Wednesday 7th December 2016 Moving Narrative 2 Kaz Rahman
The Bicycle Thief - The Bicycle Thief. Italy: Vittorio De Sica, 1948. film.
I found this film really interesting the way that the main leads son witnesses his father, an honest man who turns into a thief due to someone taking his bicycle, important mode of transport for Ricci to get to work as a poster hanger - Almost felt like he is carrying on the theft and poverty as one will miss out like he did, times are tough after the second world war.
The search for his bike becomes an impossible task in the wilderness of Rome, and the police are no help. I remember Ricci saying to his son Bruno "You live and suffer" which I thought was very powerful towards the events that took place on the screen in front of us.
All the way through the film I thought that the lighting played a huge part towards the emotion of the characters i.e. at the start the footage is very low contrast, exposed high and this is around when Ricci is offered a job, however towards the scenes when the bike is stolen the footage gets a lot darker, hard times for father and son in the streets of rome.
The film reflects to poverty in many ways - Italian Neo Realism - the soup kitchen with the homeless, the way the characters are dressed, the way that they use non professional actors which makes for a much better film as we get an insight into the real life after the second world war in Italy.
After watching this film, not only have I become aware of the poverty around Italy after the second world war, I have also noticed that directors like De Sica have used real life actors which has taken away from the hollywood gloss that we are used to seeing on screen, where wealth is shared out equally within economies.
No comments:
Post a Comment