Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 Italian neorealism masterpiece, Bicycle Thieves is an exceptional example of a film whose raw plausibility embodies the intrinsic aesthetic of realism. Realism is a socially critical reflection of the society, a cinematic convention that displays the reality of life. Whereas, realist films present to the viewer real-world issues by portraying and treating them in a creative way. As such, “realism” refers to the reproduction of reality, while ‘realistic’ refers to the actual truth. This convoluted disparity was brought up by the influential French film theorist, Andre Bazin, who claimed that the credibility of a film did not originate from its authenticity, but from the identity between the photographic image and its object. De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves triumphs elements of rawness and psychological intensity, from then on offering a comment on socio-political problems, demonstrating post-war Italy’s desperate conditions of hunger, oppression and unemployment. By addressing these brutal realities on screen, cinema acts as a medium of conceptualisation of a nation, depicting the Italian day-to-day activities. Moreover, when the viewer witnesses reality under a child’s perspective, the emotional conflict often evokes tough visualisation. Not only does this happen in De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, but many devastating cinematic depictions of politics and poverty also utilize this point of view, such as Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1962 Ivan’s Childhood, Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 The Kid or Sean Baker’s 2017 The Florida Project. Nadine Labaki’s 2019 Capernaum is no exception—the film shows the refugees crisis and the underclass in a chaotic circumstance, with non-professional actors and on-location shootings contributing to the film’s documentary-like realism. This paper will, therefore, examine Andre Bazin’s ideology in the realistic aesthetic at work in cinema by exemplifying Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, especially the ending sequence and its influence on contemporary cinema such as Nadine Labaki’s Oscar-nominated foreign language film, Capernaum.
In What Is Cinema? volume 1, Bazin states, “The quarrel over realism in art stems from a misunderstanding from a confusion between the aesthetic and the psychological; between true realism, the need that is to give significant expression to the world both concretely and its essence, and the pseudorealism of a deception aimed at fooling the eye a pseudorealism content in other words with illusory appearances”. According to Bazin, what makes a film “realistic” does not lie in its superficial surface, but the substance and the content. It is not about“looking” real, but “being” real. Without a doubt, the root of neorealism exhibits in its reconstruction of reality, as Italian filmmakers aspire to illustrate life in the most compelling manner. Moreover, while realism considers the connection between artistic form and reality, neorealism explores the relationship of cinema with reality in different historical, cultural and political dimensions. What mostly differentiates realism from neorealism is the level of credibility and emotional attachment that prompts the viewer to sympathize with the story. On discussing Bicycle Thieves, Bazin notes, “In Vittorio de Sica’s Ladri de Biciclette, Italian neorealism contrasts with previous forms of film realism in its stripping away of all expressionism and in particular in the total absence of the effects of the montage. As in the films of Welles and in spite of conflicts of style, neorealism tends to give back to the cinema a sense of the ambiguity of reality… The means used by De Sica is less spectacular but they are no less determined to do away with montage and to transfer to the screen the continuum of reality”. Neorealist films, undoubtedly, gives a realistic texture of the contemporary issues that aim at moving the sympathies of the viewer. The protagonist of Bicycle Thieves, a working-class man who suffers from the pressing economic necessities, represents the whole Italy’s impoverished masses. De Sica’s neo-realist approach was shown in his use of on-location shootings and non-professional actors that result in high visual believability. Shooting on-location helps create a mise-en-scene with a realism beyond traditional constructed sets, while casting non-professional actors allows De Sica to manifest his protagonist as an anonymous representative of the broken system, an unknown man free of the preconceptions imposed on known actors or stars. Throughout Bicycle Thieves, the viewer is trapped into a world of class divides and penurious individuals similar to the protagonist. This crucial actuality is reinforced by the film’s ending when Antonio lowers himself to become a thief, implicitly demonstrating how this seemingly singular story plays into the greater narrative of a corrupted society. Antonio’s desperate search for the bike is communicated to the viewer through the indifference of the fractured society around him. Here, by utilizing special techniques of neo-realist films, long take and quick montage, close ups to medium to long shots, De Sica subtly builds up a physical and psychological world that exists beyond the protagonist.
