Showbiz History: Bicycle Thieves, Fur Bikinis, and a Costume Design King

6 random things that happened on this day, November 24th, in showbiz history...

1948 Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves (also known as The Bicycle Thief) is released in Italian theaters. It will take a few years for it to travel the world (global distribution is slow now and was even slower back then) but it will become an international hit the following year and receive the Globe, the Oscar, the BAFTA, and the NYFCC prizes for 'foreign film' in the 1949/1950 awards season. The National Board of Review went one further and just named it "Best Film" period, the second consecutive year they'd given that honor to an Italian film (the first non-English language winner had been Roberto Rossellini's Paisan the previous year) 

1956 Giant released in movie theaters the month after glitzy premieres in NYC and LA

1966 Wet, fur-bikini'd international sex-symbol Raquel Welch arrives in One Million Years BC ... 

Click to read more ...

Distant Relatives: The Bicycle Thief and The Road

Robert here w/ Distant Relatives, exploring the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. This week the last in a three part series on how one classic film can have many children.

Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road will most likely always be remembered as a great novel first and a somewhat well received film second. But whatever your opinion ofthe film, and the consensus seems to be that it could have benefited from a little more Bicycle Thief-esque neo-realisism (indeed it's the only of the three "children" of The Bicycle Thief that we've looked at, that isn't heavily influenced by that style), it's hard to ignore the relationship between the two films as two tales of a father and a son wandering through the remnants of humanity.

 

But before we get into the father/son dynamic, it's worth noting that the heightened reality of post-apocalyptic cinema and the unavoidable realism of wartime pictures (and by that I mean films shot in a country during wartime or immediate post-wartime, not romantically shot prestige pictures) are fascinatingly similar. More after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Distant Relatives: The Bicycle Thief and Broken Flowers

Robert here w/ Distant Relatives, exploring the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. This week the second in a three part series on how one classic film can have many children.

Broken Flowers isn't exactly a sexy subject for an article. In 2005, it came and went as a well received if unextravagant entry in the Jarmusch canon and another minimalist comedic melancholic performance by Bill Murray in the style of Lost in Translation. But the reason the film won me as its champion over five years ago is the same reason it fits together so nicely with The Bicycle Thief is the same reason it was dismissed by so many. This film is not about what you think its about.
 
Hitchcock called it a "macguffin." It's the plot device that exists to drive the film, but isn't really what the film is about. In The Bicycle Thief, that device is a bicycle stolen from Antonio, a poor man who needs it for work. In Broken Flowers it's a letter from an anonymous ex-lover of Don Johnston (Murray) claiming that he has a son. In both cases, this early development sets our protagonists out on an almost impossible odyssey to either find and retrieve the lost bicycle or find and reclaim the unknown child.

 

Long before modern independent filmmakers were finding influence from The Bicycle Thief (discussed last week), Jim Jarmusch was borrowing the realist aesthetic back in the 1980's as a great way to stylistically account for having little to no budget. It shouldn't be surprising that his films, which often feature social outcasts on a quest owe much to Vittorio De Sica and his neorealist contemporaries. Especially in Broken Flowers, because in both films the climax does not solve the problem or the "macguffin" put forth in the film's first act.
 
We don't know if Antonio will ever find his bike or if Don will ever find his son. It doesn't matter. The resolution of these mysteries are not the purpose of our films. The purpose is in the journey. Generally, more viewers seem to accept this in the older film, possibly because it's foreign or because those seeking it out have a greater understanding or expectation of its purpose then anything that must be marketed for modern audiences.
 
But it's not infrequent for this concept, the unresolved mystery to be met with shock. So it was in the 60's when a missing person in the Italian film L'Avventura went undiscovered. And so it was a few years ago when a showdown over a satchel of money in No Country for Old Men never came to fruition. The purpose is in the journey, not the payoff.

 

It may be too strained of a connection to suggest that both Antonio and Don's journeys are mid-life crusades to make something of themselves in the eyes of their progeny. But it's not too much to say that both missions end in abject failure, both take desperate men and hurl them deeper into desperation than they ever thought possible. Both films reveal to their protagonists truths that they failed to truly understand before: the importance of family, the dangers of vanity, and the interconnectedness of hope and pride.
 
