We're moving right along in our Italian film course, and this week's offering was Ladri di Biciclette. De Sica's 1948 film tends to still ring a bell in U.S. popular culture contexts, but the title is frequently mistranslated as The Bicycle Thief, committing a perpetual injustice to the film and its audiences (once you've watched it, I'm willing to bet you'll feel the same way). As I continue to think about female figures in Italian neorealist film, I am reminded that the women in this film are seemingly minor characters but clearly integral to the progress(?) of the story. Maria Ricci figures most prominently, making the significant decision to give up her dowry (sheets, for goodness sake) for her husband to get his bicycle out of hock in the first place. I'm also partial to the character of La Santona, "the one who sees," who both women and men frequent for advice and predictions about their futures. In a historical moment in which many folks are struggling to earn and maintain some kind of salary, La Santona's waiting room is packed with clients, eager to hand over whatever lire they can spare.
One last crucial note about the large cinematic shadow cast by Ladri di Biciclette - the epic narrative, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, is arguably a loose intrepretation of Antonio Ricci's quest to reclaim his bicycle. I thought I caught a hint of that brilliance watching Paul Reubens as a six-year-old.
Image from TrovaCinema/laRepubblica.
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