Bicycle Thieves (1948)

 Vittorio De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves"

Vittorio De Sica's 1948 masterpiece "Bicycle Thieves" is, without a doubt, one of the most influential films in cinematic history. In many ways, its purity and excellence brought the Italian neo-realist movement into its final stages. It was impossible to replicate and impossible to improve upon. The film stood as the movement's pinnacle, expressing coherent, simple truths - not only about the post-war condition of Italy but also about the post-war state of global society.

The film centers on Antonio, a man desperate for work. He is offered a job hanging posters around the city - but only on the condition that he owns a bicycle. After his wife sells the family's bedsheets, Antonio is able to buys one. However, while on the job, a man steals his bike (with the careful assistance of another man). Antonio and his young son, Bruno, spend the rest of the film desperately searching for the missing bike. 

At one point, Antonio confronts a man he believes to be the thief, but the local community rallies around the suspect, badgering Antonio and forcing him to leave. Even the police admit there's little they can do. Pushed to his breaking point and terrified of losing his job, Antonio attempts to steal another man's bike. He is quickly caught and confronted by the crowd. Just as the bike's owner is about to call the police, he notices Bruno sobbing for his father. Moved by the boy's distress, the man chooses not to call the police and lets Antonio go free. Antonio and Bruno walk down the street with their faces streaked by tears.

The first thing to note about "Bicycle Thieves" is its time and setting. The film takes place in post-World War II Rome. De Sica sought to portray the poverty and unemployment of post-war Italy. He loosely based the film on the few plot details he could recall from Luigi Bartolini's novel of the same name. 

In keeping with the intentionality of the neo-realist movement (along with the very real problem of lack of funds that many Italian filmmakers were dealing with), De Sica used real locations and real, non-professional actors. Many of the non-professional actors' real lives even paralleled the events of the story, adding additional layers in realism. De Sica stated he wanted to "uncover the drama of everyday life." 

It is quite remarkable how simple the story is, and yet how much emotional power emerges from that simplicity. The loss of Antonio's bike threatens not only his economic well-being but also that of his family. As a result, finding the bike becomes a matter of life and death. Every action in the film feels like a struggle for survival. 

As Antonio searches for his stolen bicycle, we become immersed in the landscape of post-war of Italy - and, more broadly, in the emerging reality of a global society reshaped by conflict. In the aftermath of war, economic turmoil runs rampant. Securing and maintaining a means of income becomes essential for survival. As a result, the lower class and economically distressed individuals are often forced to turn against one another in pursuit of their fair share. Antonio and his son Bruno learn this the hard way along their journey. 

Their quest to recover the bicycle becomes an odyssey through the city of Rome, where they encounter a wide range of people and witness how various segments of society are coping with the chaos and uncertainty. Everywhere, there are money-making schemes. They visit a market filled with bicycle parts - presumably stolen. They stop by a church offering a free shave and a free meal, contingent on membership. They meet a fortune-teller selling her visions of the future for a price. They pass crowds of people at a football game. At every turn, there are cathedrals of commerce. And people, driven by fear and anxiety, are more than willing to pay for a desperate attempt to escape from their harsh reality.

In this way, Antonio and Bruno - and, by extension, the audience - stroll through the ruins of a fractured society, witnessing the rise of a new order built on consumerist and capitalist enterprise. Antonio cannot fight against this new enterprise, however. He, along with everyone else, is too economically dependent on the structure for survival. The dystopian nature of this reality is further emphasized by the identical, soulless apartment complexes housing the economically trapped. 

As viewers, we accompany Antonio and Bruno on this misadventure - not just through the streets of Rome, but into the unsettling heart of a new economic reality. It is a dystopia filled with people desperate for income and for something to soothe their fears and anxieties-  surrounded by thieves, con artists, and swindlers, all ready and eager to take advantage of their fellow man for the sake of their own survival.

This point becomes painfully clear in the film's finale. After Antonio's long odyssey to recover his bicycle, he realizes he cannot escape this new dystopia. The dystopian system he navigates has rendered advancement impossible. And it seems that everyone else he interacts with has adapted to this new reality. 

As I watched the film, I found myself growing increasingly paranoid that every other character was secretly out for their own gain. I began to trust no one, viewing each interaction as driven by an ulterior motive. And perhaps that is exactly the point. In a society where everyone is economically trapped with no clear path forward, survival becomes the only priority. And survival often demands morally compromised choices.

In the end, Antonio is no different. When backed into a corner, he had to act. This act turned him into the very bicycle thief he was searching for throughout the film. He is no better than the man who stole his bike. Ultimately, everyone is out for themselves out of necessity. After that desperate act, Antonio has become just another bicycle thief in a world full of bicycle thieves. 

This is why there has been some debate about the very name of the film. On its original release in Italy, the film was titled "Ladri di Biciclette," which literally translates to "thieves of bicycles." The title has a plurality for both "thieves" and "bicycles." However, when the film was released in the U.S., the title was changed to "The Bicycle Thief." I would argue that by changing the title of the film from plural to singular, you are missing the point of the film entirely. The point of the plurality of the 'thieves' in the film title is that every character in the film is a thief. They are all thieves, including Antonio. We the viewers are also thieves because any one of us would become the thief in order to survive and feed our family. There is no singular thief, but rather an entire world of thieves. 

At the climax of the film, it becomes clear that Antonio will never find his bike. He and his family will never be able to better their economic circumstances. And now, Antonio has morally corrupted himself in the eyes of his son. It is perhaps one of the saddest endings in film history. Tears stream down Bruno's face seeing his father stoop to his lowest point. It is the utter desolation of their circumstances, the hopelessness, their inability to do anything that makes you cry. "Bicycle Thieves" drags you along a life-or-death mission of securing a mundane item and along the way, shows you the fabric of a morally corrupt post-war landscape. In the end, this new landscape is all consuming. Our characters are unable to escape from it, just as we are unable to escape. The characters in the final shot are us. Their hopelessness is our hopelessness. Their desolation is our desolation. We are nothing but morally corrupted people in a world full of morally corrupted people This is not due to who we are internally, but out of necessity due to the destitute circumstances we find ourselves in.