Bicycle Thieves

   The approach to capturing realistic situations and relativity to audiences with minimal manipulation through replication is known as Italian Norealism. The report aims to provide an in-depth understanding towards the purpose, semantics and syntactic as well as application of Italian Norealism which is evident in the movie “Bicycle Thieves” directed by Vittorio De Sicca. The story reflected Italian society of that particular time during the era of Italian Norealism.  By analysing the purpose of creating the film, the report gives an opportunity to comprehend the mindset of film creators and their approach to expand their creativity and convey the vision of their message. Furthermore, analysing the semantics and syntactic of the film enhances one’s skill to recognise the characteristics that classifies a film into Italian Norealism. By studying the application of Italian Norealism through the film, it allows readers of the report to utilise objectively and manipulate subjectively certain aspects of Italian Norealism to create their own personalised film artwork.

  According to Altman (1984), semantic stresses on the on-screen visuals that act as building blocks such as settings and props, costumes and make up, lighting, actors movements. All of which are also known as mise-en-scene. The elements of semantics are like building blocks that identifies a genre (Altman, 1984). It is also stated by Altman that the syntax of a film privileges the structure of film in which the semantics are arranged. There has to be a complementary relationship between both approaches to film as semantic approach lacks explanatory power but provides sufficient visuals while syntactic approach lacks broad applicability but provides specified meaningful structural arrangements (Altman, 1984). Therefore, a combination of semantic approach that provides the generic genre traits with syntactic approach that provides narrative structure; it creates a logical development of a film’s storyline.

Italian Norealism emerged during 1944 to 1952 (Hayward, 2013) as an approach to capturing the authenticity of Italy’s post war conditions through spontaneous and unplanned story lines after progressing from shooting in man-made studios (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010). It is also stated by the authors that film makers commonly used this approach to develop empathy within audiences by bridging the gap between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. The emphasised element that distinguishes Italian Norealism from other genres is the realistic settings and props utilised by shooting exclusively on location at real time as stated by Bordwell & Thompson (2010). Furthermore, makeup and costumers were based on what Italians actually wore instead of being studio made. Lighting used was mostly natural light. As for the actors, film makers casted mostly social actors without any training to focus on the story content. Children often played a major role in film but as observant characters. These elements functioned to capture the poor living conditions of Italians. The semantic approach of film was to convey the message poverty affected by corruption and oppression by the politically powerful. The films placed a lot of emphasis on the struggles of the poor after war with the main purpose of conveying instability. There are also scenes that showed the poor protesting which advocates Italians to fight for equality. The combinations of realistic visuals and relative message content captures the life of Italians holistically on film.

Bicycle Thieves took place in Rome after the war, conveying the message of desperation to seek income. Antonio Ricci got the privilege of getting a job opportunity but it is compulsory for him to have a bicycle. On one unfortunate day, his livelihood was stolen. He gathered his friends and family to help him look for it. Many scenes showed the extent of his desperation such as searching for it in the rain and accusing random people for stealing it. The ultimate act of desperation was him stealing a bicycle from another person and his son watching him do it. He is willing to risk the respect as a father from his son just to ensure his family is able to get by.

Since the film was filmed in Italy itself, the semantics embodies the post-war conditions entirely. For instance, the scene where many desperate workers were waiting outside a building to get jobs.

Additionally, the place where Antonio’s wife took water showed Marshall Plan’s rebuilding of new facilities. 

Realistic settings also included the scene at the river where a truck passed by with protesters on it. The scene was a coincidental and unplanned occurrence which reflects the state of Italians in terms of their awareness towards the injustice towards them. 

As for the actors, all the main characters were amateur actors to not distract audiences from the story. A child as an observant character was also evident in the movie known as Bruno. As a syntactical approach, the film was melodramatic with depressing repetitive music to emphasise the everyday struggles of Italians after the war. Furthermore, the film also reflected the difference of lifestyle between the rich and poor. In the scene where Antonio and Bruno were in a fancy restaurant, Bruno was intimidated and challenged by privileged boy sitting near him who was dressed in fancy clothes and enjoying his meal as if it was part of his regular routine. The mise-en-scene of the restaurant was to reflect the difference between the luxurious lifestyle of the privileged compared to the poor represented by Antonio and Bruno as an intended message of the film. 

Lastly, the film’s main emphasis of film was the desperation of Italians for a better life. To further illustrate the theme, the climax of the film was when Antonio stole a bike and being seen by Bruno which reflected the desperation of a man to be willing to give up his pride just for the sake of obtaining a source of livelihood.

To recapitulate the report, Italian Norealism is an approach to creating films which exposes and educate the audiences by reflecting the hardship of Italians after the war. Italian Norealism was evidently found in the film “Bicycle Thieves” with semantics that captured the ruins of buildings and dirty outer appearances of actors. The complementary syntactic approach was emphasizing the desperation of Italians for work as well as the disparity between the social classes. A combination of both approaches identifies Italian Norealism as its own unique genre.  

References

Altman,R. (1984) . A Semantic/ Syntactic Approach to Film Genre. Cinema Journal,

Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 6-18.

Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2010). Film History: An Introduction (3^rd ed.), McGraw Hill.

p.330- 331.

Hayward, S. (2013). Cinema Studies : The Key Concepts (4^th ed.), USA : Routledge, pp.219-

221; 335-340.