Logline: A frustrated father slaps his son and attempts reconciliation.
- The son follows closely behind and right by his father’s side as they exit the church.
- Camera cuts to the river when the father notices it. Camera is still on the river when the son asks “why’d you let him go for his lunch?” — tying together the question inciting the slap with the river, which will prompt the father to reconcile, and with lunch, the means with which the father will reconcile.
- Father immediately regrets slap.
- But he gets angry rather than apologetic as his son walks away and hides behind a tree.
- The physical distance between them is established from the father’s point of view before the exchange of medium shots as the son expresses his hurt and asks why, and the father blames the son and demands he come along, which he does reluctantly (unlike before).
- The son appears to catch up and we get more medium shots framing them each equally — a visual resolution? — as he threatens to “tell mama” and the father says “we will settle this at home.”
- But the next shot shows that the son in fact is still maintaining quite a distance from his father (camera still from the father’s perspective) — the son’s forgiveness was tentative and is now withdrawn.
- The father walks out of frame before the son, camera doesn’t cut to the river until the son walks out of frame.
- Father runs to the river alone in the frame.
- Then the son stands alone in an extreme long followed by a medium, the camera no longer phsyically from the father’s perspective (or is it projecting what’s actually on his mind?).
- When the father hears the commotion, he thinks of his son, and shouts his name.
- First he must cross under a bridge, where, the light blocked, he becomes a silhouette.
- This side of the bridge is busy, full of people and danger as they try to save the drowning boy — a stark contrast to the solitude on the other side.
- Bruno appears at the top of some stairs, and the father runs — he must ascend this obstacle — to reach him.
- The camera cuts away from the stairs before he reaches the top, and now it’s back at the wall where he first left Bruno. The wall vertically halves the frame, obscuring the father who’s still running up the stairs, Bruno still visually alone. Bruno, not waiting for him, stands up and begins walking, and only after that does the father cross the top of the stairs out past the wall and reappear.
- The father is now concerned for his son, urging him to put on his jacket, staying close, touching his shoulder.
- Now they walk along with the trees between them, until the son crosses over to his father’s side, which he does because a wheelbarrow is in his way. He could have swerved back to his side, but he isn’t angry enough. All he needed was a slight nudge from the world (not his father), although he’s still hurt.
- The truck of happy boys celebrating a soccer tea passes by, the father looks from the truck to his son, asks if Modena is a good team, the son shakes his head, unphased.
- Asks his son if he’s hungry, he nods, the father checks his wallet, asks if he wants a pizza. The son, happy now, says yes.
- They enter a bustling restaurant which apparently doesn’t serve pizza. They may not get what they want, but they can make do. Both the son and the father keep checking out this table of a wealthier family, more properly dressed, with more proper manners, with more food.
These last few My First Goose posts reminded me so much of scriptwriting, I am glad we connect loglines to "Hollywood versions". The "pulses" are also what we call a beat sheet. The moments, turns, conflicts, forward progression broken up by pages of a script. It's making me visualize the story on the screen. I don't want to say it would be a difficult story for screen but it definitely would be work visualizing the "meaning" to screen.
I would like to point out that the translation of Bicycle Thief to English takes away meaning. As it is Bicycle Thieves in Italian. "The original Italian title is Ladri di biciclette. It literally translates into English as "thieves of bicycles"; both ladri and biciclette are plural." (wiki)
Just to note (as I recently joined and am catching up) that in the British edition the pagination of A Swim in a Pond is slightly different, and the passage is at pp. 59–60.
Logline: A despairing father makes amends for slapping his young son by indulging them both the expense of a restaurant lunch.
A lot of TICHN going on when I watch just a few minutes of this film. Personally, I really need to build up my courage to watch Bicycle Thieves. I mean, I have seen it twice on the big screen, and about five times as a dvd. I always find holding myself from shouting at the screen, "Antonio, do not leave your bicycle." The consequences ... The first time I watched this film, many years ago, when my wife, our (then) very young daughter, and I were living with my wife's parents and my wife's Nonna, my father in law, Pasquale, who is exactly six months older than Enzo Staiola (Bruno), kept jumping up and pointing to the screen, excitedly, without vehemence or bitterness, and would call out, "That, that, that's exactly what it was like!" He also had to watch the movie again and again.
