Elliot's Watching Week of 10 Oct 21: Bicycle Thieves

 Elliot's Watching Week of 10 Oct 21

If you’ve already seen Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948 - sometimes listed as The Bicycle Thief, which is incorrect), as you probably have,  you should see it again because I can almost assure you it’s better than you’d remembered: socially and political on point, brief with hardly a wasted moment, dramatic from the first frame, poignant, simple, straightforward - values so seldom seen in contemporary blockbuster cinema. Set in postwar Rome, from the first shot - men gathered at a government office where jobs are doled out as and if available; the protagonist - Ricci - gets one of the coveted jobs, but needs a bicycle for this chance of a lifetime. His is in hock; ever-loyal wife pawns their bedsheets to reclaim the bike - in an amazing shot we see a figurative mountain of sheets that others have hocked, an incredible visual statement. Shortly, the bike is stolen and we embark on an odyssey as Ricci and 6-year-old son - w/ few words he’s the star of the show - embark on a quest to reclaim the bike, which leads to some terrifying moral/ethical decisions. This film was foundational, leading to many of the great neo-realist dramas of the 1950s, and has influenced probably hundreds of quest films - and it stands up well to time, improves with time in fact, as there’s an added fascination of seeing Rome in such dire poverty, far different from the epicenter of tourism and business that it is today.