Bicycle Thieves

Bicycle Thieve is a Italian Film in 1948 directed by Vittotrio De Sica. I like this film because I totally attracted by the relationship between father and his son. I enjoyed when I watching the journey that the father and his son went through. I actually want relationship like that, because since I born, my father very busy to carry his work, so we don’t have spent more time to build our relationship. This film used Italian-neorealism to present it. It is a classical Hollywood Cinema after sound.

The history of the Italian Neorealism was after World War 2. The World War 2 destroyed the national cinema and the stability of economic cinema industries had been affected also. When end of the World War 2, the Nazi economy was eliminated. After that, Marshall Plan rebuilt the European national industries and allowing production to go big area. For Italy, the production facilities were pretty much intact.

Cesare Zavattini was the theoretical founder of neo-realism in 1942, he suggesting a new form of Italian Cinema that planned plots, use real people which means non- professional actor and locations so that direct contact is built with contemporary social reality. It want to show how social reality looks like in the film toward audience. Zavattini stated that all the professional actors in film were fake. So all the actor of the film not really professional, the only act what they like in their real life. The plot structure of film is fake compare with real life.

There are many elements of neo realism in film to define. First, Most of the shooting location was the area of after the war. The shooting should be documentary in style, shot in natural light, with a hand held camera and using observation and analysis. Next is the sound recorded and add after the shooting. The film will add professional actor and mix with non-actors. The whole film refer to contemporary national experiences. Next is socially-conscious and also the human point of view. It should focus on social reality. The film is a piece of life. It should appear to enter and then leave everyday life.

The beginning of the film, we can see the black and white with natural light in whole story. The location in the film used the area of after war. It show the situation of the film very bad in economy. Ricci and Maria very poor, so Maria had to sell her quilt and buy a bicycle to Ricci. It means their situation very poor and hard to live. This is the realism in our life. When Ricci and Maria walk back to their home, the shoot style is use long shoot. Long shoot mean use one take. The camera keep shooting them walk back to home. So we can also can notice the environment is very dusty and the land is uneven because after war. Maria very hard to cross the land because the land too many uneven.

 Everybody try hard to finding job. They want earn money to live and take care their family. During that time, finding job is the harder things for them. Antonio Ricci in this film as a father. He get his job from a man, but he need to get a bicycle. If not, he cannot work because he need go until city. I very hard recognize who is professional and non-professional actors. We found out that only professional actor is the man that give job to Ricci. So we can see that this film is mix up with professional and non-professional actors. 

Next is the journey of Ricci and his son Bruno. My favorite scene is when Ricci slap Bruno. Although Ricci angry, but he still will bring Bruno to high class restaurant to make Bruno happy. As a poor man, Ricci still willing to spend money to make Bruno happy. We can see that Ricci very care about the relationship between his family.

 When Ricci finding thieve, we all can mention that not really all the people help him. Ricci saw an uncle communicate with thieve, Ricci keep asking the uncle the way to find thieve. But the uncle don’t want give any responded to Ricci. Ricci facing the reality of social, everybody only care about their life. They won’t do the thing without benefit. In the end, Ricci still cannot found his bicycle.

In conclusion, Italian Neorealism refer to our social life. We can see how our social life in the film. It not like the fake of Hollywood. But audience more prefer watching fake film instead of real life film.