The inescapable Reality of Time & The Bicycle Thief

    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 closes the door while the camera records from the other side. This halting movement is followed by a fade cut to a bus moving through where the door was in the last shot. Shortly after, Ricci and his son peddle by on the bike. The door closing is a solid and stopping motion whereas the fade cut and movement of the bus/Ricci peddling creates this sense of forward momentum. Antonio keeps moving forward even when he encounters halting obstacles and this is reflected in the editing. He has to keep trying to find his bike. There is never a moment of true rest or a pause--he seems to always be moving. Like the reality of time’s ineludible tug, The Bicycle Thief keeps a sense of a forward pull that Ricci cannot escape.