For this week movie, it is a film that people watch rarely because the colour of the movie was just black and white. So, the film is called Bicycle Thieves directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1948 and it released after one year in U.S.A. This is my first time to watch an old Italian movie.
Synopsis
The story began with a father, Ricci came from poor family who lived with his wife, Maria and son, Bruno. Then, he got a job which was posting advertising bills but a bicycle was needed for this job. So, Ricci and his wife tried their best to get a bicycle and it worked. Unfortunately, Ricci lost his bicycle in his first working day. He did not know what do and worried his bicycle instead of takes action to find it out. In order to not losing his job, his mind struggle with should he steal a bicycle so that everything will be okay? What happened to him? He did or died?
Theory Discussion
(1) Classical Hollywood Cinema (CHC)
This term had discussed in Requiem for a Dream and now we will go for further look on this. CHC also called classic narrative cinema (CNC). By the book Cinema Studies: The Key Concept written by Susan with page 80 and line 19-21, she mentioned that David Bordwell introduced CNC is an 'exccesively obvious cinema' in which cinematic style serves to explain the narrative. Due to people don't understand the content, some of elements were used to help the narrative and they are 4 of them.
Firstly, element of cause and effects logic was added to most of cinema and for Bicycle Thieves as well. The effects mean something what you did then you will encounter what at the end. For example, Ricci got caught by other people due to he tried to steal bicycle which not belong to him. Therefore, as an audience; I knew why Ricci got caught because of his action.
Secondly, plots and story also one of the element to strengthen the narrative. For plots, it can be explained like what is the characteristic of the character what is the thing that they are going to use in the movie and etc. For instance, Ricci played his role as poor person and irrational when stealing the bicycle. Yet, story defined as the story line of the whole film. For Bicycle Thieves, the story is considered normal because the story was out of my expectation. I was wondering whether he got back his bicycle but ended up with just got no news from his bicycle.
Next, character motivation also chosen as very dominant element which it may be the way to motivating the film's cause-effect relationship and pushing the film's events follow by desires. For example, the way how the characters spoke in Bicycle Thieves were good because it not just a monotone which reminded me focused on what the film tried to deliver their messages.
Lastly, just like mentioned before in Requiem for a Dream; a movie must include closure and resolution which are the beginning, climax and also ending. In Bicycle Thieves, the story began with Ricci got his job, his bicycle was stolen and he tried to steal bicycle at the climax and the ending would be how he got caught by other people and how sad he was going to lose his job.
(2) Italian Neo-realism
Italian Neo-realism started after the World War II and it lasted from 1942-1952 which only 10 years. The founder for this ideologic was called Cesare Zavattini and he looked plots as a fake structure of everyday life. From the book Cinema Studies: The Key Concept by Susan with page 219 and line 22-24, she figured out that Rossellini called neo-realism as a moral and an aesthetic cinema which means a film is made with meaning and most of them are moral value. So, audience had to get the meaning from the movie through watching every scene of the film.
The movie itself used professional actors to complimented the falsehood in order to get support from the audiences. For example, the person who gave Ricci the job at the beginning of the scene is one of the professional actor. After that, contemporary social experience (CSE) discussed about what kind of situation people encountered like people lost their home after World War II, level of poverty increased and so on. In Malaysia, people are now facing the problem of GST as the CSE.
Not only that but also most of the scene were shot on location which means something that were unexpected like people came out from a football match and people shouted their slogan when passing by Ricci and his son. This is wants to make the film looked more realistic. Grainy film stock also been used in Bicycle Thieves is because it wants to let the audiences feel that the story of the movie was based on true story which the places they lived and the problems they faced.
Due to the poverty during that time, some of socially conscious and humanistic point of view (P.O.V) to mock the society. For example, people surrounded at the employment booth to make sure they got the job, policeman was not helpful at all because the missing bicycle incident to them was only a small case and people used to get food from church instead of making money for themselves because the level of poverty was very high. Besides this, melodramatic which means mixing of sound track and people talking. This movie used this in order to highlight the humanistic P.O.V.
Conclusion
Last but not least, I think the ending of this movie is okay because it lets me think of what will happen at the end. Shall he lost his job or he may meet his friend who is rich and wants to help him? Everything is a question in my mind after watching this film. Also, I liked the movie that tried to link what situation during that time and it brought to that hardship situation.
Reference
S.Hayward (2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York
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