Bicycle Thieves

Bicycle Thieves makes a stolen bicycle sufficient reason for a film, and Vittorio De Sica never needs to enlarge the crime to justify our attention. Antonio is a workman searching postwar Rome with his son, and his desperation tells us how little he can afford to lose. It is an absorbing, upsetting film, worth watching even for those who usually avoid dramas about hardship. De Sica makes us stay with a poor man whose trouble might otherwise be passed over.

Lamberto Maggiorani gives Antonio enough awkwardness to prevent him becoming a neatly presented example of hardship. His performance makes it uncomfortable to look closely at a man who cannot keep his distress to himself. Enzo Staiola’s Bruno has to watch too, and the father-son relationship gives the search much of its force. We felt ashamed to be watching Antonio’s humiliation in front of his child. Bruno’s presence means that his father has to go on being a parent while visibly struggling to put things right.

Carlo Montuori’s location photography gives the streets room around Antonio and Bruno. Rome carries on beyond their search, and the city’s indifference is more convincing for never seeming to pause while they suffer. Antonio Traverso’s production design works within that unshowy approach, keeping the surroundings convincing without turning poverty into something picturesque. The places they pass through suggest other lives as difficult as theirs, so Antonio never seems to have been singled out by bad luck simply because he is the leading character.

Eraldo Da Roma’s editing keeps the search legible while allowing its encounters to interrupt any easy forward movement. We feel the frustration of time spent trying and asking, without the film itself becoming aimless. De Sica draws poverty and bureaucracy into the search through the people Antonio meets, keeping a simple practical objective in view. The humour matters here, too: it allows for ordinary human foolishness in a story that could have become oppressively solemn. At 89 minutes, there is enough room to register other lives without forgetting the bicycle.

Alessandro Cicognini’s score is the part we would most readily turn down. Its sweetness sometimes insists on the sadness after Maggiorani and Staiola have already made it clear, and the extra prompting makes us briefly conscious of being handled. There is a related risk in placing a child beside so much adult distress: Bruno can seem appointed to make Antonio’s suffering harder for us to bear. Staiola’s persuasive presence largely saves that choice, but the music occasionally gives the sceptical viewer a fair complaint.

The film’s place in neorealism need not be the reason to watch it. The non-professional cast and location work matter because they make Antonio and Bruno credible company, even when their situation becomes hard to bear. De Sica lets us care about getting a bicycle back before asking us to consider why its loss is so disastrous. There is no need to approach this film from 1948 as an improving exercise. Watch it with someone prepared to talk about the father and the boy afterwards.