![]() Drawing on his experience as an actor (the director had been a stage and screen star long before moving behind the camera), he drew subtly nuanced performances from his cast, often catching emotional responses and physical changes of which the performers themselves were unaware. ![]() Vittorio De Sica's direction of mostly non-actors in The Bicycle Thief is one of the most effective uses of non-professionals in film history. The movement was both a reaction against the slick, state-controlled studio films made in Italy in the '30s, dubbed "white telephone" films by their detractors, and a public confession of guilt by the artists who had attempted to collaborate with Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime. Many critics have hailed The Bicycle Thief as the definitive example of Italian Neorealism, a cinema style that came to prominence after World War II as directors took their cameras into the streets to film stories of everyday, working-class life, often with non-professional actors in key roles. Screenplay: Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Oreste Biancoli, Adolfo Franci & Gerardo GuerrieriĬast: Lamberto Maggiorani (Antonio), Lianella Carell (Maria), Enzo Staiola (Bruno), Elena Altieri (The Lady), Vittorio Antonucci (The Thief), Gino Saltamerenda (Baiocco) As his odyssey through working-class Rome grows in stature, Antonio becomes a powerful metaphor for the plight of humanity caught in a hostile universe. As his search leads him to a union hall, a fortune teller's and a whorehouse, he grows more desperate until he sees a theft of his own as the only way of saving his family. With his son in tow, he explores working-class Rome in search of the thief, who always seems a few steps ahead of him. ![]() But on his first day of work, the bicycle is stolen. In order to travel from location to location, he has to have a bicycle, which he gets out of hock by pawning the family's linens. After two years of unemployment, Antonio, a laborer, finally secures a job putting up movie posters around Rome.
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