The things I notice, they've left a chapel, privately owned, with a soup kitchen, the old nobility seeking to do what they always did - make some kind of "amends" - and, yet, note how they treat everyone. So, Antonio has been perplexed, on the one hand he's seeking justice, seeking his bicycle, so that he may feed his family, he spies an accomplice, goes after him, is thwarted, and is treated as something 'lesser'. That's the prelude.
Note, how Bruno speaks to his father. It's like they're equals, no hierarchy between them, usually, even in this tough time, that may be how it works in this family. However, this is on ordinary day, Antonio is immensely under pressure and has been despairing for so long - note in the first pulse of the film, where Antonio is found, he's not amongst those clamouring for work, someone has to run and get him, he's different in his way - any way, the slap, for this family, is no ordinary act. However, note, Bruno doesn't run away, he separates himself from his father, who is leading whom, here? They walk parallel to one another. They come to a place where many roads meet. Where is Antonio to go? He chooses the river, instead. Telling his son to wait by a bridge, Antonio descends the river bank. What do I notice? The embankment is sandy, a little unpredictable, he's descending, the act is borderline useless, a futile act. He hears a cry.
Now, it becomes the "Boy Drowning-pulse". He's just slapped his son, the boy has just been in tears, his son sounds like his father-in-law (also known as a constant accusation of never ever measuring up), his son keeps his distance from him, maybe, in the mind of the father, the son has lost all respect for him. The cries get Antonio into action, runs toward the underside of the bridge, which, the way it is filmed, artfully makes people into shadows, the tumult is sucking people to it like liquid down a funnel; cut to the embankment, where we can see, before Antonio might do, that the boy can't be Bruno, we see, an almost sense of relief, then concern, then we see, from I guess Antonio's point of view, Bruno at the top of the stairs that lead to the bridge. Note, the bridge's small column - an 'heroic' bas relief, possibly commemorating World War I (judging from the uniforms cut into marble or granite). Note, also the young men in uniforms, there's a difference here, and I'm not sure that they are, mostly, supposed to represent Americans, or, indeed, 'post-war humiliation', so much as pointing out that what little money the state has is going into an army and or a police force. I suspect that they are largely conscripts, they are, however, getting fed every day, getting paid a little, whereas, Antonio is too old, married, has a family, and that's the dilemma, before the Marshall Plan came into effect, you were either in luck or you weren't and if you weren't your circumstances narrowed: Sorry for the digression.
The two reunite but are yet to reconcile, they walk, the next cut may imply some significant time having gone by, because, now, they are in the city itself, an older part, maybe that's Trastevere on the other side, there's a steam roller that's parked, some picks and shovels, again, these are markers of time going by - it's lunch time. The two young lovers, maybe, strolling, the man, being in uniform, romance goes on, but these two are starving. The soccer fans in the army truck, all uniformed - anything in this world can happen - however, in 1948, American soldiers getting excited about a soccer team is about as likely as American soldiers getting excited about a cricket match any time, ever, excepting during the War of Independence. Those young men, are Italian conscripts/recruits, either for the army or the police. Also, what else do I notice? Modena, is in the north of Italy. It is famous for a University that goes back, way back, but, mainly, I would have to say, for its sweet balsamic vinegar, its cuisine, its close proximity to Parma, where Prosciutto and Parmesan cheese originate from. Every time I see that sign, I hope my father in law will reverse burglar-like, come into my house and leave a half kilo of Prosciutto in my fridge (which he does, often), so imagine what's playing on Antonio's mind. Yet, he asks Bruno if he, Bruno, thinks Modena is going to win. It's a nice way to make peace - this is not a team either of them, from Rome, would care for, possibly. Asks Bruno if he's hungry? Then Antonio checks his money, then he decides, which is one of those, 'life is brief' moments that often come with a purchase or indulgence done under a kind of despair. Asks if Bruno would like pizza.
