The relationship between Antonio and Bruno is at the core of this movie. Bruno admires his father at the beginning of the film, imitates his gestures and actions, looks at him with admiration. Yet the search for Antonio's bicycle puts a strain on that relationship. Antonio often fails to notice that Bruno is in harm's way and even strikes him. Furthermore, Bruno watches as Antonio himself becomes a bicycle thief and is humiliated by a crowd. What do you make of this relationship How does it evolve (or devolve) over the course of the film? What does the film tells us about fathers and sons? About family?
In the movie Bicycle Thieves¸ Bruno admires his father Antonio and pretty much idolizes him. When Antonio is getting dressed and ready to go to work, Bruno is copying him with cleaning himself up in the mirror. But when Antonio’s bike is stolen and Bruno is willing to help his father at first, Bruno faces numerous obstacles which ultimately strain his relationship with his father. Bruno almost gets hit by cars, trips and gets wet, and is generally neglected by his father. However, Antonio somewhat notices this and so he takes Bruno out to eat pizza, but the restaurant they go to doesn’t serve pizza, so they drink wine and eat sandwiches instead, even though Bruno wanted to eat pizza. Then, some unfortunate events continue to unfold, and ultimately causes Antonio to try stealing a bike out of desperation. He is caught and humiliated by a crowd, but Bruno takes his hand to comfort him in the end. The relationship between the two starts as the father having a higher position than the son, therefore the son held the father in high regard. But we see that the father neglected his son and their relationship throughout his search for his bicycle. This leads to the degradation of their relationship, and therefore leads to the son and father’s roles to change. Bruno no longer idolizes his father, but instead pities him at the end of the film. Antonio is portrayed as a broken man and Bruno now has the higher position, though Antonio doesn’t idolize him. Over the course of the film, the roles between Bruno and Antonio were reversed with who had the higher position. The film tells us that generally speaking, sons hold their fathers in high regard, and aspire to be like them. However, when the fathers become desperate and therefore act rashly, the sons are able to recognize this change in attitude and therefore no longer see them the same. It seems as if the sons had a glorified image of their fathers, but through struggles, the sons are able to paint a proper and realistic image of their fathers, allowing them to understand that they are also simply humans. We can also see the role reversal of who is taking care of who. In the beginning of the film, the father is seen trying to get a job so that he can support his family. Yet, after losing his bike and therefore his job, the son is seen taking hold of his fathers’ hand to comfort him, therefore taking care of him. This may also imply that a family dynamic is able to change through any circumstance. In this instance, the father lost his job and therefore lost his role as the supporter of his family, and so the son took up the role of caring for his family. Antonio was no longer able to carry out his duties as a father, so the son took up the duty in his stead. As a whole family, this film also seems to be reinforcing and breaking down the stereotype that women should stay at home. There are two actions of the mother in the movie that seem to back up this claim. First, the mother is seen at her job and she takes charge and helps her husband buy his bicycle by taking initiative and selling their bedsheets. This puts her in a position of power and reinforces the thought that she is intelligent and is more than just a housewife. However, throughout the sequence of the father and son looking for the bicycle, the mother is nowhere to be seen, implying that she is staying at home and doesn’t play an active role.
ReplyDeleteThe 1949 film, Bicycle Thieves demonstrates that relationships erode when one prioritizes economics over family. The movie follows an Italian man named Antonio and his son Bruno. While on the clock, Antonio’s bicycle is stolen, leaving him incapable of fulfilling his job properly. Thus, he and his son attempt to find the bicycle thief. While Antonio is trying to make ends meet to support his family, he focuses solely on economics, ironically neglecting his family in the process. Throughout the film, there are several aspects in which Antonio neglects Bruno. First, Antonio completely disregards Bruno’s safety several times. At the beginning of their pursuit of the thief, Bruno barely manages to avoid getting hit with two cars while trailing after Antonio. Ignoring Bruno and his safety, Antonio looks forward the entire time. This scene encapsulates Antonio’s mindset at the time as he is completely worried about getting his bike back, demonstrated through his looking forward, simultaneously wholly ignoring his family in the process. Another scene in which Bruno’s safety is neglected is when Antonio finally finds the bicycle thief. After Antonio spots the man he believes stole his bike, he chases him into a neighborhood. After arguing with a mob of neighbors and explaining himself to a police officer, Antonio is ultimately unsuccessful in pressing charges against the thief or retrieving the bicycle. Antonio’s heart is broken as he fails his mission of recovering his bike. Antonio is so distracted by his failure that he walks away alone, leaving Bruno in a crowd of violent men. It is not until he turns a corner that he finally realizes that he forgot Bruno. This scene illustrates that Antonio was so focused on his economic goal that he completely neglected Bruno’s safety, leaving him in a dangerous situation. Another aspect that Antonio completely neglects is his role as a father. As Bruno’s father, Antonio has an obligation to be a good role model, as Bruno looks up to him and might imitate his actions. Antonio is so desperate for his bicycle that he decides to attempt to steal someone else’s bicycle. When Antonio does so, he is immediately stopped by a group of people. Instead of being arrested, the group simply chastises Antonio regarding how bad a father figure he is displaying. This whole time Bruno is forced to watch not only his father attempt to steal a bike but also be made into a fool. While the movie ends shortly after this scene, undoubtedly, this will change how Bruno sees his father as he acts very immorally by resorting to stealing. Overall, the film depicts how relationships can decay if one prioritizes economic or material gains over their loved ones.