Bicycle Thieves [Criterion Collection] [4K] [Blu-ray]

Overview

This landmark Italian neorealist drama became one of the best-known and most widely acclaimed European movies, including a special Academy Award as "most outstanding foreign film" seven years before that Oscar category existed. Written primarily by neorealist pioneer Cesare Zavattini and directed by Vittorio DeSica, also one of the movement's main forces, the movie featured all the hallmarks of the neorealist style: a simple story about the lives of ordinary people, outdoor shooting and lighting, non-actors mixed together with actors, and a focus on social problems in the aftermath of World War II. Lamberto Maggiorani plays Antonio, an unemployed man who finds a coveted job that requires a bicycle. When it is stolen on his first day of work, Antonio and his young son Bruno (Enzo Staiola) begin a frantic search, learning valuable lessons along the way. The movie focuses on both the relationship between the father and the son and the larger framework of poverty and unemployment in postwar Italy. As in such other classic films as Shoeshine (1946), Umberto D. (1952), and his late masterpiece The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), DeSica focuses on the ordinary details of ordinary lives as a way to dramatize wider social issues. As a result, The Bicycle Thief works as a sentimental study of a father and son, a historical document, a social statement, and a record of one of the century's most influential film movements.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/29/2016
UPC:	0715515106719
Original Release:	1948
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:29:00
Sales rank:	3,982

Special Features

Working with De Sica, a collection of interviews with screenwriter Suso Cecchi d'Amico, actor Enzo Staiola and film scholar Callisto Cosulich Life as It Is, a program on the history of Italian neorealism, featuring scholar Mark Shiel Documentary from 2003 on screenwriter and longtime Vittorio De Sica collaborator Cesare Zavattini, directed by Carl Lizzani Optional English-dubbed soundtrack

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Lamberto Maggiorani	Antonio Ricci
Enzo Staiola	Bruno Ricci
Lianella Carell	Maria Ricci
Elena Altieri	Kobieta z organizacji charytatywnej
Vittorio Antonucci	Z¿odziej
Gino Saltamerenda	Baiocco
Giulio Chiari	Lekarz
Mario Meniconi	Actor
Sergio Leone	Actor
Carlo Jachino	A Beggar
Michele Sakara	Secretary of the Charity Organization
Emma Druetti	Actor
Fausto Guerzoni	Amateur Actor
Lianella Carrel	Actor
Giulio Battiferri	Citizen Who Protects the Real Thief
Ida Bracci Dorati	La Santona
Nando Bruno	Actor
Eolo Capritti	Actor
Massimo Randisi	Rich Kid in Restaurant
Memmo Carotenuto	Actor
Checco Rissone	Guard in Piazza Vittorio
Giovanni Corporale	Actor
Peppino Spadaro	Police Officer,Actor
Alessandro Cicognini	Composer

Technical Credits

Vittorio de Sica

Cesare Zavattini

Oreste Biancoli

Adolfo Franci

Suso Cecchi d'Amico

Luigi Bartolini

Gerardo Guerrieri

Vittorio de Sica	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Cesare Zavattini	Screenwriter
Oreste Biancoli	Screenwriter,Screenwriter
Adolfo Franci	Screenwriter
Umberto Scarparelli	Executive Producer
Suso Cecchi d'Amico	Screenwriter
Luigi Bartolini	Screenwriter
Gerardo Guerrieri	Screenwriter
Giuseppe Amato	Producer
Biagio Fiorelli	Sound Effects
Bruno Brunacci	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

A classic of postwar Italian neo-realism, Vittorio De Sica's THE BICYCLE THIEF is considered one of the greatest films ever made. The story follows a desperately poor man, Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani), who, after years of crippling unemployment, lands a job pasting posters (advertising a Rita Hayworth movie) around war-ravaged Rome. When the bicycle he needs for the job is stolen, he and his son, Bruno (Enzo Staiola), venture into the rubble-strewn city, confronting chaos, extreme poverty, and moral dilemmas. Through his choice of subject matter, use of actual locations, and casting of nonprofessional actors, De Sica achieved an uncompromising visual authenticity that contrasted sharply both with many Hollywood films of the time and with Italian films made under the fascist regime. In doing so, he tapped into a rich vein of human emotion. A delicately wrought fable with a fine, ironic ending, THE BICYCLE THIEF is a spare, eloquent masterpiece.

Barnes & Noble - Monica McIntyre

Though not the first Italian Neo-Realist film seen outside of Italy (or even Vittorio De Sica's first Neo-Realist work), The Bicycle Thief (1948) is considered the seminal film of the movement, alongside Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945). Following the guiding Neo-Realist precept of drawing stories from the daily life of post-war Italy, De Sica and writer Cesare Zavattini carefully interweave a wider view of Italian culture with a portrait of the bond between a father and son, revealing the impact of poverty and bureaucratic absurdities on one of many struggling families. Shooting on location with non-professional actors in the two leads (well-coached by actor De Sica), De Sica's mobile camera transforms moments of Antonio's odyssey into poetic images of isolation and despair, while never losing sight of the gritty hardships of quotidian experience. An even greater international sensation than his first Neo-Realist film (Shoeshine (1946)), The Bicycle Thief earned a special Oscar for Best Foreign Film and became a signature work for a movement that also included Bitter Rice (1948), Luchino Visconti's La Terra Trema (1948), and De Sica's Umberto D. (1952). Inspiring filmmakers across the world as an alternative to expensive Hollywood fantasy, The Bicycle Thief revealed the potential power of combining local concerns with an unflinching cinematic style.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola