Bicycle Thieves

In an interview I saw some time ago, Jerry Seinfeld tells a story about how, during his return to standup following the run of his extremely successful self-named sitcom, an MC once introduced him as the funniest man in America. While this might have seemed reasonable given he was one of the most famous and successful comedians in the country at the time, Seinfeld hated it because he felt that it chilled the room; it put everyone in a mindset of, as he describes it, crossing their arms on thinking: “Is that so? Well, prove it.”

I bring this up because sometimes I catch myself having the same feelings about movies that garner really outsized levels of acclaim. Bicycle Thieves is a good movie, probably even a great one, however it is held to be not just one of the key works of the Italian neorealism movement, but as one of the best movies ever made. Roger Ebert included it in his relatively exclusive list of 350 or so “Great Films,” it is a perennial inductee in Sight and Sound magazine’s decennial polls, and is safely situated in Letterboxd’s 250 best narrative films (ranked by user reviews). Knowing all that before I watched it, I came in expecting a breathtaking, transformative experience. I can’t help but unconsciously compare it to other films that have received similar praise like Hari Kiri or 12 Angry Men, both films I absolutely adored. In other words, before watching it, I crossed my proverbial arms and went: “One of the greatest movies ever, huh? Is that so? Well, prove it.” And it is on that absurd measure the film ultimately fails.

There is some real magic in Bicycle Thieves. It is an excellent snapshot of Italy directly after World War II. It was shot while the country was still recovering, with the end of conflict only a few years in the past, and utilized many partially destroyed or noticeably rundown locations populated largely with non-professional actors. This gives it this palpable realism and authenticity that makes the snapshot seem all the more true and culturally relevant. In that way, it reminded me of The Third Man. While the latter is a slick espionage and crime caper, and so tonally couldn’t be further from Bicycle Thieves, they both share this aesthetic built on a lack of artifice that could be seen as a precursor to the cinéma vérité movement that began a few decades later.

The acting is also remarkably good. Famously, the movie cast only amateurs, presumably for their naturalistic performances and authentic looks. The story is structured around the relationships of a family: a man, his wife, and their eldest son (who looks to be about 8 or 9 years old). The main thrust, however, is mostly about the father and son as they spend the day together trying to hunt down a stolen bicycle the father needs for his job. Both carry the film well despite their lack of formal training. The father’s actor, who was a factory worker before the film, brings a sad desperation to the affair, and the son is a cute scene-stealer whose looks, both pleased and pained, add even more weight to both the major events of the story and the smaller character moments between himself and his father.

The actual plot of the movie is fairly straightforward, though this belays the larger emotional journey both father and son are each on, together but separately and in parallel. The father nearly obsessively hunts for his stolen bicycle, the source of his new livelihood, often to the detriment of his relationship with his son and, occasionally, his wife. In a sense, there is a logic here as his family desperately needs money and jobs are very hard to come by in the economically crippled post-war Italy. He is thinking and being very family focused, just in the long term. However, in the short term, each time he ignores or alienates those around him, it drives home the destructive despair at the center of the film. We see the day’s events wear him down emotionally until he is willing to even do the same kind of evil done to him, furthering the cycle of crime and desparation, just to turn things around. At the same time, there is a story of a fall from grace for the father in the eyes of the son. Each time the father lets him down, ignores him, or makes him question his image of his father as someone to look up to, it stings, and the few times they share a beautiful moment, it is tinged with the bittersweetness of that contrast.

All those strengths make the movie a great movie. Tragically, however, I still left the experience feeling underwhelmed. While others have found the film exceptionally moving, I only found it interesting. I wasn’t moved to tears like with Schindler’s List. While others have found the movie rich, vibrant, and as alive today as the day it was released, I found it quaint and restrained. I didn’t find myself totally enthralled like with The Godfather. The sad irony is that I really think if I watched this movie in a vacuum, I would be a bigger fan. It really is very good at doing what it is trying to do. It probably isn’t even fair that it has to compete against its own reputation rather than simply standing on its own merits. However, given that a movie like this, something more arthouse in its construction and in a language other than English, is often only watched on its reputation, it becomes unfortunately difficult to separate the viewer from the expectations.

Would Recommend: If a slice of life drama with strong performances is all you need.

Would Not Recommend: If you find a small family drama to be too boring.