Bicycle Thieves - Film June 24, 2009

Bicycle Thieves - Film. (Classics of Vittorio de Sica). Bicycle Thieves is about Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani), who finds that the job he has landed after two years of being jobless posting bills requires a bicycle. To get back the one he had pawned a while ago, he gives up the family's linen. The bike is stolen on his first day of work. Combing the streets of Rome for three days, he and his son find the thief, but the police want evidence. Wandering aimlessly, they find themselves outside a soccer stadium where hundreds of bicycles are parked. His will broken, Antonio attempts to steal a bike but is caught. Vittorio de Sica's film is an everyman story of the loss of innocence in the face of destitution. The acting and directing make it heart-wrenching. Vittorio De Sica creates an impassioned portrait of poverty, corruption, and desolation. The image of the American soldiers a reference to the presence of Allied occupation forces in postwar Italy is a metaphor of the 'outside gentleman' or circumstances that exist beyond the boys control. Of what real use have they been in Italy s reconstruction? Pasquales orphaning during the war and the status of Giuseppe's family as refugees forced to share a single room at a multi-family boarding house further underscore the boys' -- and the country's -- sense of dislocation and impotence. The screening will be introduced by Anurag Kashyap, critically acclaimed film director and screenwriter, is known for Black Friday (2004), the controversial film about the 1993 Mumbai blasts, No Smoking (2007) and Dev D and Gulaal (2009). He has written award-winning scripts (Satya,1998) and the Academy Award-nominated Canadian film, Water (2005). Regarded one of the most unconventional filmmakers in contemporary Hindi cinema, Kashyap was introduced to world cinema in his college days, Bicycle Thieves remaining for him 'an epiphany'.

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