Landscapes of Power and Powerlessness in Graziadei and De Sica’s (1948) The Bicycle Thief Name University Landscapes of Power and Powerlessness in Graziadei and De Sica’s (1948) The Bicycle Thief Set in the depression times of post-World War II Italy, Graziadei and De Sica’s (1948) The Bicycle Thief narrates the story of Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani), who, after finding a job as a bill poster, loses his bicycle to a young thief. He tries to look for it with his son Bruno (Enzo Staiola); however, despite seeing the thief, he fails to recover his bicycle. Desperate, he tries to steal a bike himself but is easily thwarted by a group of bystanders. They plan to bring him to the police station until the owner notices the weeping Bruno and, in an act of compassion, ask others to release the thief. In this paper, I argue that The Bicycle Thief shows the landscape of the urban working class through imageries of poverty, hopelessness, and depictions of the large gap between the rich and the poor using camera angles, shots, and sounds. By presenting Italy this way, the film criticizes the absence of government response to the plight of the poor and the importance of class solidarity. The paper describes the film, including the transition from “reel” to “real,” through the dearth of socioeconomic opportunities due to government and social apathy, rendering the notion that the true thieves are not the underprivileged but the state and the elite. The Bicycle