Note, Antonio's expression as both he and Bruno enter the restaurant. Antonio cannot go back, he's making amends with Bruno, he's hungry, his pride has become the world's punching bag, yet the restaurant is patronised by people who have managed to stay middle class, to those people, there is little personal cost in eating at this restaurant and they can pretty much eat what they want. It's not a pizzeria, which probably has a connotation implicit, it's a restaurant, but, no matter, there's the contrast between Bruno and the boy in his 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' outfit, which decides shows both Antonio and Bruno what kind of dish they might have - Mozzarella and bread ... and a carafe of wine... a kind of dream of how life could be - getting drunk, eating dessert - for Antonio ... but, it's great that reality very quickly returns for Antonio, and it leads to him getting Bruno to tally all the things the job would be able to provide, which narrows it all down to what Antonio will shortly attempt. However, Antonio's too humane, too imprecise, has too much of a conscience to be a thief. Antonio was also the name of my father-in-law's father, who, from any conversation my father-in-law has had about him, sounds similar to this movie's Antonio; that kind of want and hunger is why my father-in-law's family migrated to Sydney, Australia or Secaucus, New Jersey, United States of America. Maybe that's why the movie resonated with Pasquale that time he needed to watch it three times in a row, one night, back in 2007.
Logline: A poor father hits his small son across the face, realizes the error of his ways, they make up.
At first I was scared I wouldn't be able to take watching this movie because it would be too sad, but there's just so much payoff in it, which makes it feel less bleak. Also, the son is cast perfectly--adorable child and somber little man at the same time.
I love this movie. The son is like the father’s guardian angel. The son is not actually “advising”him, but, rather, he is at his father’s side (the son, takes in all of the ups and downs, to put it simply here, of the search for the bicycle) as his father works through this burden, this pressure, his journey to support his family. Why did the movie make me feel this way? I am going to watch it again, and make notes in places that answer this question. Thank you for the assignment; it will be a pleasure.
Very helpful to read the posts after watching the scene. Very helpful posts about the higher/lower positions and moral authority and light/shade and the father transgressing in his actions and the forgiveness for human frailty and it is the son who extends forgiveness to the father . From this I thought (in a rather jumbled way between father and son ) that the religious imagery particularly the crucifixion is referenced in the church but also perhaps the body being taken from the river (as one person says by boys in loin cloths). In the crucifixion Jesus in despair asks why his father has forsaken him and this is usually thought of as his 'human ' nature , he had frailties as he was a man and not only God. In the Christian teaching as far as I understand it is forgiveness for human frailties (and asking for and accepting such forgiveness ) which is important and so difficult and in a way allows for a state of communion - which maybe gets closer to other religious traditions. Is that right ? Anyway the scenes seem to reference this Christian trail of faith ( I didn't know fides meant good faith.) Thanks for the club and the all postings, a very enjoyable and creative process in itself.
I've watched through the scene slices suggested a few times and have done some groundwork (https://georgesaunders.substack.com/p/my-first-goose-4/comment/5600842) to help me look more closely at what choices the auteur was making as he shot these scenes from the 'The Bicycle Thieves.
The thing is that what's drawn my attention, so far, is less the detail and much more 'impressions' made upon by noticing, for example
> the fact that while there are words spoken (aloud on screen in Italian or quietly in English subtitles) dialogue is present only in a minority of frames. The story being told via the medium of cinema is very different to the telling of the same story on the pages of a book.
> the fast physical pace of the action in the frames which follow the rushing of father and son as they step to and through the side door of the church and chase in haste after the man who has given them the slip: its the frenzied format of a comedic Keystone Cops pursuit.
> the abrupt pauses in the action, in panicking fear of tragedy, when father slaps son across the face and when father fears that his son maybe drowning . . . poignant pauses but only pauses the story presses on at pace.
> the fact that even with the two step indoors and sat on two chairs at a cafe-restaurant table the story is continued not through running but through talking.
> constant counterpointing of bright sunlight with deep shadow creating a 'noir' feel, a blurring of who and what is 'right' and of who and what is 'wrong'.
