The Bicycle Thieves [DVD] [1948]

Leslie Halliwell wrote of Bicycle Thieves that the slight human drama is developed so that it has all the force of King Lear . Simple in concept yet devastating in execution, Vittorio De Sica s neo-realist masterpiece begins with the news that unemployed father-of-two Antonio Ricci has been offered a job as a poster-sticker. There s only one catch: he needs his own bicycle, and when it s stolen on his first day, it has the impact of a thunderbolt. With the help of his small son Bruno, whose round, earnest face suggests wisdom beyond his years, an increasingly desperate Ricci searches through markets, flophouses and even private apartments, a quest painting as vivid a picture of a palpably wounded city (Rome after World War II) as anyone has captured on film. It s the only film other than Citizen Kane to top Sight & Sound s decennial poll of the best films ever made.

Special Features:

• Newly translated and more complete English subtitles
• Feature length audio commentary with Italian cinema expert Robert Gordon
• Timeless Cinema, a documentary portrait of actor, writer and director Vittorio De Sica
• Trailer

Heralded as the greatest film ever made on release, winning an Oscar in 1949 and topping the Sight & Sound film poll in 1952, De Sica s seminal work of Italian neorealism has had an impact on cinema worldwide from release to the present day, with filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray and Ken Loach claiming the film as a direct influence on their own.

Bicycle Thieves tells the of Antonio, a long unemployed man who finally finds employment putting up cinema posters for which he needs a bicycle. His wife pawns all the family linen to redeem the already pawned bicycle and for Antonio salvation has come, until the bicycle is stolen. Antonio and his son take to the streets in a desperate search to find the bicycle, which will keep them away from poverty and humiliation but amidst a sea of bicycles and without proof the search is fruitless. Bicycle Thieves us as much about the position of Italians in post-War, post-Fascist Italy as well as the relationship between father and son, told through the labyrinth of the cinematic city with De Sica s visual poetry. With pared down minimalism, eschewing studios and famous actors for real locations and non-professional actors who lived the lives they were playing, Bicycle Thieves defined the neorealist period, a small period of filmmaking that focused on simple, humanist stories, of which Bicycle Thieves was one of the most captivating and moving.

Arrow Academy presents Vittorio De Sica s masterpiece Bicycle Thieves on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

Extras:

• Audio Commentary by Robert Gordon, Italian cinema expert and author of Bicycle Thieves (BFI Film Classics)
• ‘Cesare Zavattini’ a feature length documentary by director Carlo Lizzani on the great screenwriter, novelist, critic, long time De Sica collaborator and founder of Italian neorealism
• ‘Timeless Cinema’, a documentary portrait of director, actor and screenwriter Vittorio De Sica
• Original Trailer
• Booklet including brand new writing on the film and a reprint of Cesare Zavattini’s ‘Some Ideas on the Cinema’, illustrated with origina