Bicycle Thieves

          Italian cinema during pre-war period, films were used as propaganda, a form of brainwashing for political benefits, which this set of films were brought from places to places to educate the peoples. The films were generally documentaries and newsreels. However, Italian Neorealism began in Italy after World War II. It is a style of film with promoting only a good image of Italy during the period of fascist government's control. The government restricted that crime and immorality should not be produced, the films content produced should be divorced from reality. Therefore, the films produced were normally melodramas which combine music as in melody and dramatic narration films. Nonetheless, the fall of fascism created the style of film characterized by stories of the working class and postwar poverty. The best-known example is the Bicycle Thieves by De Sica in 1948 (Hayward, 2013). 

          The neorealist movement began during the postwar period as a response to the political turmoil and unstable economic conditions which were affecting the country. The main exponents of the movement are Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. These directors took up cameras to tell stories on the lower-classes people and their concerns which the filmmakers projected a slice of their life to reflect on the conditions of social reality. These films regularly show contemporary social realism as in what is it happening now, the present, today and at the current moment. Hence, filmmakers had abolished plot and narration that normally used in films. 

          Other than that, Italian neorealism films encouraged the sense of realism through using the real life people as actors who also known as the everyday actors / social actors. Non-professional actors are preferred as filmmakers believe that they are different from those professional actors who are already well trained. The filmmakers’ faith in non-professional actors will be more likely to establish the real expression without any ‘acting’ elements. Next, natural dialogue and language were used to enhance the realism too. On-location shooting was preferably suggested rather than studio work to establish the grainy kind of visual and realistic look to enhance realism. 

          Besides, Neorealism films were basically produced in documentary style and shot in natural light. Additionally, long takes camera shot which is 1 long shot with 20 seconds and above normally used in the films too. Long takes in a film which audiences are forced to watch at the same scene or location. They started looking at the surrounding of the scene and appreciate that (Hayward, 2013).

          During the postwar in Rome, a poor father is offered a new job but he needs a bicycle for work. His wife pawns the family’s entire bed linen for him to redeem a bicycle that has been pawned however the bicycle is stolen on his first day of work. He brings along his little son to look for the bicycle on the streets of Rome. They go to the street, the crowded market, a church where they could see the scenes of poverty similar to theirs.

          The neorealism film: Bicycle Thieves meets all the components mentioned above. It projects a slice of Antonio and his family’s poverty life during the postwar period. It is shown on the first scene where everyone queues and gathers around to fight for a job to maintain their life. When there is a new job offered which needs a bicycle for work, everyone cries out saying they have a bicycle hope to get the job. 

          Next, it shows the social reality which is the poverty, the effects of the war on the economy and the unemployment of the people. When Antonio eventually gets the job, in order to work with a bicycle, his wife, Maria pawns all of their bed linens to redeem his bicycle which has been pawned. The poverty social life is shown at the scene where Antonio redeems his bicycle at the office, we can see a lot of people are queuing up at the back waiting for their turn to pawn and redeem stuffs, as well as the tall shelves full with other people’s bed sheets that have been pawned, even the worker needs to climb up a ladder to stack up the bed linens. 

          Furthermore, the non-professional actors are used in this film too, however, there is only one professional actor in the entire film, the man who is standing at the staircases giving out jobs for the people. 

           Moreover, the real location shooting in this film is shot at the post-war area which creates the grainy visual to emphasize the people’s suffering. That location is when the wife, Maria and a group of women are pulling water from a well. We can see the combination of new and old collapsed buildings in the films and the roads are not well repaired. With the outdoor real life scene location, lastly, this neorealism film is also shot in natural light as well.

           Bicycle Thieve is an impactful and brilliant neorealism film. I like how it ends with the dispirited father and the son walking in the crowd, who have no idea where the bicycle is.