> the sense that as viewer I've been invited into the story, a non-participant observer sat invisibly to the right (or could just as likely be left) hand side of the Director's Chair as he autuerially composes and captures active drafts (oops sorry, I guess I mean action shots) of the sub-scenes to be reviewed, cut and spliced in the editing process form which the 'finished film' will arise, story told. I can't wait to settle down to take the full trip back to that place in postwar Italy where The Bicycle Thief nicked Antonio's Fides Bike . . . one small theft, so many consequentials. Mustn't forget to bring along the popcorn.
One lasting impression that I'll be taking away from this exercise is going, I think, to be just how similar and yet how different the processes of writing a short fiction and filming a short fiction are.
Another thing that watching the extract from The Bicycle Thief brought to the forefront of my mind is the very different way that the Director as auteur has to be explicitly mindful of time in ways that the Writer as author does not.
George, in reference to the adaptation of his story 'Sea Oak' has shared something of his experience of working - as screen play writer - on the making of a movie. He has also opened window to share some insights into how his story 'The Falls' came to be. In the tone meetings run by the Director of 'Sea Oak' I'm sure that whatever else was discussed matters of time were ever present. In the editorial conversations he, may have, had with the Fiction Editor at The New Yorker considerations of time were, I suggest, less central than how 'many words', 'what column space placed where in the magazine', 'to run in a single edition or be spread across two' type questions.
Both 'The Bicycle Thief' and 'The Falls' fit with George's definition of a story as a linear temporal phenomenon but, as I see it, the crucial difference between them is that whereas those who watch the film will - normally - follow it continuously from start to finish carried along at a common pace whereas the pace at which the short story will be read is much more variable. A phone going off in a cinema is unwelcome, a phone going off when reading a story is - normally - no more than minor irritation if that.
Thanks for your response to my post, I hope you find mention of this further 'temporal' impression welcome (for being interesting) rather than irritating (for some lack of pith) and I will look forward to clicking open the two URLs you kindly signposted.
So interesting to read George's notes re: Bicycle Thieves in his Swimpages pdf and then go back to see what he saw within this film segment and perhaps see other things as well. He drew my attention to the happy soccer fans and the loving couple, but in my initial viewing, I only noticed them as cheering soldiers and the male partner of the loving couple as yet another soldier. Soldiers are at the river bank helping the drowning boy and at the base of the bridge where we are relieved to see Bruno waiting for his father. Not surprisingly, they pepper many more scenes throughout the movie. They were a constant reminder to me of the war which has laid waste to Italy, creating the post-war poverty and desperation. I don't know uniforms from uniforms but it seemed like these would be American soldiers? and if so, the American presence felt like another potential source of humiliation for these post-war Italians.
A young son watches his father as he attempts to regain his trust in humanity, God, and himself. Trust, faith, and religious belief...this is the meaning of "fides" in Italian. 'Fides' is the make of the bicycle, but it has been stolen and then (most likely) deconstructed.
They pursue the deconstructed pieces of the bicycle and there are wheels and circular shapes in many scenes (a symbol of primitive technology). The wheel serves also as a symbol of time, invoking generational trauma: the desperation and anger exhibited by the father. We feel how he lacks what he needs and this scarcity is so painfully juxtaposed with excessive supply ~ the bicycles (trust in humanity and God) that remain just outside of one's ability to reach them.
The boy is fully on his father's side, except for the moments after his father strikes him, and until his father makes amends to ease his own guilty conscience. The son becomes the authority figure briefly here and again when his father thinks he may have drowned, evoking a single-focused moment of clarity for the father.
However, the vagaries of a working-man's moral duties in an unjust society swoop in again, prompting the father's immoral choice to steal. The boy empathizes (when - at the end - he takes his father's hand). The boy understands that his father is motivated by the suffering he has felt at the hands of others and trusts in his father's unselfish bottom line: he needs to try to provide for his family, just like everyone else does (by hook-or-by-crook).
