was adapted for the screen by Cesare Zavattini. It stars Lamberto Maggiorani as the father and Enzo Staiola as the son.

The film is frequently on critics' and directors' lists of the best films ever made. It was given an honorary Academy Award in 1949, and, just four years after its release, was deemed the greatest film of all time by the magazine Sight & Sound's poll of filmmakers and critics in 1952. The film placed sixth as the greatest ever made in the latest directors poll, conducted in 2002.

Title

The original Italian title is literally translated into English as Bicycle Thieves, but the film has also been released in the USA as The Bicycle Thief. According to critic Philip French of The Observer, this alternate title is misleading, "because the desperate hero eventually becomes himself a bicycle thief."The most recent North American DVD release uses Bicycle Thieves.

Plot

The film tells the story of Antonio Ricci, an unemployed worker who gets a job posting flyers in the depressed post-World War II economy of Italy. To keep the job, he must have a bicycle, so his wife Maria sells her wedding sheets to get the money to get his bicycle from the pawnbroker.

Early in the film, the bike is stolen, and Antonio and his son Bruno spend the remainder of the film searching for it. Antonio manages to locate the thief (who had already sold the bicycle) and summons the police, but with no proof and with the thief’s neighbors willing to give him a false alibi, he abandons this cause.

At the end of the film Antonio, desperate to keep his job, attempts to steal a bicycle himself. He is caught and humiliated in front of Bruno, but the owner of the bicycle declines to press charges, realizing that the humiliation is punishment enough. Antonio and his family face a bleak future as the film ends, coupled with Antonio's realization that he is not morally superior to the thief.

 Cast

Lamberto Maggiorani as Antonio Ricci
Enzo Staiola as Bruno Ricci
Lianella Carell as Maria Ricci
Gino Saltamerenda as Baiocco
Vittorio Antonucci as The Thief
Giulio Chiari as a beggar
Elena Altieri as a charitable lady
Carlo Jachino as a beggar
Michele Sakara as secretary of the charity organization

 Style

Bicycle Thieves is the best known neo-realist film, a movement begun by Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1943), which attempted to give a new degree of realism to cinema. Following the precepts of the movement, De Sica shot only on location in Rome, and instead of professional actors used ordinary people with no training in performance; for example, Lamberto Maggiorani, the leading actor, was a factory worker.

Critical reception

Lamberto Maggiorani as Antonio.Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, lauded the film and its message in his review. He wrote, "Again the Italians have sent us a brilliant and devastating film in Vittorio De Sica's rueful drama of modern city life, The Bicycle Thief. Widely and fervently heralded by those who had seen it abroad (where it already has won several prizes at various film festivals), this heart-tearing picture of frustration, which came to the [World Theater] yesterday, bids fair to fulfill all the forecasts of its absolute triumph over here. For once more the talented De Sica, who gave us the shattering Shoe Shine that desperately tragic demonstration of juvenile corruption in post-war Rome, has laid hold upon and sharply imaged in simple and realistic terms a major—indeed, a fundamental and universal—dramatic theme. It is the isolation and loneliness of the little man in this complex social world that is ironically blessed with institutions to comfort and protect mankind."

When the film was re-released in the late 1990s Bob Graham, staff film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle , gave the drama a positive review, and wrote, "The roles are played by nonactors, Lamberto Maggiorani as the father and Enzo Staiola as the solemn boy, who sometimes appears to be a miniature man. They bring a grave dignity to De Sica's unblinking view of postwar Italy. The wheel of life turns and grinds people down; the man who was riding high in the morning is brought low by nightfall. It is impossible to imagine this story in any other form than De Sica's. The new black-and-white print has an extraordinary range of gray tones that get darker as life closes in." He also comments on the on-going criticism of the title, adding, "Purists have criticized the English title of the film as a poor translation of the Italian ladri, which is plural. What blindness! The Bicycle Thief is one of those wonderful titles whose power does not sink in until the film is over."

Influence

Indian director Satyajit Ray quoted the film as the seminal influence on his choice of film-making as a career.
Italian director Ettore Scola's film C'eravamo tanto amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much) (1974) utilizes Bicycle Thieves as a major point of admiration as well as criticism. One of the characters, Nico, becomes obsessed with the film. Scola's film is dedicated to De Sica.
The plot of Tim Burton's Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), which features Pee-wee Herman trying to find his stolen bike, is loosely based on Bicycle Thieves.
In 1990, Italian director Maurizio Nichetti produced a spoof of Italian neo-realist cinema, named The Icicle Thief.
Robert Altman's Hollywood satire The Player (1992) uses Bicycle Thieves as an emblem of the perfect non-Hollywood movie, with an unhappy ending of the kind that would not be permitted in Hollywood.
In an episode of My So Called Life, Angela attempts to have her first date with Jordan be a screening of The Bicycle Thief. Brian however mocks her plans, asking "Do you think Jordan Catalano will understand one word of The Bicycle Thief? You only understand it because I explained it to you!"
Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai's 2001 film Beijing Bicycle is an homage to Bicycle Thieves in which the main protagonist becomes a poor boy from the countryside who lands a job as a bicycle courier in Beijing. Events following the theft of his bicycle take a slightly different turn, reflecting contemporary social conditions in China.

Awards

Wins

Academy Awards: Honorary Award, Italy. Voted by the Academy Board of Governors as the most outstanding foreign language film released in the United States during 1949.
Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland: Special Prize of the Jury, Vittorio De Sica; 1949.
National Board of Review: NBR Award, Best Director, Vittorio De Sica; Best Film (Any Language), Italy; 1949.
New York Film Critics Circle Awards: NYFCC Award, Best Foreign Language Film, Italy; 1949.
British Academy of Film and Television Arts: BAFTA Film Award, Best Film from any Source; 1950.
Bodil Awards, Copenhagen, Denmark: Bodil, Best European Film (Bedste europæiske film), Vittorio De Sica; 1950.
Golden Globes: Golden Globe, Best Foreign Film, Italy; 1950.
Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain: CEC Award, Best Foreign Film (Mejor Película Extranjera), Italy; 1951.
Kinema Junpo Awards, Tokyo, Japan: Kinema Junpo Award, Best Foreign Language Film, Vittorio De Sica; 1951.
Wins, Silver Ribbon, Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists

Best Cinematography (Migliore Fotografia), Carlo Montuori.
Best Director (Migliore Regia), Vittorio De Sica.
Best Film (Miglior Film a Soggetto).
Best Score (Miglior Commento Musicale), Alessandro Cicognini.
Best Screenplay (Migliore Sceneggiatura), Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Oreste Biancoli, Adolfo Franci, and Gerardo Guerrieri.
Best Story (Miglior Soggetto), Cesare Zavattini.
Nominations

Academy Awards: Oscar, Best Writing, Screenplay, Cesare Zavattini; 1950.