Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief
Post WWII Italy was a terrible place. In a destroyed economy with inflation and joblessness, people lived day to day unknowing their fate. Italian Neo-Realism was a film movement that attempted to capture this era. The Bicycle Thief from 1948 does this best. Antonio Ricci is offered a job can only keep it if he has a bicycle and it is eventually stolen from him in Rome. The bike becomes a symbol for Ricci's entire life, well-being, and social capacity. Personifying the bike is one of De Sica's greatest directorial tricks. The movie is very sad, the bikes are everywhere, but so out of reach to Ricci, and in the end he stoops down to the level of a thief. De Sica's use of live sound, in the meeting house and at the restaurant, is awsome too. It brings up and down the feeling of the movie perfectly.