Although heart-wrenching, the last sequence of Bicycle Thieves does not bring to the viewer feelings of depression, as it shows that the protagonist did not lose his humanity, nor his son’s respect and appreciation. The fact that Antonio, who seems to lose almost everything, does not lose his son is what brings this neorealist masterpiece a sincere soul. As the viewer has come to sympathize with Antonio’s desperation to possess a bicycle, they subjectively hope that he can succeed in stealing the bicycle no matter how much morality he is being taken away. The combination of hesitation, lingering, and feelings of guilt has created one of the most iconic and poignant ending sequences in the history of cinema. The camera follows Antonio and Bruno as they pass by a football stadium where a huge number of bicycles have been parked outside. The tracking shot allows the crowd near the stadium to be gradually revealed as the father and son walk towards the place. At one point, the camera stops and becomes static as the viewer sees Bruno, who has been trailing behind Antonio all day, comes to the pavement and sits down to rest. The noise of the crowd outside the stadium emerges on the soundtrack as the film transitions to a medium shot of Antonio’s face reacting to the crowd and the bicycles. His hesitant attitudes and self-contradiction between guilt and desire to possess a bike is strongly conveyed in this scene. The camera constantly changes from a long shot of the crowd to a medium long shot of Bruno puzzling and waiting for his father and a long shot of the bicycles. This series of point-of-view shot puts the viewer directly into the head of the character, letting them experience his psychological state. The camera pans from right to left, directing the viewer to see something that suddenly captures his attention—a seemingly unattended bicycle near a building, then from left to right as Antonio battles in his head of whether he should make the decision. The discontinuity of montage subtly shows Antonio’s moral conflict. Antonio turns away, as if changing his mind, but he cannot resist and decides to look back again at the deserted bicycle. The camera tilts down and frames Antonio and Bruno as they sit on the pavement. Bruno keeps his eyes on his father, while Antonio has several thoughts going on in his head. Bruno is staring at him attentively and warily, as if he can read his father mind. At one point, they hear the sound of a crowd coming, and the foreground of the frame is filled with a group of cyclists passing by. An abrupt transition to a blurry shot of cyclists riding by from right to left occurs as the camera pans left with their movement until it zooms into Bruno and Antonio still sitting on the pavement, exhibiting some reactions. The contrast between the static and depressing look of the father and son and the dynamic motion of the cyclists enhance the feeling of loss that Antonio and Bruno have gone through. This shot is extremely powerful as it shows plenty of bicycles taunting in front of the Antonio’s eyes; yet hopeless and desperate as he is, he cannot even acquire one of those. The camera cuts to a medium shot of Antonio standing up again, but this time his facial expression shows more worriedness and conflicts towards the crowd and the bicycles. This moment seems to signal a fulcrum of the film, when “things can go either way for the character”—Antonio can either accept his misfortune and go back to his poor daily life or sacrifice his ethics for a bike that will guarantee him a job to escape poverty. Here, it seems as if the viewer is forced to look at the world through the perspective of child, witnessing the injustice and chaos of the society during that period. The point-of-view long shots of the crowd and people getting their bicycles are quickly cut between the medium shot of Antonio looking. As Antonio realizes that it is too late to steal one of the bikes at the parking area, his intention to get the bike near the building is higher. De Sica builds up an unbearable tension, cutting between an exhausted Bruno sitting on the pavement, patiently looking at his dad, who walks back and forth, looking at the endless number of bikes, as well as an unattended bike near a building. These two shots show an interesting contrast between a man who desperately need a bike to change his life, and a boy who understands his father’s struggles. The camera continues to follow Antonio as he turns back to watch the unattended bicycle and turns back again towards Bruno. De Sica creates suspense through the technique of retardation and hesitation—delaying the occurrence of an event so that when it happens, it will be more intense. At the same time, the sea of people getting their bicycles and riding in front of his eyes makes Antonio’s intention to possess one almost unbearable. Antonio’s action of taking off his hat and touching his hair indicates the tortute of his conflict. When he puts his hat back on, it signals that he has come up with a decision. As Antonio makes up his mind, he gives Bruno a streetcar fair and tells him to wait at Monte Sacro. Thinking that he has made his son go away, Antonio turns around and slowly walks toward the deserted bike. But Bruno, like a sticky conscience, disobeys his father and follows his footsteps. When Bruno is scolded to go away and exits from the frame, the camera continues to follow Antonio as he heads towards the bicycle. This scene serves as the most defining moment for the main character: As Antonio looks at the bicycles and decides to lower himself to do what has been unethical throughout the entirety of the film, it gives the viewer an impression that the unfairness of society has prompted a fine man to become different. The viewer sees a long shot of Bruno running for the streetcar, but he misses it; now the viewer knows something that Antonio does not. Bruno's missing the streetcar further intensifies the suspense by adding another complicated element, an ethical and psychological layer. The film then cuts to a long shot of Antonio