Bicycle Thieves
Directed by	Vittorio De Sica
Produced by	Giuseppe Amato
Written by	Vittorio De Sica Cesare Zavattini Suso Cecchi D'Amico Gerardo Guerrieri Cesare Zavattini (story) Luigi Bartolini (novel)
Starring	Lamberto Maggiorani Enzo Staiola
Music by	Alessandro Cicognini
Cinematography	Carlo Montuori
Editing by	Eraldo Da Roma
Distributed by	Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche Arthur Mayer & Joseph Burstyn
Release date(s)	November 24, 1948 December 12, 1949
Running time	93 min
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
IMDb profile

The Bicycle Thief redirects here. For the band of the same name, see The Bicycle Thief (band)

Ladri di biciclette is a 1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was released as The Bicycle Thief in the USA and as Bicycle Thieves in the UK. It tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Luigi Bartolini and was adapted for the screen by Cesare Zavattini. It stars Lamberto Maggiorani as the father and Enzo Staiola as the son. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Vittorio De Sica (July 7, 1902–November 13, 1974) was an Italian neorealist director and actor. ... Cesare Zavattini (September 20, 1902-October 13, 1989) was an Italian screenwriter noted for neo-realist films. ... Luigi Bartolini (February 8, 1892 - May 16, 1963) was an Italian painter, writer, and poet. ... Maggiorani in The Bicycle Thief Lamberto Maggiorani (28 August 1909; Rome – 22 April 1983; Rome) was an Italian actor notable for his portrayal of Antonio Ricci in Ladri di Biciclette (English: Bicycle Thieves). ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Italy. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Italy. ... is the 328th day of the year (329th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the 1948 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... is the 346th day of the year (347th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Bicycle Thief is a band fronted by Bob Forrest, former lead singer of Thelonious Monster and friend of Red Hot Chili Peppers Flea, Anthony Kiedis, John Frusciante and Chad Smith in their early years. ... The year 1948 in film involved some significant events. ... Italian neorealism is a film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed in long takes on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors for secondary and sometimes primary roles. ... This article is about motion pictures. ... Vittorio De Sica (July 7, 1902–November 13, 1974) was an Italian neorealist director and actor. ... For other uses, see Rome (disambiguation). ... Luigi Bartolini (February 8, 1892 - May 16, 1963) was an Italian painter, writer, and poet. ... Cesare Zavattini (September 20, 1902-October 13, 1989) was an Italian screenwriter noted for neo-realist films. ... Maggiorani in The Bicycle Thief Lamberto Maggiorani (28 August 1909; Rome – 22 April 1983; Rome) was an Italian actor notable for his portrayal of Antonio Ricci in Ladri di Biciclette (English: Bicycle Thieves). ...

The film is frequently on critics' and directors' lists of the best films ever made. It was given an honorary Academy Award in 1949, and, just four years after its release, was deemed the greatest film of all time by the magazine Sight & Sound's poll of filmmakers and critics in 1952.^[1] The film placed sixth as the greatest ever made in the latest directors poll, conducted in 2002.^[2] Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... Sight & Sound is a British monthly magazine about film. ...

Title

The original Italian title of the film is literally translated into English as Bicycle Thieves, but the film has also been released in the USA as The Bicycle Thief. According to critic Philip French of The Observer, this alternate title is misleading, "because the desperate hero eventually becomes himself a bicycle thief."^[3] Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

Plot summary

The film tells the story of Antonio Ricci, an unemployed worker who gets a job posting flyers in the depressed post-World War II economy of Italy. To keep the job, he must have a bicycle, so his wife Maria sells her wedding sheets to get the money to get his bicycle from the pawnbroker. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... For other uses, see Bicycle (disambiguation). ...

Early in the film, the bike is stolen, and Antonio and his son Bruno spend the remainder of the film searching for it. Antonio manages to locate the thief (who had already sold the bicycle) and summons the police, but with no proof and with the thief’s neighbors willing to give him a false alibi, he abandons this cause.

At the end of the film Antonio, desperate to keep his job, attempts to steal a bicycle himself. He is caught and humiliated in front of Bruno, but the owner of the bicycle declines to press charges, realizing that the humiliation is punishment enough. Antonio and his family face a bleak future as the film ends, coupled with Antonio's realization that he is not morally superior to the thief.

Note: Very little is said, nowadays, about an all but forgotten deleted scene featuring Bruno's encounter with an obviously destitute mongrel dog. It occurs prior to the "drowning" scene at the bridge when Bruno was left alone as his father continues his futile search for his stolen bicycle. The edited scene still exists, albiet in damaged condition, and is reputed to capture the essence of the father/child relationship, foreshadowing the son's love and devotion that promises to provide an eventual spiritual uplift for Antonio.

