Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette)

Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves (sometimes referred to as The Bicycle Thief), was one of the first films I saw in grad school. I took a survey course in world film, and this was one of two Italian Neorealist examples we screened, both of which made me so upset I couldn't talk.

My class was full of film students of varying ages and nationalities. I remember a Somalian, a Croatian, an Indian, a few white-bread Ohio natives, an African-American, a Brazilian, and one guy from Indiana — me.

I knew little about this film before the projector started. Antonio Ricci, a man in post-war Italy, takes a job — one of the few — that requires a bicycle, and the bike is stolen on his first day. What follows is a blundering, emotional detective story of sorts. His desperate search for the thief and bicycle leads him and his young son all over the city.

I remember the waves of emotions most of all, ebbing and flowing and leaving me feeling as hopeless and helpless as Ricci. Frustration. Disappointment. Redemption. Desperation. Sadness. Rage.

By the end of Bicycle Thieves, I had to fight back tears. I felt like I was choking on a golf ball.

The lights came up. Time to discuss the film. The other students offered comments technical and trivial, educated and rational. Few focused their comments on the story, or what this film made them feel.

As for me, I couldn't form words because I was too busy trying not to cry in front of everybody. Why am I such a soft touch? Why can't I look at something objectively? Why had this film upset me so much?

We never had much money growing up. I remember Dad trying to find ways to make a living through layoffs and plant shutdowns. He worked as a janitor. He cleaned RVs. He opened a farm equipment and auto shop. I never saw him get desperate, though. He just kept moving.

I saw a lot of my Dad in Ricci's determination, but not in Ricci's desperation. Still, that was enough to get me connected to this character, to his plight, to get so emotionally involved, I lost the ability to form coherent thought.

I sat through the discussion, offered nothing of my own, went home with the golf ball in my throat, and took a nap. Since then, I've only seen this film twice more (including this viewing). I can't take many repeated viewings of this one, and that's why it's brilliant.

Years later, I got this Criterion reissue for my birthday — yet another film school find that I wanted on my shelf, as if to hold on to a piece of that time, a period I tend to idealize more and more when I do re-watch the films I saw then. I can't re-watch it very often, but I don't care.