Hope & Despair in Post-War Italy. Grateful to watch this film again while noticing more elements in the storyline. Antonio's opportunity to provide for his family is swiftly lost during his first day on the job when a band of thieves make off with his bicycle. The brand name of the bike is Fides meaning faith, trust, fidelity. We think of the phrase bona fides -- meaning good faith, trustworthy. Has Antonio lost his faith, trust in himself, the socio-economic resources in post-war Italy? In the clip of Antonio and his son Bruno on the bridge, a truckload of soccer fans go by. Antonio says, "You live and suffer. To hell with it," when deciding to take Bruno for a meal with money they cannot afford to waste. At the restaurant, a band is playing while Antonio seems hopeful if just for the moment when he says to Bruno, "There's a cure for everything except death." Has Antonio resolved to just get on with things in hopes their luck will turn around? The glancing exchanges between Bruno and the wealthy boy sitting with his family at the next table is beautiful. As Bruno takes bites of the fried mozzarella, pausing to listen to his father he calculates the amount of money needed for a family to live that well. Both he and we the viewers are to understand the stark differences among those living in Rome at the end of WWII. Just enough material is presented in the film to narrow the choices for Antonio who will have to reconsider what makes a thief?
Logline: During the hunt for the solen bicycle, the father vents his anger on his son as his ego’s gets bruised. To reconcile with his son, he brings him to a restaurant to have a meal that they can barely afford.
Scene analysis: Before the slap, son was tailing behind his father, looking up at him. But after the slap, he distanced himself and walked up to the grass and hid behind a tree. Due to the distance apart and a wide lens is used, it gives the impression that the son is no longer looking up to his father, and they are on equal level now. The son did not forgive his father even when he came to look for him, as the son brushed off his father’s hand when he offered to help him to put on his coat. The walk along the river is another significant scene. At the start of the scene, the father occupied the left side of the screen and he walked under a shadowed path, while the son walked in the path that showed him walked in and out between shadow and sunlight. It gives the impression that son is contemplating if he should forgive his father.
Logline; Father risks losing his son in his desperation to provide for his family.
Choreography: they walk side by side until the father slaps his son. They walk together but with a large physical distance. The father goes one way frame left. The boy remains alone frame right. Fearing his son could be the boy that's drowning he turns back. He finds his son and they continue on together walking side by side once again. Together - apart - together again.
TICHN. The son puts both hands in his pockets when returning towards his father for the first time after the slap. His freedom of movement constricted. The son stands by a marble edifice alone whilst his father scrambles down a rough overgrown bank of the river. His father stepping over precarious ground whilst his son remains on solid ground. The son has removed his jacket. Part of me feels this is done authorially in order to create the moment where the father - now redeemed by worrying for the safety of his son - can tell him to put it on thus reaffirming his parental authority but also showing he cares he doesn't catch a cold.
Logline: A frustrated father slaps his son and attempts reconciliation.
- The son follows closely behind and right by his father’s side as they exit the church.
- Camera cuts to the river when the father notices it. Camera is still on the river when the son asks “why’d you let him go for his lunch?” — tying together the question inciting the slap with the river, which will prompt the father to reconcile, and with lunch, the means with which the father will reconcile.
- Father immediately regrets slap.
- But he gets angry rather than apologetic as his son walks away and hides behind a tree.
- The physical distance between them is established from the father’s point of view before the exchange of medium shots as the son expresses his hurt and asks why, and the father blames the son and demands he come along, which he does reluctantly (unlike before).
- The son appears to catch up and we get more medium shots framing them each equally — a visual resolution? — as he threatens to “tell mama” and the father says “we will settle this at home.”
- But the next shot shows that the son in fact is still maintaining quite a distance from his father (camera still from the father’s perspective) — the son’s forgiveness was tentative and is now withdrawn.
- The father walks out of frame before the son, camera doesn’t cut to the river until the son walks out of frame.
- Father runs to the river alone in the frame.
- Then the son stands alone in an extreme long followed by a medium, the camera no longer phsyically from the father’s perspective (or is it projecting what’s actually on his mind?).
- When the father hears the commotion, he thinks of his son, and shouts his name.
- First he must cross under a bridge, where, the light blocked, he becomes a silhouette.