What matters at the end of both films isn't whether their journeys have been worth taking, but how they have come to define these men's lives. Like last week, the resolution isn't particularly cheerful, but the humanity both filmmakers show toward their protagonists is palpable and the suggestion that even in middle age, a life can become redefined is powerful.

The saying "life's a journey, not a destination" is as cliched as they come. But perhaps we've not heard it enough if films with ambiguous or unresolved endings like these continue to inspire apathy or derision, or an inability to see the massively changing lives unfolding in front of us.

Distant Relatives: The Bicycle Thief and Wendy and Lucy

Robert here w/ Distant Relatives, exploring the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. This week the first in a three part series on how one classic film can have many children.

After a year that celebrated films about redemption and sentimentality, it's difficult to look at movies about poverty and struggle and not feel like a downer. But there's a reason why a film like The Bicycle Thief, or its neo-realist brethren is considered among the best of all time. Similarly, there's a reason why enough young filmmakers today are inspired to take on that same topic of hardship to make up a small movement that's frequently labeled "neo-neo-realism" (if you're into things being labeled), including Wendy and Lucy. And it has nothing to do with presenting a vision of a world devoid of hope or happiness.
 
The old joke phrase, "I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist" doesn't apply here. The purpose of these films isn't to convince you that the world is impossibly sad. So instead, replace the word "realist" in that phrase with "humanist" and consider that the success of these films is based on the fact that their creators truly care for their subjects. How many Hollywood blockbusters that present use with canned happy endings, have no real interest in the actual humanity of their characters?
 
The Bicycle Thief and Wendy and Lucy present humanist portraits of two troubled souls on a quest to improve their lives and keep their families together. It makes no difference that in one case "family" is traditionally defined and in another it's a girl and her dog. Companionship is companionship as is unconditional love. And in both cases, this singular quest gets sidetracked with familial consequences.

The plot of The Bicycle Thief is well known for both its simplicity and effectiveness. Impoverished Antonio, having just secured a new job that requires a bicycle, has his bicycle stolen out from under him. He wanders through the streets of his village accompanied by his young son, hopelessly attempting to catch the thief and retrieve his bike. Of course, additional things happen, but this is all the viewer needs to know. We may not have all felt this level of desperate, but we can all understand desperation. Similarly Wendy and Lucy can be summarized to easily evoke emotions. A poor young woman, Wendy and her constant companion, her dog Lucy, are on their way to a better life in Alaska. When Wendy is detained by the police, Lucy disappears and she'll spend the rest of the film trying to find her.
 
The humanism in these films lies in the fact that we care for these characters vicariously through the eyes of their directors, and in doing so understand that there are those who similarly care for and empathize with us in our moments of need. We root for both of these characters even as their missions seem to be leading them toward the same inescapable conclusion.
 
It's a conclusion as inescapable as their poverty, and it's that understanding that further connects the two films. Why is it so difficult to ascend financially in the world? Because even a small disaster can derail a life. A stolen bicycle, a broken car, a lost dog, can bring an immediate end to a hopeful journey. For the wealthy, minor nuisances are just that - minor, forgettable, easily overcome.

 
In addition to their own diminishing success in life, Antonio and Wendy have to contend with the fraying bonds of their family, another theme familiar to us all. There is a moment where you realize that your relationship to someone close has been eternally altered and can never go back, and both of these films present these tragic moments as yet another consequence of their noble but unachievable goals.
 
The Bicycle Thief and Wendy and Lucy succeed by compelling us so easily to root for Antonio and Wendy. We feel their frustrations and successes so completely. To do so both directors utilize a style of simplicity and obtrusiveness. Obviously this is where the "realism" part of their respective movements comes from. But it's unfair to dismiss the obvious, since it contributes so much to these films' brilliance. By intimately placing us next to the action in the role of the all-seeing camera, these films make us a part of the story and give us no choice but to be surrounded by their reality, feeling all of its humanity, and depositing us on the opposite side of tragedy, and in doing so making us feel perhaps the slightest glimmer of hope once again.