Enzo Staiola

Bruno watches his father struggle, and the watching becomes part of the trouble in Bicycle Thieves (1948). Staiola's expressive eyes and distinctive walk give the boy a firmness that keeps him from being merely pitiable. We rate this performance so highly because he allows Bruno to be determined and sensitive without presenting him as a little authority on adult failure. He is still a child who needs his father to know what to do.

Vittorio De Sica places him beside Lamberto Maggiorani's Antonio, whose awkwardness makes the father's distress hard to disguise. Staiola gives that distress someone close at hand who cannot help noticing it. We felt ashamed as Antonio struggled in front of Bruno, because the boy's presence made his humiliation harder to watch. Throughout the search for the stolen bicycle, Antonio must still look after a child who can see how badly he is struggling.

After that debut, Staiola was repeatedly cast as a child witnessing adult difficulties. His subsequent parts included Nino alongside Anna Magnani in Volcano (1950) and a busboy in The Barefoot Contessa (1954). He appeared in roughly twenty films through the mid-1950s before largely leaving acting at about fifteen, with occasional appearances afterwards. We would not think less of his work as a child because he did not sustain an adult acting career.

There is a limit to how much suffering even this performance can carry. Alessandro Cicognini's score sometimes sweetens the sadness after Staiola and Maggiorani have made it plain enough. In those passages, Bruno risks becoming a device for making his father's troubles more painful, and we notice the pressure to feel. Staiola's firmness largely saves him from that, keeping Bruno recognisable as a child with feelings of his own. Watch Bicycle Thieves for the two of them, even when the music is telling us what we already feel.