Film Studies - The Bicycle Thief [W11 Movie Review]
Italian Neo-realism is founded by Casare Zavatthini in 1942. Based on Zavatthini perspective view, he looked at the plot of the film as a fake structure of everyday life and the professional actors complimented the falsehood which is a lie in the society. Due to this reason, Zavatthini started to establish Italian Neo-realism as the new style of making movie which is the contemporary social realism. Contemporary realism concern in the plot on the struggle of poor, oppressed and working class which audience can feels the realistic from the film.
The characteristic of Italian Neo-realism is film the mixing of pro and non-pro actors, the film mostly shot on-location. Due to the low budget from the depressed post- World War II, the film is lack of trick or composite photography and special effects. Italian Neo-realism is known as poverty and pessimism film. However, the demand of Italian Neo-realism went down in the 50s due to not economical profitable and lack popular in Italy and the dependent of foreign appreciation.
Antonio Ricci, an unemployed man due to the depressed post-World War II economy of Italy. He must get a job as fast as he could in order to feed his family, a wife and two children. As he is desperate for job, he saw a poster of job recruitment about employer must have a bicycle to work with it. His wife, Maria exchange their homes only valuables for Ricci to get a bicycle for the job. Unfortunately, during Ricci working on his job, his precious bicycle is stolen by a thief. To retrieve the bicycle, Ricci and his son have walk on the streets of Rome. They finally located the thief and had a fight with him, but lack of enough evidence to prove that the young man is the thief, the case is dismissed. Desperation of losing the only tools to make living for his family have drive him to stole other's bicycle, this had lead he to be jailed in the end.
The film had shown a few scene about a male dominance society, Male in the film are all out to seek for job, where woman stay at home to do housework and care for children. Another scene is Ricci instill his sons about the idea of being as a male means they can do everything they wanted to.
Ricci is not qualified as a father and husband in this film, He loose his temper at his wife as frustrating to get a bicycle for the job instead of thinking another way to get it. As to stop Ricci frustration, his wife has exchange bed sheets in order to get her husband a bicycle. Ricci also a shameful husband as he makes his wife to carry two heavy buckets on her own without giving a helping hand.
Ricci does not concern about his son safety, he did not hold his son hand as a result his son is nearly run over by two cars. Another example is he care more about his lost bicycle than his son, this example is seen when Ricci chase after the thief and left his son behind.
There are several shots in the film is shot on location during the post-war era. As an example, the stadium when Ricci's bicycle is stolen in the film is really happening. the director has shot on location to present the contemporary social experiment that is happening in real life.
In conclusion, not every story will have good ending. As an good example from this film, the father and son does not manage to get the bicycle back in the end. Instead of learning from the father, the son is more worth for the audience to learn with.
Reference
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040522/
https://evyndavis.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/cesare-zavattinis-idealistic-approach-to-filmmaking-then-and-now/
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