Bicycle Thieves (Criterion Collection)
by Vittorio De Sica
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Enzo Staiola, Gino Saltamerenda, Lamberto Maggiorani, Lianella Carell, Vittorio AntonucciDirector: Vittorio De Sica
Brand: Image Entertainment
Writer: Vittorio De Sica
Writer: Adolfo Franci
Writer: Cesare Zavattini
Writer: Gerardo Guerrieri
Writer: Luigi Bartolini
Writer: Oreste Biancoli
Writer: Suso Cecchi d'Amico
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Italian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 93 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-02-13
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Bicycle Thieves (Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: Perfect - for what it is.
Summary: 4 Stars
I knew this movie would be a downer from the scant information I picked up on the back of the case. I also knew, however, that it has a tremendous reputation, and that you can never really anticipate the feel of a movie without actually experiencing it. Some downer movies and books can still jar a beneficial and enlightening response out of you by making you realize something you hadn't known before or make you see something familiar in a new way. For me, this did not happen with "The Bicycle Thief". What it did was to reinforce for me things I already know all too well about humanity, and which everyone else knows unless they've led an incredibly sheltered life. In our time and place in America, almost all of us do lead very sheltered lives in relation to all other times and places in history. This film is a powerful and poignant reminder of how much of human dignity is dependent on being employed, something many even in America have rediscovered with our current recession. The emphasis in the film is on the powerlessness of the individual to contend with the oppressive forces in a society suffering from desperate poverty. The struggle for survival engenders crime and enclaves of criminals, as well as a callous justice system which doesn't even make an effort to right minor wrongs, like the theft of a bicycle. It would be futile anyway, and the fact that this "minor" theft means the loss of someone's livelihood is not a consideration. There is a purity to the honesty of this film; there is no happy ending and no uplifting moral to be extracted from it. In a sense it is a beautiful film because of its uncompromising and masterful technique, but it is still a pathetic commentary on the human condition. The story of this film is all in the circumstances of the social conditions. There is no doubt in my mind that the maker of this film intended to prick some consciences and instigate reform. Vittorio De Sica did an eminently skillful and successful job of making us share the intense frustration and helplessness of the man who had his bicycle stolen.As social activism, it is very powerful. As art or entertainment, it is a pathetic downer of a story which I can't truthfully say I enjoyed. I didn't even feel a catharsis after it was over. After returning to my more affluent existence, the movie still cast a pall of unrightable wrongs on my mind. I think the reason for this is that the emphasis in the film was totally on institutions and circumstances. The protagonist had no mental armor or spiritual source of strength to contend with these vicissitudes. Of course, I have to admit, having a steady income and plenty of food on the table contributes mightily to a person's outlook. Many of the evils depicted in the film will never be cured by any social program. A work of art which doesn't somehow include the individual's quest to gain ascendancy over his situation through intellect or imagination seems incomplete to me.
Summary of Bicycle Thieves (Criterion Collection)
Hailed around the world as one of the greatest movies ever made, Vittorio De Sica's Academy Award-winning Bicycle Thieves defined an era in cinema. In postwar, poverty-stricken Rome, a man, hoping to support his desperate family with a new job, loses his bicycle and main means of transportation for work. With his wide-eyed young son in tow, he sets off to track down the thief. Simple in construction and dazzlingly rich in human insight, Bicycle Thieves embodied all the greatest strengths of the neorealist film movement in Italy: emotional clarity, social righteousness, and brutal honesty.Vittorio De Sica's remarkable 1947 drama of desperation and survival in Italy's devastating post-war depression earned a special Oscar for its affecting power. Shot in the streets and alleys of Rome, De Sica uses the real-life environment of contemporary life to frame his moving drama of a desperate father whose new job delivering cinema posters is threatened when a street thief steals his bicycle. Too poor to buy another, he and his son take to the streets in an impossible search for his bike. Cast with nonactors and filled with the real street life of Rome, this landmark film helped define the Italian neorealist approach with its mix of real life details, poetic imagery, and warm sentimentality. De Sica uses the wandering pair to witness the lives of everyday folks, but ultimately he paints a quiet, poignant portrait of father and son, played by nonprofessionals Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola, whose understated performances carry the heart of the film. De Sica and scenarist Cesare Zavattini also collaborated on Shoeshine, Miracle in Milan, and Umberto D, all classics in the neorealist vein, but none of which approach the simple poetry and quiet power achieved in The Bicycle Thief. --Sean Axmaker
On the DVD
The two-disc Criterion DVD of Bicycle Thieves is most significant for its fine digitally restored print quality, a marked improvement over previous video editions of the film. Now the beauties of this devastating masterpiece of Italian Neorealism shine through anew: the richness of the locations, the simple clarity of the performances, the heartbreaking details of the daily lives of the dispossessed. No commentary track, but a first-rate booklet gives a primer on the movie, with critical appreciations (including a classic take by Andre Bazin), a bell-ringing Neorealist manifesto by screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, and a variety of memoirs on the making of the film, including one by director Vittorio De Sica. A second disc has three well-chosen extras. Life as It Is: The Neorealist Movement in Italy is a useful 40-minute intro to the general subject of postwar Italian cinema. Working with De Sica is a 22-minute doc with reminiscences from surviving members of the Bicycle Thieves cast and crew, including Enzo Staiola, the unforgettable little boy who was plucked out of a crowd to star in the film. A 55-minute documentary on the life of Zavattini, made for European TV, gives background on this feisty leading light of Neorealism; testimony is offered by Bernardo Bertolucci and Roberto Benigni, among others. By the way, for years the film was known in the U.S. as The Bicycle Thief, but if you re-visit it you'll be struck by how shatteringly appropriate the restoration of the original plural is. --Robert Horton
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