- This side of the bridge is busy, full of people and danger as they try to save the drowning boy — a stark contrast to the solitude on the other side.
- Bruno appears at the top of some stairs, and the father runs — he must ascend this obstacle — to reach him.
- The camera cuts away from the stairs before he reaches the top, and now it’s back at the wall where he first left Bruno. The wall vertically halves the frame, obscuring the father who’s still running up the stairs, Bruno still visually alone. Bruno, not waiting for him, stands up and begins walking, and only after that does the father cross the top of the stairs out past the wall and reappear.
- The father is now concerned for his son, urging him to put on his jacket, staying close, touching his shoulder.
- Now they walk along with the trees between them, until the son crosses over to his father’s side, which he does because a wheelbarrow is in his way. He could have swerved back to his side, but he isn’t angry enough. All he needed was a slight nudge from the world (not his father), although he’s still hurt.
- The truck of happy boys celebrating a soccer tea passes by, the father looks from the truck to his son, asks if Modena is a good team, the son shakes his head, unphased.
- Asks his son if he’s hungry, he nods, the father checks his wallet, asks if he wants a pizza. The son, happy now, says yes.
- They enter a bustling restaurant which apparently doesn’t serve pizza. They may not get what they want, but they can make do. Both the son and the father keep checking out this table of a wealthier family, more properly dressed, with more proper manners, with more food.
These last few My First Goose posts reminded me so much of scriptwriting, I am glad we connect loglines to "Hollywood versions". The "pulses" are also what we call a beat sheet. The moments, turns, conflicts, forward progression broken up by pages of a script. It's making me visualize the story on the screen. I don't want to say it would be a difficult story for screen but it definitely would be work visualizing the "meaning" to screen.
I would like to point out that the translation of Bicycle Thief to English takes away meaning. As it is Bicycle Thieves in Italian. "The original Italian title is Ladri di biciclette. It literally translates into English as "thieves of bicycles"; both ladri and biciclette are plural." (wiki)
Just to note (as I recently joined and am catching up) that in the British edition the pagination of A Swim in a Pond is slightly different, and the passage is at pp. 59–60.
Logline: A despairing father makes amends for slapping his young son by indulging them both the expense of a restaurant lunch.
A lot of TICHN going on when I watch just a few minutes of this film. Personally, I really need to build up my courage to watch Bicycle Thieves. I mean, I have seen it twice on the big screen, and about five times as a dvd. I always find holding myself from shouting at the screen, "Antonio, do not leave your bicycle." The consequences ... The first time I watched this film, many years ago, when my wife, our (then) very young daughter, and I were living with my wife's parents and my wife's Nonna, my father in law, Pasquale, who is exactly six months older than Enzo Staiola (Bruno), kept jumping up and pointing to the screen, excitedly, without vehemence or bitterness, and would call out, "That, that, that's exactly what it was like!" He also had to watch the movie again and again.
The things I notice, they've left a chapel, privately owned, with a soup kitchen, the old nobility seeking to do what they always did - make some kind of "amends" - and, yet, note how they treat everyone. So, Antonio has been perplexed, on the one hand he's seeking justice, seeking his bicycle, so that he may feed his family, he spies an accomplice, goes after him, is thwarted, and is treated as something 'lesser'. That's the prelude.
Note, how Bruno speaks to his father. It's like they're equals, no hierarchy between them, usually, even in this tough time, that may be how it works in this family. However, this is on ordinary day, Antonio is immensely under pressure and has been despairing for so long - note in the first pulse of the film, where Antonio is found, he's not amongst those clamouring for work, someone has to run and get him, he's different in his way - any way, the slap, for this family, is no ordinary act. However, note, Bruno doesn't run away, he separates himself from his father, who is leading whom, here? They walk parallel to one another. They come to a place where many roads meet. Where is Antonio to go? He chooses the river, instead. Telling his son to wait by a bridge, Antonio descends the river bank. What do I notice? The embankment is sandy, a little unpredictable, he's descending, the act is borderline useless, a futile act. He hears a cry.