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie Bicycle Thieves, the roles of Antonio and Bruno in their father and son relationship was essentially reversed as the movie progressed, where Bruno became the responsible one taking care of his father. In the beginning, Antonio got a new job and was the “man” of the family. Bruno looked up to him as he was the responsible father in the family. Everyday he would bring Bruno to the gas station and head to work. The turning point occurs when the bicycle gets stolen, and Antonio begins to lose his rational thinking as he stresses about losing his job. Bruno on the other hand, was rather calm and obedient to his father. Being mature enough to realize the grave situation that his dad is in, he does not cause any trouble that a kid his age would and he helps his dad to find the bicycle. Through many POV and tracking shots, you can see that Bruno was following his dad around since he was worried about Antonio. In the scene where Antonio is surrounded by a group of people telling him to leave, Bruno was able to keep his cool and keep an eye on his father to make sure he isn’t in any sort of trouble. Bruno is able to be by his dad’s side to comfort him. His dad, however, becomes more immature and even forgets about Bruno on multiple occasions. Towards the end of the movie, Antonio decides to be an extremely irresponsible model for his son and steal another bike. Embarrassingly, he was caught and it was Bruno who got him out of trouble and brought him back to a rational person. Bruno picked up the hat that his dad dropped, chased after his dad when he was caught, and essentially convinced the bike owner to let his dad go. Bruno was clearly picking up after his dad and was acting like the father figure while Antonio continuously caused trouble like an immature kid. This reverse role of father and son shows that every family starts out with a father taking care of his kids and at some point when the father grows old or the kids grow up, the kids will have to take care of their father. Although many kids never think about the reversing roles, it is true that one day our parents will need our help and we should learn to grow up and take responsibility for the people that once took responsibility for us.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1949 film, Bicycle Thieves, the concept that relationships can deteriorate over time when they are cast aside by a thirst for money and status is ever present. The film follows Antonio, an Italian dad, and his son Bruno. Antonio's bicycle gets stolen while he is working and that event makes him unable to perform his duties correctly. As a result, he and his son set out to find the bike thief. While Antonio is attempting to make ends meet in order to maintain his family, he is entirely concerned with finances and neglects his family. Antonio neglects Bruno specifically in a number of ways throughout the film. For instance, Antonio often leaves Bruno in public on his own while he selfishly goes out to look for his bicycle alone. Continuing on the theme of leaving Bruno in public danger, Antonio leaves Bruno behind him and unsupervised in his escaped, allowing Bruno to almost get hit by some cars. Antonio’s tunnel vision for finding his bicycle makes him forget that he is a father with responsibilities and duties he has to fulfill for his son to be safe. Another scene where Antonio’s growing neglect for Bruno shows occurs when he fails in turning the bicycle thief into the police. Antonio walks away from the conflict in great shame at his own failure while completely disregarding the whereabouts of Bruno. Antonio’s constant neglect and forgetfulness challenges the trust and safety that the two once had previously in their relationship as father and son. Throughout the film, trust and safety, are not the only aspects of a father-son relationship that decline. When Bruno is struck by his father in the heat of an argument, he realizes that the once passionate, centered, and honorable father he once had is gone in that moment. Antonio who was once a hero and a role model to his son Bruno, becomes a perpetrator and someone who uses childish acts to get a point across. In this instance, the roles of maturity also switch. Bruno remains a level-headed and logical human being, while Antonio increasingly becomes the rasher out of the two. This films just goes to show that when possessions or economics are put above the wellbeing of a functioning family, certain sides’ rational gets clouded by the possibility of more monetary gain, thus putting themselves and their desired items over that of their family.
ReplyDeleteThe roles of father and son are reversed in Bicycle Thieves, and it is all due to Antonio's increasing desperation to provide for his family. Sometimes the stress associated with having a family depend on you, especially in hard-times, makes it easy to lose sight of what is right and what is wrong; becoming so preoccupied in providing for your family and you family's future, that you forget your family's importance in the present – this is precisely what happens to Antonio in the film.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of the film, after Antonio finds a job, we see he is looked up to by his son Bruno. We can see Bruno’s admiration through the enthusiasm to help his father clean up his bike for his job of posting flyers (ironically for a Hollywood film), but also his dependence on him when Antonio drops him off at his own job.
When Antonio loses his bike, he is in a sense jobless again, as he cannot provide for his family without that bike. Incidentally, Bruno becomes the breadwinner for the family at his gas station job, just as he is before Antonio gets his job. We later see Bruno being dragged along with Antonio the next day in the pursuit of finding Antonio’s bike. Later in the film, Antonio spots the thief and chases after him, neglecting Bruno. Bruno soon follows, but is almost run over by a car. This is the first incident in the movie where Bruno is put in danger by his father. Later on, Antonio chases after the man who spoke to the bicycle thief, again not looking after Bruno as he tries to catch up. Antonio later hits Bruno for an innocent comment, and Bruno is upset with him. Yet, his father brushes his act off as he sees this bicycle as the most important focus. Bruno begins to question his father’s judgment as the situation starts to escalate.
Finally, when Antonio seems to have lost all hope, he becomes exactly what he’s despised throughout the whole film - a bicycle thief. Antonio gets so caught up in his pursuit of providing a better life for his family that he forgets he needs to not only provide for them but also protect them and set a good example for Bruno to follow. When Antonio loses sight of what it is to be a parent, Bruno is left to figure that out for himself: when Antonio is caught and let go for his crime, it is Bruno who comforts him. Bruno becomes a father-like figure for his own father when Antonio fails to be one himself.