At the beginning of the year, I decided to increase my film vocabulary by watching one foreign film a month.  If you’ve spent anytime at all around me or reading this blog, you’d know that I’m not a huge fan of foreign films.  There are the exceptions like The Orphanage, Life is Beautiful, Amalie, and a handful of others.  But for the most part, I zoned out in Film History class when we discussed Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave.

This month, I decided upon The Bicycle Thief (or Bicycle Thieves as it is sometimes translated) based purely on it’s accessibility.  It’s on Watch Now on Netflix.  To help me get as much out of the experience as possible, I felt like I needed a little help.  So I pulled out all of my Film History books that I had in college.

The story line strangely enough is very similar to that of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.  It’s basically about a guy who is looking for his stolen bicycle.

So why is such an uneventful (that’s the best way I can describe it without using the word “boring”) movie held in such high esteem?  After cracking open my Film History books, I discovered that The Bicycle Thief is defined as Italian Neorealism.

So… what is Neorealism?

“The ideal film would be ninety minutes of the life of a man to whom nothing happens.”

Cesare Zavattini (one of the originators of Italian Neorealism)

Based on that quote, you can understand why I’m not a huge fan of Italian Neorealism.

I honestly don’t think I’d want to be a filmmaker if the only films that were made were about “a man to whom nothing happens.”  Star Wars would be awfully boring if the droids had never showed up at Luke’s place.

Neorealist filmmakers wanted to focus solely on the contemporary realities that ordinary people faced. These films also had a very socially conscious message.  It orginated after Word War 2 – filmmakers wanted to break free of ordinary Italian cinema.  Many epics  and upper-class melodramas had been made under Mussolini and there was a cry for a new “realism” in films.

Neorealism brought these techniques to the table all in the name of realism:

• Documentary-style cinematography
• The use of non-professional actors
• Improvisation
• Shooting on location with available light
• Adding dialogue in post-production

The Bicycle Thief, directed by Vittorio De Sica, won an academy award in 1949 for Best Foreign Language film.  According to my film books, the story is about much more than a man looking for his stolen bicycle.  Apparently it is a “powerful social document” and a “poignant story” and a “modern parable.”  I don’t think I really got that from the story but then again, my only C I got in college was in Film Theory.  So I’ll take the scholar’s word for it.

Along with The Bicycle Thief, the other famous example of Italian Neorealism is Rome, Open City (1945), directed by Roberto Rossellini.  (It also is available on Netflix Watch Now.)

Films of this era and style were a huge influence on two other filmmakers from Italy – Fellini and Antonioni.  I’m sure I’ll be watching and writing about at least one of their films this year.  Stay tuned.

After doing this research and seeing what The Bicycle Thief and other films of it’s kind added, I can appreciate these films much more than I used to.  I can see the influence Italian Neorealism has had on movies even today.  Neorealism basically broke films out of the confines of the studio and that is a very good thing.  I love the films of the 30′s and 40′s but a lot of the exteriors are very obviously shot on a studio backlot or even on a soundstage.

As much as I protest about the dull and open-ended storylines of Italian Neorealism, I must point out one of my favorite films, Cast Away.  The open end is most definitely inspired by Italian Neorealism.  And it works extremely well.

What do you think of The Bicycle Thief?  Do you have any foreign film suggestions?