Now, it becomes the "Boy Drowning-pulse". He's just slapped his son, the boy has just been in tears, his son sounds like his father-in-law (also known as a constant accusation of never ever measuring up), his son keeps his distance from him, maybe, in the mind of the father, the son has lost all respect for him. The cries get Antonio into action, runs toward the underside of the bridge, which, the way it is filmed, artfully makes people into shadows, the tumult is sucking people to it like liquid down a funnel; cut to the embankment, where we can see, before Antonio might do, that the boy can't be Bruno, we see, an almost sense of relief, then concern, then we see, from I guess Antonio's point of view, Bruno at the top of the stairs that lead to the bridge. Note, the bridge's small column - an 'heroic' bas relief, possibly commemorating World War I (judging from the uniforms cut into marble or granite). Note, also the young men in uniforms, there's a difference here, and I'm not sure that they are, mostly, supposed to represent Americans, or, indeed, 'post-war humiliation', so much as pointing out that what little money the state has is going into an army and or a police force. I suspect that they are largely conscripts, they are, however, getting fed every day, getting paid a little, whereas, Antonio is too old, married, has a family, and that's the dilemma, before the Marshall Plan came into effect, you were either in luck or you weren't and if you weren't your circumstances narrowed: Sorry for the digression.
The two reunite but are yet to reconcile, they walk, the next cut may imply some significant time having gone by, because, now, they are in the city itself, an older part, maybe that's Trastevere on the other side, there's a steam roller that's parked, some picks and shovels, again, these are markers of time going by - it's lunch time. The two young lovers, maybe, strolling, the man, being in uniform, romance goes on, but these two are starving. The soccer fans in the army truck, all uniformed - anything in this world can happen - however, in 1948, American soldiers getting excited about a soccer team is about as likely as American soldiers getting excited about a cricket match any time, ever, excepting during the War of Independence. Those young men, are Italian conscripts/recruits, either for the army or the police. Also, what else do I notice? Modena, is in the north of Italy. It is famous for a University that goes back, way back, but, mainly, I would have to say, for its sweet balsamic vinegar, its cuisine, its close proximity to Parma, where Prosciutto and Parmesan cheese originate from. Every time I see that sign, I hope my father in law will reverse burglar-like, come into my house and leave a half kilo of Prosciutto in my fridge (which he does, often), so imagine what's playing on Antonio's mind. Yet, he asks Bruno if he, Bruno, thinks Modena is going to win. It's a nice way to make peace - this is not a team either of them, from Rome, would care for, possibly. Asks Bruno if he's hungry? Then Antonio checks his money, then he decides, which is one of those, 'life is brief' moments that often come with a purchase or indulgence done under a kind of despair. Asks if Bruno would like pizza.
Note, Antonio's expression as both he and Bruno enter the restaurant. Antonio cannot go back, he's making amends with Bruno, he's hungry, his pride has become the world's punching bag, yet the restaurant is patronised by people who have managed to stay middle class, to those people, there is little personal cost in eating at this restaurant and they can pretty much eat what they want. It's not a pizzeria, which probably has a connotation implicit, it's a restaurant, but, no matter, there's the contrast between Bruno and the boy in his 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' outfit, which decides shows both Antonio and Bruno what kind of dish they might have - Mozzarella and bread ... and a carafe of wine... a kind of dream of how life could be - getting drunk, eating dessert - for Antonio ... but, it's great that reality very quickly returns for Antonio, and it leads to him getting Bruno to tally all the things the job would be able to provide, which narrows it all down to what Antonio will shortly attempt. However, Antonio's too humane, too imprecise, has too much of a conscience to be a thief. Antonio was also the name of my father-in-law's father, who, from any conversation my father-in-law has had about him, sounds similar to this movie's Antonio; that kind of want and hunger is why my father-in-law's family migrated to Sydney, Australia or Secaucus, New Jersey, United States of America. Maybe that's why the movie resonated with Pasquale that time he needed to watch it three times in a row, one night, back in 2007.
Well, I'm kind of spent.
All the best,
Darryl Cooper
Ah, the Criterion Collection has some absolute gems
Logline: A poor father hits his small son across the face, realizes the error of his ways, they make up.
