Bicycle Thieves

EXPERIENCE ESSENTIAL CINEMA!

NEW 35mm PRINT! 60th Anniversary Edition! ► Directed by Vittorio De Sica, this most famous and influential of Italian films is perhaps the definitive work of Italian neorealism. We’re pleased to present it in a new 35mm print, struck to celebrate the much-loved film’s recent 60th anniversary. Antonio, a long-unemployed worker, lands a much-needed job as a municipal bill poster, only to have the bicycle he requires for the position abruptly stolen.  He sets out with young son Bruno to look for the missing bike. Their desperate search through the poverty-stricken streets of Rome becomes a modern-day Odyssey in which the best and worst aspects of human nature are revealed. The script was written by frequent De Sica collaborator Cesare Zavattini (Shoeshine, Umberto D), the neorealism movement’s founder and chief theorist. The film was shot on location using non-professional performers. The protagonist is marvellously played by a factory worker carefully coached by De Sica. The director had earlier declined an offer from David O. Selznick to finance the production if Cary Grant were to be cast be in lead! Bicycle Thieves was a huge international success; its honours included a special 1949 Oscar as "Most Outstanding Foreign Film," and it remains a perennial pick as one of the greatest films ever made. "One of the most heart-searching accounts of everyday life in film history" (Richard Armstrong, The Rough Guide to Film). "The most important film of the immediate postwar period" (Georges Sadoul). B&W, 35mm, in Italian with English subtitles. 93 mins.