Style

Bicycle Thieves is the best known neorealist film, a movement begun by Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1943), which attempted to give a new degree of realism to cinema.^[4] Following the precepts of the movement, De Sica shot only on location in Rome, and instead of professional actors used ordinary people with no training in performance; for example, Lamberto Maggiorani, the leading actor, was a factory worker.^[5] Very little is said, nowadays, about an all but forgotten deleted scene featuring Bruno's encounter with an obviously destitute mongrel dog (played by "Mangia"). It occurs prior to the "drowning" scene at the bridge when Bruno was left alone as his father continuted his futile search for his stolen bicycle. The edited scene still exists, albiet in damaged condition, and is reputed to capture the essence of the father/child relationship, foreshadowing the love and devotion that eventually promises to provide the spiritual uplifting of Bruno's father at the end of the film. Italian neorealism is a film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed in long takes on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors for secondary and sometimes primary roles. ... Luchino Visconti. ... Ossessione 1943 Ossessione (Luchino Visconti, 1943) is generally considered to be the first Neorealist film. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Awards

The film won an honorary Academy Award for Foreign Language Film, and the BAFTA Award for Best Film from Any Source, in 1950. It was heavily awarded by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, and is commonly considered a film classic. It also won Best Foreign Language Film award from New York Film Critics Award for 1949. ^[6] // As a Special Award 1947 Shoeshine (Sciuscià) (Italy) - Societa Co-operativa Alfa Cinematografica - Paolo William Tamburella producer - Vittorio De Sica director 1948 Monsieur Vincent (France) - E. D. I. C., Union Général Cinématographique - George de la Grandiere producer - Maurice Cloche director 1949 The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette... BAFTA Award The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a British organisation that hosts annual awards shows for film, television, childrens film and television, and interactive media. ... Year 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... 15th New York Film Critics Circle Awards February 5, 1950 (announced December 27, 1949) The 15th New York Film Critics Circle Awards, honored the best filmmaking of 1949. ...

Influence

Lamberto Maggiorani as Antonio

• Indian director Satyajit Ray quoted the film as the seminal influence on his choice of film-making as a career.
• Italian director Ettore Scola's film C'eravamo tanto amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much) (1974) utilizes Bicycle Thieves as a major point of admiration as well as criticism. One of the characters, Nico, becomes obsessed with the film. Scola's film is dedicated to De Sica.
• The plot of Tim Burton's Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), which features Pee-wee Herman trying to find his stolen bike, is loosely based on Bicycle Thieves.^[7]
• In 1990, Italian director Maurizio Nichetti produced a spoof of Italian neo-realist cinema, named The Icicle Thief.
• Robert Altman's Hollywood satire The Player (1992) uses Bicycle Thieves as an emblem of the perfect non-Hollywood movie, with an unhappy ending of the kind that would not be permitted in Hollywood.
• In an episode of My So Called Life, Angela attempts to have her first date with Jordan be a screening of The Bicycle Thief. Brian however mocks her plans, asking "Do you think Jordan Catalano will understand one word of The Bicycle Thief? You only understand it because I explained it to you!"
• Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai's 2001 film Beijing Bicycle is an homage to Bicycle Thieves in which the main protagonist becomes a poor boy from the countryside who lands a job as a bicycle courier in Beijing. Events following the theft of his bicycle take a slightly different turn, reflecting contemporary social conditions in China.

Image File history File links Lamberto. ... Image File history File links Lamberto. ... Satyajit Ray (Bengali:  ) (May 2, 1921–April 23, 1992) was a Bengali Indian filmmaker and polymath. ... Ettore Scola (born May 10, 1931) is an Italian screenwriter and film director. ... Ceravamo tanto amati (U.S. title: We All Loved Each Other So Much) is a 1975 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Ettore Scola and written by Scola and the famous screenwriter duo of Age & Scarpelli. ... Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ... Timothy Tim William Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an Academy Award-nominated American film director, writer and designer notable for the quirky and gothic atmosphere of his films. ... Pee-wee escapes from Warner Bros. ... This article is about the year. ... Pee-wee Herman is a fictional character played by Paul Reubens. ... Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... Maurizio Nichetti Maurizio Nichetti (Milan, May 8, 1948) is an Italian film screenwriter, actor and director. ... The Icicle Thief (Italian: Ladri di saponette) is a 1990 film by Italian director Maurizio Nichetti, created as a spoof of the neo-realism that predominated Italian cinema after World War II. The film tells the story of a director who is drawn into television while watching one of his... For other persons named Robert Altman, see Robert Altman (disambiguation). ... The Player (1992) is a movie that tells the story of Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), a Hollywood studio executive who believes he is being blackmailed by a screenwriter whose script he once rejected. ... Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ... My So-Called Life was a television program that aired on ABC from August 25, 1994 to January 26, 1995. ... Wang Xiaoshuai (王小帅, born 22 May 1966 in Shanghai, China) is a Chinese film director. ... Beijing Bicycle (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Pinyin: ; literally seventeen-year-olds bicycle) is a 2001 drama film by Sixth Generation Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai, with joint investment from the Taiwanese Arc Light Films and the French Pyramid Productions. ...

See also

• Cinema of Italy
• Italian neorealism
• Movies that have been considered the greatest ever

The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had discovered the medium, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera. ... Italian neorealism is a film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed in long takes on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors for secondary and sometimes primary roles. ... While it is impossible to objectively determine the greatest film of all time, it is possible to discuss the movies that have been regarded as the greatest ever. ...

References

1. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articleAID=/19990319/REVIEWS08/903190306/1023
2. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/dvdclub/story/0,,1712896,00.html
3. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/topten/
4. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A04E3DE1438F937A15757C0A965948260
5. http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/neorealism1.jsp
6. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040522/awards
7. http://www.ambidextrouspics.com/html/pee_wee_s_big_adventure.html

External links

• Bicycle Thieves at the Internet Movie Database
• The Bicycle Thief / Bicycle Thieves at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
• Interview with Suso Cecchi d'Amico - on writing The Bicycle Thief and other films
• Criterion Collection essay by Godfrey Cheshire

v • d • e Cinema of Italy

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