From Mussolini's Dream to Neorealism

When Hollywood began to dominant the Italian film market after World War I, Benito Mussolini saw the potential in cinema. When he came into power, his regime sought to “make Italy into a new Hollywood.” As a result of this, he became involved in the Italian film industry going as far as starting up a film studio, Cincecittà.

The films produced during his regime promoted his fascist ideology of conservative family values and strict class hierarchy. Most films featured an art-deco set with a white telephone symbolizing the opulence of the upper class.

During this time of the 20’s and 30’s, film critics thought those films were not psychologically realistic nor reflective of Italy at the time. After the fall of the regime, the critics wanted to reflect Italy’s change from fascism on an international stage showing more humanistic values and realism, spawning what is known as Italian neo-realism.

This film movement has no doubt left a lasting impression on cinema history influencing many films and film movements to come like Hollywood’s film noirs and the French New Wave Post-war Italy found itself in economic depression and hardship but, “… most [of its] admired aspects sprang from the dictates of post war adversity,” it referring to the characteristics of neorealism.

The 1948 film, Bicycle Thieves, directed by Vittorio De Sica, a prominent figure of the neorealist movement, best exemplifies the movement’s cinematic traits. In the film, the cinematic elements add an additional layer to the story because of how it holds a mirror to the times of post-war Italy that was filled with unemployment, poor living conditions and instability of social institutions at the time.

One of neorealism’s traits lies in its documentary look and filmmaking style to emphasize neorealism’s most basic ideal of authenticity to reflect on the climate of post-war Italy. Andre Bazin describes the documentary quality as something that “could not be removed from the script without thereby eliminating the whole social setting into which its roots are so deeply sunk.”

Shooting on location and using natural lighting are prime examples of the movement’s traits that was born out of the coincidental fact that Cincecittà film studios had been damaged during the war. In Bicycle Thieves, shooting on location added authenticity to the world of the main character, Antonio Ricci. It conveys an idea that this story can very well be happening at the moment, holding a mirror to what many citizens of that time were probably going through.

In the opening sequence, the camera shows the vast, desolate background of the housing developments that the Ricci family, starkly juxtaposed from the crowded city that Ricci and Bruno search for the bike in. The house that the family live in is small, cramped and run down. There is a barbed fence surrounding the neighbourhoods water supply. De Sica shoots all of this in medium or long shots as to not only show the background of the location but to also not place importance to these places; to normalize the situation, showing an everyday life.

Though colour film stock were not heavily used at the time, the black and white quality of the film only added to the documentary, news style to it but also adding and reflecting the bleak and depressing tone of the film.

The main cast of De Sica’s film were also all non-professional actor as are the same with many neorealist films. Antonio Ricci played by Lamberto Maggiorani was a factory worker at the time he was cast. Bruno, the son, played by Enzo Staiola was casted on location and Maria Ricci was played by Lianella Carell who was a journalist. De Sica chose the actors based on the mannerisms he saw were best fitting for what the characters themselves would be feeling. This performance style of realism presents a more natural and authentic feel much different from decades of Hollywood glitz and glamour.

This authenticity is ironically symbolized in the film when Ricci is putting up posters of Rita Hayworth and is to ensure no wrinkles is on the poster. This starkly juxtaposes the rather ordinary life that Antonio Ricci lives. The ordinary and simple everyday life is what consists of many neorealist stories. Bicycle Thieves is a simple story that follows the story of a poor, working class father searching for his stolen bicycle.

As simple as the story is, it allows a more emotional and real connection to the audience as people understand the position Ricci is in. The film was released at a time when the unemployment rate was said to have reached twenty-two percent by 1948, so Ricci’s story was anything but relatable. The plot is then a device to describe the desperation of a family and to humanize suffering in a time when both were very prominent in the lives of Italians, post-war.

The way that the film has been structured allowed a chronological telling of his day, almost never skipping time. The chronological telling of Ricci’s day and also drawing out some shots in the film, emphasize the long suffering that he has endured. This narrative structure is much different to other films of its time in which causality is a major part of its narrative structure.

The search of the bike is the whole film but what the bike symbolizes gives the film an added layer of social commentary that neorealist films possess. The bike symbolizes hope and social mobility to ascend classes for Ricci. As previously mentioned, at a time of high unemployment rate, Ricci receiving a job is of high importance to support him and his family.

To get this job, it requires a bike which Ricci had already previously sold which then leads to Maria selling their sheets to retrieve the bike from the pawn shop. This is representative of a vicious cycle of the broken economy of Italy at the time in which, “one must be rich enough to own a bike in order to get the job that will provide the means to buy the very vehicle on which the job is predicated.”

The bike symbolizing social mobility is also emphasized in the scene when Ricci searches at the flea market, where many other people in a different way make a living by selling bikes or bike parts. It is also shown when Ricci is retrieving his bike from the pawn shop where it was hung among many other bikes, which other people had to sell to survive. It is then that the bike represents salvation for the survival for not only Ricci and his family but other citizens as well.

