A Roman worker finally lands a job that requires a bicycle, and it gets stolen on his first day. He spends the rest of the film searching the city with his young son. This is the defining work of Italian Neorealism, and the film that proved cinema could find tragedy in a completely ordinary life.
Bicycle Thieves is a 1948 drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica. This breakdown covers 5 techniques (2 cinematography, 1 psychology and 2 narrative), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Umberto D. uses several of the same techniques.
Filming entirely on location in a real city with non-professional actors. The city's texture and its people work as a social document and become part of what the film is saying.
How this film uses it
De Sica filmed on the streets of postwar Rome with a cast made up largely of non-professionals. The crowds, the markets and the tenements are real places, and they work as evidence of how people lived. You can't separate what the film says about postwar poverty from the physical reality it records. The city is both a character and a court.
Where to see it
The market search sequence. Antonio and Bruno search the real Piazza Vittorio and Porta Portese markets, where stolen goods often surface. You see how big the economy of bicycle theft is.
Placing a child in the middle of adult moral failures and making them face a choice they can't fully understand. You understand what the child doesn't, which is where the horror comes from.
How this film uses it
Bruno follows Antonio through the whole search. He sees his father humiliated, desperate, violent and finally criminal. By the end, Bruno has watched his father become what the thief was. The last shot shows their hands together as they walk into the crowd.
Where to see it
Bruno's face as he watches his father try to steal a bicycle. The film is built around the son as a witness, so you judge what happens through his eyes.
Making money or one necessary possession the force that moves the plot, so every choice is shaped by what characters can afford or keep.
How this film uses it
The bicycle means a job, which means food, which means shelter. When it's stolen, Antonio loses his living. De Sica sets this up carefully. You see the sheets pawned to get the bicycle back, the bicycle coming out of the pawnshop and the job that requires it. You know exactly what the bicycle is worth to the family before it's lost.
Where to see it
The pawn shop scene. The sheets go in and the bicycle comes out. The trade shows you plainly how much the family's survival rests on it.
Filming city crowds as they keep moving around one person's tragedy without noticing. The scale of the city makes private disaster invisible and shows how alienated people have become.
How this film uses it
De Sica fills the frame with crowds of people walking through Rome. Antonio searches in and around this crowd, which keeps moving. No one stops and no one helps. With no hostility at all, the crowd simply fails to notice how much 1 stolen bicycle means to 1 man. The city's indifference is the film's point about society.
Where to see it
Antonio disappearing into the crowd with Bruno at the end. The city swallows them, and it's so big that their tragedy becomes invisible.
Ending the film where it started, or with a scene that echoes the opening. The repeat shows what has changed, or suggests the cycle will keep going.
How this film uses it
Antonio steals a bicycle. He gets caught, humiliated in front of Bruno and let go. The system has produced the very crime it punishes. The film ends where it began, with a stolen bicycle, and that circle argues that poverty is an economic condition and has nothing to do with morals. Antonio is no different from the thief who stole from him, and the film knows it.
Where to see it
Antonio's failed theft. It reverses the film's opening, and he becomes the thing he has been searching for.
Questions
Bicycle Thieves: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Bicycle Thieves use?
CineCode breaks down 5 techniques in Bicycle Thieves (1948): Neorealist Location Grammar, Child's Forced Moral Burden, Money as Plot Driver, Urban Crowd Indifference and Circular Structure.
Who directed Bicycle Thieves?
Vittorio De Sica directed Bicycle Thieves, released in 1948. CineCode also covers Umberto D. (1952).
What films are similar to Bicycle Thieves?
Films that share techniques with Bicycle Thieves include Umberto D. (1952), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Forrest Gump (1994), A Separation (2011).
