Film History II

     Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief explores Italian Neorealism’s sense of reality in many ways, but one mode that I find particularly interesting is the way in which time seems to incessantly flow forward in the world of the film. Much like in the everyday world, time, and the harsh realities that ensue, is inescapable.  Antonio Ricci is stuck in the forward momentum of the necessity of finding his bike in order to work and feed his family. I think that this pull onward is reflective of the inescapable pull of time that we experience in real life. In a film, time can be manipulated and paused and sped up—but to a family struggling to keep afloat that inescapable pull forward can contribute to a threatening spiral initiated by one thing going wrong. The loss of the bike is much more than the loss of one physical option, but rather the threat of the loss of food and wellbeing for his family.  When leaving the house with his bicycle on his shoulder, Ricci cl...

      The film The 400 Blows by François Truffaut is a prime example of a French New Wave film. It features many of the qualities that new wave filmmakers valued in a production. Some of which includes the rejection of authority, handheld camera work, distancing tactics, and city-scapes. Paris unrolls beneath Antoine’s feet with lingering shots that enable the viewer’s eye to roam the street. He often darts through traffic without a second look at the cars and their traffic laws. There are plenty of street scenes in the film that give the eye enough time to roam around the frame--exploring free from the guiding hand of cuts. The lack of editing in these parts helps create that sense of freedom and sense of participation that the French New Wave thinkers incorporated in their works. Eugene McCreary in “Film History: New Wave Cinema and ‘68” states, “The spectator was free, or at least freer, to notice something of his own choice, to permit his attention to linger on a...