Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Italian Neorealism

After the World War II, films technique begin from the Italian Neorealism. The World War II affecting the cinema industries in economic and stability. Cesare Zavattini was the theoretical founder of neo-realism in 1942.

Theory Discussion

Italian Neorealism is a new form of Italian Cinema that abolishes contrive and planned plots, use real people and locations to show the realistic of the movie. The pursuit of neo-realism is the reality of life, which demands the expression of the suffering of the Italian people through the war, suffering of life, and denounces the injustice in the society. This film technique mostly shot on-location in the ruins of the war. They also tend to use mixture of professional actor and non-actors but mostly non-actors able to bring out more realistic. For the film of Bicycle Thieves, after the World War II, Rome like many other country, was flooded with unemployment and poverty, people often fought for a job opportunity, and the film passed the travails of Italian workers after World War II. It reflects the social situation in Italy at that time.

In the ending of this film, in addition to expressing the true portrayal that life still has to go on, and this is the fate of the people at the lower class, it also conveys that the new realism movies value revealing life itself.

Synopsis

The film of Bicycle Thieves (1948) is set in Rome before and after World War II. It was not easy the main character Antonio Ricci to get a work,but the work require to have a bike. His wife Maria sold her dowry (bed linen, sheet) to help her husband to get a bike. But on the first day of the work, his bike was stolen by someone. He was very upset and ask his friend to him to find the bicycle. But unfortunately he can not found it and he still finding the bike with his son Bruno. They went to market ask a lot of people and finally he found the guy who stole his bicycle but due to he did not have any clues to prove that the guy stole his bike. He feel very depress and bring his son to have a dinner and count how much he can earn if he still doing that job. In the end, he had no choice to steal someone else's bike and caught by other in front of his son.

Theory Analysis

First of all, Italian Neorealism aspire the reality of life so one way to attain the realistic to the audiences they tend to use non-actors because non- actors able to bring out the truth of the story.So for the film of Bicycle Thieves, they mostly use non-actors to shoot this film the only professional actor is the beginning of the movie a guy who make announcement for the job. By interviewing non-actors to select an actors, restore the real role of us and natural deduction. On the one hand, the use of non-professional actor and also alleviates the lack of funds. In the movie of Bicycle Thieves, the father and son are non-professional actors, but they are very real in acting this movie.

Besides, Italian Neorealism is the film technique that used after the World War II. They mostly shot on-location, in the ruins of the post-war era. So in the beginning of the movie when a man was provide the job to Antonio Ricci we can notice the background is all building. All the buildings is very new because of World War II all the buildings were rebuild in that time. In order to achieve the authenticity or realistic, the film did not used studio, and we can see every scene including all street alleys was shot in the real location.

Next, the movie begin from the guy provide the job to Antonio then still have a lot of people can not get their job. This is also one of the problem that they having in that time. After the World War II many people were unemployed due to the economic decrease. Furthermore, Antonio and his wife went to the pawnshop to sell their goods to get the money. Then again use the money to buy the bicycle. This is also one of the phenomena that happened after the World War II, more people become poor. In order to survive at that time most people are forced to sell valuable goods in exchange for cash.

In my conclusion, the movie of Bicycle Thieves is a very good Neorealism film because of applied a lot of theory in this film. For example, the director used mixture of professional actors and non-professional actor and mostly shot on-location, in the ruins of the post-war era. This film also references to contemporary national experience for example after World War II, A series of problems, such as poverty, unemployment, social security, social contradictions and so on.

References :

Semlyen, P. D., Freer, I., & Wybrew, A. (2016, August 10). Movie movements that defined cinema: Italian Neorealism. Retrieved from https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/italian-neorealism-movie-era/

D. (n.d.). Film Styles: Italian Neorealism. Retrieved from http://cinecollage.net/neorealism.html

Neorealism. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Neorealism-HISTORICAL-ORIGINS-OF-ITALIAN-NEOREALISM.html