Death of a Cyclist
by Juan Antonio Bardem
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Death of a CyclistDirector: Juan Antonio Bardem
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 87 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-22
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion Collection
Movie Reviews of Death of a Cyclist
Movie Review: There is such a thing as society
Summary: 5 Stars
Criterion's release of film's of long-ago classics of film-making continues.This film by Bardem is a black and white morality tale by a communist director in a country with a fascist dictatorship,whose censorship had crippled the art of cinema and any progressive analysis of the situation.This is film as political weapon hidden under the cloak of metaphor.His call to arms,issued at Salamanca in 1955,is to his fellow directors.The film opens with lovers Juan (Alberto Closas) and Maria José (Lucia Bosé). Maria is behind the wheel of her car, colliding (unseen) into a man(also,tellingly,unseen)bicycling on a lonely stretch of country road.This pivotal moment highlights the divisions between the rich and the poor.The lovers pull up see the dying man and she calls Juan away.The faster they flee,the more the act follows them.This film has content:morality, conscience,guilt,fear of loss of status.Bardem shows us the rot at the core of Spanish ruling class life as if in a Jacobean tragedy.He uses neo-noir elements,post-neo-realism cum Hitchcockian melodrama.
She is a society hostess married to the rich man, Miguel(similar looking to Juan).She loves her creature comforts, but also her infidelity with Juan,a professor of maths,who she used to be engaged to prior to marriage. He is economically and professionally dependent upon his wealthy brother-in-law,who got him the job.The viper in their bosom is Rafael,the parasitical art critic and court jester,who divulges he `knows' about them,having seen them that day in the car together,and threatens blackmail.His sarcasm and irony heats up a brew of satire,revenge, paranoia and suspicion.Bardem brings this to a head with a brilliant nightclub flamenco scene with the trio-cutting from face to face as the music drowns out the dialogue-more entangled in the web.Juan is the moral force in the film,with his disturbance at seeing the headline of the cyclist's death,causing him to fail a female student unjustly,leading to student revolts for his resignation.Egoism and the cult of self are attacked,the selfishness of the lovers.Maria fears Rafa knows about the bicycle accident.Juan sees the poverty of the cyclist's environment,pretending to be a reporter.He desires to confess to the police and asks Maria to join him.He is inspired by the `selfless solidarity' of the students to give up his old way of life,his job,Maria,to come clean: Bardem's call to Spain.Maria thinks otherwise, with tragic consequences.
The film is closer to Antonioni's Cronica di un amore,also starring Lucia Bose,as a wealthy lover drawn to the comforts of wealth,but wrenched by her hand in murder.Both directors were forging a new language of cinema with international credentials.Barden aims to "bear testimony to our time",shares with Antonioni dramatic ellipsis,the power of suggestion.However he is forced by the censors to alter the ending,which seems jarring in tone from the rest of the film,but is there to prove a political and moral point about the goodness of the working classes.Is Bardem Marxist warrior or cultural prisoner?I loved especially the contrast between the scenes of wintry Madrid and barren countryside in contrasat to the rich villa interiors.There are good features,Calle Bardem a documentary on the revolutionary director, by fellow writers/directors.There is a booklet with a critical essay by scholar Marsha Kinder and Bardem's call to arms for Spanish cinema.If you like this see Headless Woman too.
Summary of Death of a Cyclist
Upper-class geometry professor Juan and his wealthy married mistress Maria José, driving back from a late-night rendezvous, accidentally hit a cyclist, and run. The resulting, exquisitely shot tale of guilt, infidelity, and blackmail reveals the wide gap between the rich and the poor in Spain, and surveys the corrupt ethics of a society seduced by decadence. Juan Antonio Bardem s charged melodrama Death of a Cyclist (Muerte de un ciclista) was a direct attack on 1950s Spanish society under Franco s rule. Though it was ultimately affected by the dictates of censorship, the film s sting could never be dulled.SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Calle Bardem (2005), a documentary on the revolutionary life and career of director Juan Antonio Bardem
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by scholar Marsha Kinder and a 1955 essay by Bardem on Spanish cinema
Juan Antonio Bardem's Death of A Cyclist cinematically resembles a noir thriller while it makes a stark political statement against the Spanish government at the time of its conception, namely Franco's regime. Class inequities and distrust thematically color this film, starring Maria Jose (Lucía Bosé), whose insecurities about her infidelity to wealthy businessman, Miguel Castro (Otello Toso), are compounded when she and her illicit love, Juan Soler (Alberto Closas), accidentally hit a bicyclist while driving together. Panicking and leaving the cyclist to die, Juan and Maria are plagued by guilt and fear of discovery. An art critic and friend of Castro's, Rafael Sandoval (Carlos Casaravilla), serves as a corrupt conscience to the secret couple and threatens them with blackmail. Juan and Maria are thrust into his guessing game, in attempts to glean how much Sandoval knows. As Marsha Kinder mentions in her excellent essay accompanying this Criterion Collection release, Bardem's revolt lies not only in the plot and in his efforts to create a "realistic" Spanish film, but also by establishing characters who rebel against conformity?Maria against typical gender roles, and Juan, a liberal but poor Geometry teacher, against his upper-class family's desire for him to grow rich. Landscapes and sets, like the barren desert road where the accident takes place versus the lavish Spanish villa interiors, provide more visual fodder for Bardem's condemnation of power imbalance. Included as an extra is the short documentary, "Calle Bardem," (2005) comprised of interviews with Bardem's friends and colleagues that offer a clearer image of this highly-opinionated auteur. Death of A Cyclist's narrative is juicy in itself but is succeeded by its ambition to revamp Spanish cinema while speaking out against causes the director was dedicated to.--Trinie Dalton
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