now sneaking in closer distance to the bicycle, evoking mixed feelings of suspense and excitement that remind me of Hitchcock's films. Eventually, Antonio decides that his only choice to support his family is to steal a bicycle. The camera stays from a substantial distance from Antonio, witnessing his immoral actions. Antonio goes closer to the unattended bicycle, summons his courage, and jumps on it, but he is then quickly noticed and chased by a crowd of people in the road and the owner of the bike. The camera pans past Bruno as he shockingly and surprisingly witnesses his father become a thief, being surrounded and pulled from the bike. The shaky cinematography captures Bruno’s expression resembling the motion of the bike at a rapid pace, thus it creates a sense that Bruno is looking directly at his father. In the next medium shot, the viewer sees an emotional Bruno runs into the angry crowd surrounding his father, crying. At this poignant moment, the viewer can see Bruno’s care for his father and their misfortune are heightened than ever. The camera changes to a long shot of the train disrupting the crowd and Antonio being taken towards the camera direction. In a long shot, as a group of people escorts Antonio away, Bruno finds his father's hat and dutifully cleans it off so as to preserve the little dignity that his father has left. Here, Bicycle Thieves reaches its immoral pinnacle that sets it apart from other conventional Hollywood endings. As Antonio is being escorted toward the police station, the bicycle’s owner notices Bruno, who is carrying Antonio's hat. In a moment of benevolence and sympathy, when he sees Bruno crying, he decides to forgive Antonio and asks the crowd to let him go. Lowering himself to thievery and being humiliated in front of his son, Antonio has now reached a new low. The closing shot shows Antonio bitterly walking away, with Bruno walking his side and grasping his hand. Bruno’s actions of grabbing his father’s hand shows his support and sympathy for Antonio as the despair and hopelessness has turned even his father, the finest man, into a thief. Though Antonio tries to get rid of Bruno aside previously, the son knows his father better than his father knows him: He stands by his father despite his failure and hardships. De Sica’s brutal reality and honesty haunts the viewer to the end—he does not shy away from the injustice of life, he makes Bicycle Thieves so raw and mundane by demonstrating that happy endings do not exist in real life.
The “Best Foreign Film” category at the Academy Awards always leaves a strange fascination for the viewer, as these non English-speaking motion pictures take them out of the lavish spectacles and “American” ideologies in Hollywood films, presenting a more diverse portrayal of people and cultures through unique perspectives. With its view of the world through a child's lens, Nadine Labaki’s Oscar-nominated Capernaum has gone beyond the conventions of documentary or fiction filmmaking. Capernaum is rooted in realism as the main character’s court case challenges a Syrian patriarchal system where children were born in an impoverished circumstance that lead to them being raised and cared improperly due to their parents’ ignorance. It is a heartbreaking film that not only portrays pure humanity despite struggles, but also presents the chaotic threats surrounding children, from the rumble of traffic to adults who want to take advantage of them. There is a cinematic difference between De Sica’s and Nadine Labaki’s films: while Bicycle Thieves reaches the viewer's mental state by capturing the lassitude of everyday’s misery, its modest plot revolves around a man on search for his stolen bike, its sense of moral outrage is reflected by the unsophisticated locations and actors, Capernaum is meticulously packed in every shot, following a non-chronological narrative structure, with shaky, claustrophobic cinematography and low camera eye-level. The film’s harrowing sequence, as a lonely desperate Zain wanders the streets pulling the baby along in tow, reminds the viewer of Vittorio De Sica, Charlie Chaplin and Sean Baker in its masterful examination of childhood ingenuity and innocence deteriorated by the injustice and ignorance of the society. In an interview with Gulf News, Labaki even says, “For me, politics and art are intertwined. As an artist, it’s my responsibility to be involved in what’s happening around us. It’s a duty. It’s not really a choice”. Needless to say, Bicycle Thieves and Capernaum serves as stunning archetypes of social realistic cinema, not only because they inherit all of neorealism’s defining characteristics, but they also perfectly describes the hardship and unfairness of life, allowing the viewer to experience and witness reality in its purely raw and truthful substance.
Philip Rosen notes about Bazin’s ideology in Change Mummified: “The central grounds in Bazin’s account of the experience of reality through cinema, and hence of an auteur’s style, is not physical reproduction, but the nature of the relation of a preexistent to the film. That relation is inseparable from preservation as an obsessive issue for the subject”. It seems as if the realistic power of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves and Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum lies in the way they deal with bittersweet real-life problems in the most convincing, honest and delicate way, ultimately enabling the viewer himself to question and sympathize with the reality they witness on screen.
Works Cited
Bazin, Andre. What Is Cinema? University of California Press Berkeley. 1994
Rosen, Philip. Change Mummified. Cinema, Historicity, Theory. University of Minnesota Press.
De Sica, Vittorio. Bicycle Thieves. 1948. Sequence 1:20:00 - 1:29:27
Labaki, Nadine. Capernaum. 2019.
Aridi, Sara. Nadine Labaki reveals ‘Capernaum’ is a rallying cry. Gulf News Entertainment. December, 2018. https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/arab-celebs/nadine-labaki-reveals-capernaum-is-a-rallying-cry-1.61019553