Essay "The Bicycle Thief"

The film "Bicy­cle Thieve" by Vit­to­rio De Sica from 1948 is about Anto­nio Ric­ci, who works as a day labor­er in post-​war Rome. He gets a per­ma­nent job as a bill-​poster but needs a bicy­cle, which he has pawned. While putting up posters, he gets dis­tract­ed, and his bicy­cle is stolen. Anto­nio tries to pur­sue the thief but is hin­dered by accom­plices. He reports the theft to the police but with­out much hope. Togeth­er with his son, he search­es for the stolen bicy­cle in vain. Even­tu­al­ly, they find the thief and fol­low him to his home but face resis­tance from neigh­bors and acquain­tances. A pos­si­ble mafioso appears. The sit­u­a­tion almost esca­lates when the thief pre­tends to have a seizure. A police­man search­es the room but finds noth­ing. Anto­nio final­ly with­draws. Frus­trat­ed and des­per­ate, he becomes a thief him­self but is stopped by a group of men. His son wit­ness­es the inci­dent. Anto­nio is tak­en to the own­er of the stolen bicy­cle, who decides not to press charges. Anto­nio and his son leave the scene amidst insults.

What I liked about the film is that it doesn't feel like a prod­uct. (You can even watch it for free and legal­ly on YouTube.) The actors don’t play roles but react as real peo­ple would. This is in stark con­trast to Hol­ly­wood, where emo­tions are always shown in a more or less exag­ger­at­ed way. Yet, the film remains acces­si­ble because the sit­u­a­tion depict­ed is so relat­able (for many peo­ple, includ­ing myself). Thus, it doesn’t feel like a dis­trac­tion, which is impor­tant to me because the feel­ing of engag­ing in pure escapism and noth­ing else is the main rea­son I hard­ly watch films any­more, even though I used to watch one, some­times two films every day. How­ev­er, one must admit that it is not very enter­tain­ing. All visu­als are used sole­ly to serve the plot. There is no attempt to impress. This does not mean that it is poor­ly exe­cut­ed or lacks ideas. I liked the film even as a child, despite being more shel­tered from real­i­ty then, because I already knew what was com­ing for me. I just didn't know how it would feel. Today, it is different.

In my research on the film, I dis­cov­ered that it is asso­ci­at­ed with Ital­ian Neo­re­al­ism. Real loca­tions are used, and the roles are played by non-​professional actors with­out cos­tumes. This explains to me how the film man­aged to achieve the men­tioned effect.

What I miss is the edu­ca­tion­al aspect in this feel­ing:
It is mere­ly described and shown, which might inspire but these are vary­ing ideas in people’s minds, not a spe­cif­ic implant­ed one. With or with­out it, it is pro­pa­gan­da; only with edu­ca­tion does one get clos­er to the utopia (of the author), with­out it, one mere­ly speaks ill of the sta­tus quo. As a design­er, it is my inten­tion to con­tribute to this. It nat­u­ral­ly seems repul­sive when one real­izes they are being lec­tured; one wants to let the con­sumer come to the same con­clu­sions on their own. Thus, there is also a risk of tar­nish­ing one’s own stand­point. If I were to make a film, I would add this edu­ca­tion­al com­po­nent. To do this authen­ti­cal­ly in an Ital­ian neo­re­al­is­tic man­ner, one would also have to cre­ate a real utopi­an set­ting. Before cre­at­ing this place, one must first design it.

The utopia, or rather eutopia, for me is a place where every­one can be hap­py with­out cost to oth­ers. This nat­u­ral­ly requires a unique, spe­cif­ic set of rules. With­out a pop­u­la­tion, how­ev­er, one has no legit­i­ma­cy. To achieve this, I plan to make peo­ple part of this pop­u­la­tion through design — vol­un­tar­i­ly, of course.

In my obser­va­tion of oth­ers and myself, I have seen that every­one is addict­ed to some­thing and I have yet to find some­thing one can­not be addict­ed to. Too often, they only harm them­selves. How­ev­er, all great achieve­ments of human­i­ty are linked to this. Curios­i­ty is also an addic­tion. What if peo­ple were only addict­ed to activ­i­ties that ben­e­fit them? As a design­er, I see it as my respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide this. I think one should start with the low­er class, so that every­one can succeed.