Event

Bicycle Thieves

Hailed around the world as one of the greatest movies ever made, the Academy Awardwinning Bicycle Thieves, directed by Vittorio De Sica, defined an era in cinema. In poverty-stricken postwar Rome, a man is on his first day of a new job that offers hope of salvation for his desperate family when his bicycle, which he needs for his work, is stolen. With his young son in tow, he sets off to track down the thief. Simple in construction and profoundly rich in human insight, Bicycle Thieves embodies the greatest strengths of the Italian neorealist movement: emotional clarity, social rectitude, and brutal honesty.

"Bicycle Thieves wasnt even that neo-real, being a studio film that used back projection and employed a number of supporting-role pros. But it remains one of art films most powerful gateway drugs, still haunting in its painful simplicity, laced with the unforgettable behavioral moments that may be De Sicas greatest claim to posterity." - Village Voice

"Bicycle Thieves is rich, subtle, powerful and sadly as relevant today in many ways as when it was made. Besides, as with any film worth its salt, its far, far more than just a story, and De Sicas marvellously vivid images of evocative faces and cityscapes stick in the mind as indelibly as those of Federico Fellini or Michelangelo Antonioni." - Sight & Sound

"All degrees of human suffering, and the hope of survival in the face of despair are unveiled, as no corner, alley, or marketplace is left unexplored. In each moment, the frame is filled with the same kind of visual realization of the social architecture of the time. The human desperation is immediate and visceral." Reverse Shot

"French critic Andre Bazin also recognized it as one of the great communist films This is possibly the greatest depiction of a relationship between a father and son in the history of cinema, and its an awesome heartbreaker." - Reader