There are a certain few films that carry such a weight of cultural significance that it becomes imperative that the individual take measures to absorb them. ‘Bicycle Thieves’, in my view, is one of these films. Indeed, so highly do I rate the film’s merits that I believe it to be one that should almost be made compulsory viewing.
Made in 1948 by Vittorio De Sica, the film is perhaps the apotheosis of Italian neo-realist cinema; a movement leant significant traction by 1945’s ‘Rome, Open City’ (certainly, the two films could almost be seen as a custom-made double-bill).
Set in post-WWII Rome, the city’s workforce are struggling amidst the incessant drudgery of low employment, with scores of men hankering after each menial opportunity that arises. Ricci is just one forlorn face in the multitude of desperate men, so when he is offered the job of poster-sticker he is overjoyed at the fortunate hand that has been dealt him and his young family.
Maria, his long-suffering wife, makes one more, in what one senses is a long line of sacrifices, and trades in the family’s bed linen for a bicycle that is a stipulation of his job. But the hot springs of optimism are swiftly doused when it is stolen by an opportunist thief on his first morning of work.
The narrative tags along at the heels of Ricci and his young son Bruno on their desperate hunt across the city, becoming increasingly despondent and frantic as the chances of retrieving the bicycle dwindle into hopelessness, culminating in a dramatic moral balancing act upon the handlebars of Ricci’s conscience.
Following the neorealist lead of his forebears, De Sica filmed on the beleaguered streets of Rome, casting amateur actors whose real life circumstances were not dissimilar from those of his protagonists, thereby infusing the drama with an affecting documentary-style undercurrent.
Throughout the film, the simple bicycle comes to symbolise the sought-after bridge of opportunity between disparate points of reality; whilst representing mobility, not only in the physical but in the socio-economic sense as well.
It becomes an instrument of industriousness and enterprise, to be cherished with pride and sorely coveted when dispossessed. In one scene, Ricci and his friends hunt around a marketplace where bicycle component parts are piled high in such a way that the rows of disembodied frames, racks of tyres and miscellany of small parts come to engender wagons of food through the eyes of the starving.
The superfluity of things bearing down on everyone is painfully documented; from the mass anonymity of people going about their business in the city, pushing and shoving onto tramcars, to the perverse multi-storey racks of pawned bed linen that have been horded away by officials.
As well as this, the film highlights the predictable institutional roles that are found in times of austerity: conditional charity offered by the church; socialists pontificating on the struggles of the common man during evening gatherings; and people finding themselves resorting to irrational delusions as a means of hope, in this case a local fortune teller.
The gulf between social classes is never more salient than when Ricci decides to treat Bruno and himself to a meal in the restaurant, only to be looked down upon by a wealthy family scoffing and slurping through pasta and champagne. The artifice of Ricci’s bonhomie doesn’t hold up for long under the forensic glare of such ostentatious inequality.
The bicycle becomes potently emblematic of the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, to the extent that in the climactic scene, the sight of such an abundant mass overwhelms and corrupts Ricci’s good sense. Anguish scars his face as he acknowledges how the desperate circumstances forced upon him by an impoverished society, have cost him not only his job but his dignity and self-respect as well. Bruno taking his father’s hand is a gesture that is at once heart-breaking and, in some small way, redemptive.
Aside from the film’s aforementioned merits, it is the density of resonance with contemporary society that makes ‘Bicycle Thieves’ essential viewing. With the Keynesian work/leisure promise having proven false, people working as long and hard as ever, and the scourge of unemployment afflicting most western nations post-financial crisis (in particular, Italy); the film encapsulates the harsh realities that tangle like barbed wire through the labour markets.
I have seen in South Africa the morning queues of men waiting by the roadside hoping for a day’s work; together with the swathe of zero-hours contracts blighting this country today, are evidence of the same demoralising imbalance of powers between worker and employer.
What ‘Bicycle Thieves’ succeeds in reinforcing is the real dignity that is invested in work, the self-inflicted penitence when it is withdrawn, and the universal desire simply to earn a living and provide for one’s family.
In times of inevitable war and economic upheaval, it is incumbent on society to resist the all-too-common (and often government-instigated) tendency to scapegoat and demonise those hit hardest. Doing so only succeeds in stripping us of our human decency whereas, if this film demonstrates anything, tolerance and solidarity ought to be the virtues that are promoted.
With that in mind, I think ‘Bicycle Thieves’ is a film that all politicians should be forced to watch, perhaps on an annual basis, as a rejuvenating top-up of their compassion levels like emotional vampires. For if the implied values promoted in the film were adhered to, it could well act as the empathetic pin to burst any over-inflated ideological bubble.
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