Another central feature of neorealist films is their social commentary about the time. Aside from unemployment and living conditions, Bicycle Thieves also explores the class division present in those times. Ricci’s unemployment is deeply rooted in the lower class that his family reside in, but it is the aftermath of the war that only affected the lower class. The middle class can enjoy simple pursuits like a full meal and a soccer game whereas families like Ricci cannot.

Using the mise-en-scene as simple as not having a table cloth at Ricci and Bruno’s table compared to their wealthier counterparts, shows a simple class differentiation. The scene ends with Ricci emphasizing the importance of finding the bicycle, even furthering the weight of what the recent history had done to the family.

De Sica’s film also explores the instability and almost distrust of social institutions of that time. By 1945, Italy was freed from the Fascist government that not only controlled but also lied to its people. One can then draw a direct link of distrust of social institutions influenced by the fascist regime to the institutions portrayed in the film.

In Bicycle Thieves, institutions are shown to be ineffective in improving conditions, most notably for the lower class. They show an almost indifference to the quality of life that they are living in. An example of this would be the scene when Ricci is reporting his bike stolen to the police. The police captain he is talking to dismisses what is a major loss to Ricci completely. He even goes as far as to say that it is, “Just a bicycle.” The captain’s desk is also stacked with a number of other files, seemingly other unsolved cases like Ricci’s.

As aforementioned, the bicycle is a symbol for Ricci representing survival for his family but the police captain shows his indifference to his suffering. In the scene when Ricci’s chase for an old man who talked to thief leads him to a church, the church is seen as place where meals are exchanged for attendance to service. The priests would also groom the poor before entering the service where the poor are relegated to the back of the church.

Throughout the service, women dressed in more wealthier clothes would police Ricci to stay quiet and often giving him dirty glances. When Ricci gives chase to the man, to an extent the church people slow him down to chase after him. Using this sequence, De Sica emphasizes the church, another institution showing indifference to an “everyman” like Ricci.

In another scene, Maria sells off her dowry sheets in order for Ricci to buy back his bike from the pawn shop. As the she hands over her sheets to the pawnbroker, there is a literal and metaphorical partition that separates her and the crowd from the pawnbroker. In the following scene, the pawnbroker climbs shelves filled with sheets emphasizing the many other families who had to do the same to survive.

This cyclic nature that Ricci partakes in to pawn off something to buy back an item he previously pawned off, reflects to the idea that he and other families of the time were part of a system of broken institutions that is little to no help in helping families escape poverty.

Another defining characteristic in neorealist films is the lack of resolution of the story. In the final moments of the film, a distraught Ricci contemplates stealing a lone bicycle. The film employs cross cutting between Ricci looking over at the lone bicycle and then his reaction and then to a shot of multiple bicycles parked outside the stadium.

When he eventually decides to steal the lone bicycle, he gets caught and a crowd of people goes after him. This parallels the scene where Ricci himself gets his bike stolen. When his bike was stolen, there were many people roaming the streets, yet no one tried to help him. Yet, when this lone bicycle sits against a building on an empty street, a crowd of people goes after Ricci.

This injustice for the main character starkly contrasts the heroes that win at the end in many Hollywood films. It mirrors reality in a way that not everybody wins and gets what they want in the end. Sometimes bad things just happen to good people.

When Ricci eventually resorts to stealing, he and the other thief in the film are not portrayed as evil or bad people but instead, victims of their circumstances. The scene where Ricci finds the thief, a crowd of his neighbours come out to defend him despite not knowing the whole story. Both the audience and Ricci know that he was responsible for stealing the bike but the film humanizes him.

The following scene shows the thief’s living circumstances and shows that he too, is trying to survive in this post-war society. This moral ambiguity reflects reality in a way that there is a gray area in every facet in life.

In the end of the film, the owner of the bike that Ricci stole lets him go. He and Bruno then walk and gets lost in the crowd of people, signifying the “everyman” and universal story that he and his circumstance represents.

Children also play a role in neorealist films as an allegory of the future and optimism beyond the bleak world as represented in Bicycle Thieves. De Sica calls attention to Bruno’s role as by the end of the film he emerges as the more capable person between him and his father.

Following his father while searching for the bike, Bruno provides his father with constant comfort in their journey. In the film’s most poignant scene, Bruno extends his hand to his father for comfort at the end of the film. Instead of the father comforting the son, the roles are reversed. He is the “moral eye to the entire film” as in the end, “it is the admiration the child feels for his father and the father’s awareness of it which gives its tragic stature to the ending.”

Bruno matures in the wake of this situation and reflects a sense of maturity and moral strength that the previous generation may have lacked. By 1948, Italy and their economy had already began reconstructing post-war but the film Bicycle Thieves, still manages to speak to many hardships related to the aftermath of the war like unemployment, poverty and systemic broken institutions and society.

The screenwriter for De Sica’s film, Cesare Zavatiini described cinema as something that “must tell reality as if it were a story” very aptly describing the Italian neorealist movement that this film falls under in.

The neorealist movement concerns themselves and their content to show “a pessimistic and even fatalistic view of the human condition” that eventually mirrors the society and economic hardships of post-war Italy.