The social value of Vittorio De Sica's ideology and aesthetic characteristics
——Bicycle Thieves as an outstanding masterpiece of the Italian neoliberal movement
Author: Saudade
Love movies, feel life, and love sadness.
Bicycle Thieves, produced in 1948, is a crime drama film made by Italian director Vittorio De Sica. This film shows the life of the Italian working class. It is a masterpiece of De Sica and an outstanding masterpiece of Italian neorealism. This film blog will start with the director’s values and shooting art, and analyze why Bicycle Thieves has achieved such a high social influence.
First talk about director De Sica. His work is a representative of neo-realistic film culture, and he is also the founder and leader of neo-realistic film production. After the end of the Second World War, all countries suffered unprecedented disasters in economy, politics and society. The film and cultural industries of European powers such as Britain, France, and Germany have all fallen into dead silence. On the contrary, Italy has seen a huge and influential film revolution. The team of Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, director Vittorio De Sica, and writer Cesare Zavattini were the founders of this movement, and they developed the force of neorealism based on the documentary-style of the film (John, 1975). Among them, De Sica and Zavattini led the climax of new realism. They co-produced three films, and Bicycle Thieves is the most representative one. John (1975) mentioned that De Sica commented on his partner Zavattini in his memoirs, saying that their identities and personalities are very different, but it is this difference that contributed to their successful cooperation. De Sica's style is cautious and restrained. On the contrary, Zavattini has the spirit and courage of fearless adventure. The revolution was groundbreaking, and the seriousness and documentary nature of realism made demands on the professionalism and caution of the team.
Further analyze the Italian neorealism works from two levels of ideology and aesthetic characteristics. In terms of ideology, new realism shows a new democratic spirit, emphasizing the value of ordinary classes and the role of human beings. After the war, poor Italians lived as miserably as poor people in other countries, but their protest took a more individualistic form (Herbert, 1949). As the story about bicycle described in Bicycle Thieves: a worker’s bicycle is stolen, but without a bicycle he will lose his job and cannot feed his family. In the end, the worker and the child failed to find the stolen bicycle, and the father was going to steal a bicycle to make up for his loss but was discovered. On the surface, failing to take care of the bicycle and stealing others’ bicycles are both the protagonist’s own faults, but as the movie progresses, the audience will gradually realize that what De Sica wants to express is that the protagonist is just a victim of the social system that forced him. (Herbert, 1949).
While paying attention to war injuries and humanitarian stances, another characteristic of this faction is that the works are full of sympathy and mild views, rather than just superficial moral criticism. Lombardi (2009) mentioned that in Bicycle Thieves' adventure, many details were mentioned, including magic, love, fear and death. The overall tone of the movie is tragic, but the warmth conveyed by the director can still be felt from the extensive details of the plot. For example, in the movie 01:00:00-01:04:50, the father and son come to the restaurant for dinner. Under the lively and cheerful background music, the two look happy and relaxed. De Sica did not insist on the tragedy, but integrated the tenderness of father and son into the film naturally. At the end of the film, the protagonist is found stealing a bicycle, but the other party does not pursue it. Emotion and sympathy have not been ignored by neoliberalism, instead they have become important features.
Paying attention to the aesthetic characteristics of neoliberalism, De Sica's "no plot" documentary concept has also led to social recognition. The bike story was inspired by Luigi Bartolini's best-selling novel, which De Sica and Zavattini worked together to adapt it into a very simple story. The filming method of the film emphasizes the truth and simplicity of the story: there is no villain in the traditional sense, and there is no design of characters and events that are divorced from reality. At the plot level, the director also adopted a loose paragraph structure. Fortune tellers, churches, brothels, these intentions are loose, but they are all part of life. This allows the audience to feel that the role is played naturally according to the situation. Finally, the topic of unemployment discussed in the movie is the story that audiences in that era can feel first-hand, and even happened to themselves. The audience can put themselves in and understand the protagonist’s anxiety about losing his bicycle, because they know that the bicycle symbolizes having a job in a turbulent and depressed society, and it symbolizes raising a family. As John (1975) said, neorealists did not directly shoot documentaries, but they chose to use documentary methods to tell their stories. A story with a sense of substitution is more likely to arouse people's emotional resonance, which is the core reason why neorealism, as a film style, can have a strong social influence.
The documentary-style shooting techniques complement the documentary-style plot description. The use of real scenes and natural lighting, the role played by non-professional actors, and the avoidance of literary dialogue (even in dialects) are all aesthetic features of neorealism and De Sica's strong personal style. In terms of dialogue, the colloquial expression minimizes the sense of alienation between art and life. John's (1975) article mentioned the production background of Bicycle Thieves. The house was shot in Citta Valmeliana, a suburb of Rome; the market shot was taken by De Sica paying a fee to the real vendor. Not only that, the actors in a family of three in the film are all non-professionals. The mother is a reporter, the father is a factory worker, and the child is the audience De Sica looks for in the theater. Eaton (2019) mentioned that De Sica has an extraordinary insistence to non-star actors. In Bicycle Thieves, the protagonists are not playing a life, but this is their life.
In short, De Sica's moral concept determines the presentation of Bicycle Thieves from the main and aesthetic levels, and also determines the social influence of the film. It is not only a product of art but also a product of revolutionary concepts. It is De Sica's criticism and reflection on Italian post-war society from an advanced ideological standpoint, as well as humanitarian care.
Reference list:
De Sica, V. (Producer & Director). (1948). Bicycle Thieves [Motion Picture]. Italy: Produzioni De Sica.
Eaton, S. (2019). To catch a Bicycle Thief: David O. Selznick's failed attempt to Co-Opt the Neorealist Classic. Italianist, 39(2), pp. 222-230.
Herbert, L.J. (1949). De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" and Italian Humanism. Hollywood Quarterly, 4(1), pp. 28-33.
John, C.S. (1975). Bicycle Thieves. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 9(2), pp. 50-61.
Lombardi, E. (2009). Of Bikes and Men: The intersection of three narratives in Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di biciclette. Studies in European Cinema, 6(2/3), pp. 113-126.
