De Sica's Bicycle Thieves

Bicycle Thieves Final Scene Analysis A classic example of the Italian neorealist genre of film is Bicycle Thieves, directed by Vittorio De Sica. This film realistically portrays the acts of an impoverished and desperate man, Antonio Ricci, in his attempts to locate and recover his stolen Bicycle. De Sica effectively employs both parallelism and contrast, as well as some very human traits such as compassion and desperation to highlight the struggle of the everyman, which is possibly the most important aspect of classical Neorealism. The film ends with a keystone of a scene culminating in the emotional development of Antonio’s son, Bruno, and with a harsh dose of reality for Antonio himself. Both of which are Hallmarks of the Genre. The final scene of De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves displays many of the common themes from Italian Neorealism through the use of diegetic

Bicycle Thieves, as with most neorealist films, lends a very human feel to the characters in the film. This can be attributed to not only the use of nonprofessional actors across most of the roles in the film, but also to the actions and perceived thought processes of said characters, which can only be described as relatable. It is easy to say that Antonio should never have tried to steal the bike at the end of the film, but in a similar situation of extreme desperation, most individuals would have followed the same course of action as the protagonist. That is one reason why this film is as renowned as it is, it challenges the audience to reevaluate their own set of morals and understand what it is that they think is right and wrong. Another