At first I was scared I wouldn't be able to take watching this movie because it would be too sad, but there's just so much payoff in it, which makes it feel less bleak. Also, the son is cast perfectly--adorable child and somber little man at the same time.
I love this movie. The son is like the father’s guardian angel. The son is not actually “advising”him, but, rather, he is at his father’s side (the son, takes in all of the ups and downs, to put it simply here, of the search for the bicycle) as his father works through this burden, this pressure, his journey to support his family. Why did the movie make me feel this way? I am going to watch it again, and make notes in places that answer this question. Thank you for the assignment; it will be a pleasure.
Very helpful to read the posts after watching the scene. Very helpful posts about the higher/lower positions and moral authority and light/shade and the father transgressing in his actions and the forgiveness for human frailty and it is the son who extends forgiveness to the father . From this I thought (in a rather jumbled way between father and son ) that the religious imagery particularly the crucifixion is referenced in the church but also perhaps the body being taken from the river (as one person says by boys in loin cloths). In the crucifixion Jesus in despair asks why his father has forsaken him and this is usually thought of as his 'human ' nature , he had frailties as he was a man and not only God. In the Christian teaching as far as I understand it is forgiveness for human frailties (and asking for and accepting such forgiveness ) which is important and so difficult and in a way allows for a state of communion - which maybe gets closer to other religious traditions. Is that right ? Anyway the scenes seem to reference this Christian trail of faith ( I didn't know fides meant good faith.) Thanks for the club and the all postings, a very enjoyable and creative process in itself.
“ Christmas is coming. The goose is getting fat;
Please put a penny in the old man’s hat.
If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do.
If you haven’t got a ha’penny, God bless you.”
(Absolutely, no reason why I just typed that other than the word “goose”….
I've watched through the scene slices suggested a few times and have done some groundwork (https://georgesaunders.substack.com/p/my-first-goose-4/comment/5600842) to help me look more closely at what choices the auteur was making as he shot these scenes from the 'The Bicycle Thieves.
The thing is that what's drawn my attention, so far, is less the detail and much more 'impressions' made upon by noticing, for example
> the fact that while there are words spoken (aloud on screen in Italian or quietly in English subtitles) dialogue is present only in a minority of frames. The story being told via the medium of cinema is very different to the telling of the same story on the pages of a book.
> the fast physical pace of the action in the frames which follow the rushing of father and son as they step to and through the side door of the church and chase in haste after the man who has given them the slip: its the frenzied format of a comedic Keystone Cops pursuit.
> the abrupt pauses in the action, in panicking fear of tragedy, when father slaps son across the face and when father fears that his son maybe drowning . . . poignant pauses but only pauses the story presses on at pace.
> the fact that even with the two step indoors and sat on two chairs at a cafe-restaurant table the story is continued not through running but through talking.
> constant counterpointing of bright sunlight with deep shadow creating a 'noir' feel, a blurring of who and what is 'right' and of who and what is 'wrong'.
> the sense that as viewer I've been invited into the story, a non-participant observer sat invisibly to the right (or could just as likely be left) hand side of the Director's Chair as he autuerially composes and captures active drafts (oops sorry, I guess I mean action shots) of the sub-scenes to be reviewed, cut and spliced in the editing process form which the 'finished film' will arise, story told. I can't wait to settle down to take the full trip back to that place in postwar Italy where The Bicycle Thief nicked Antonio's Fides Bike . . . one small theft, so many consequentials. Mustn't forget to bring along the popcorn.
One lasting impression that I'll be taking away from this exercise is going, I think, to be just how similar and yet how different the processes of writing a short fiction and filming a short fiction are.
Another thing that watching the extract from The Bicycle Thief brought to the forefront of my mind is the very different way that the Director as auteur has to be explicitly mindful of time in ways that the Writer as author does not.
George, in reference to the adaptation of his story 'Sea Oak' has shared something of his experience of working - as screen play writer - on the making of a movie. He has also opened window to share some insights into how his story 'The Falls' came to be. In the tone meetings run by the Director of 'Sea Oak' I'm sure that whatever else was discussed matters of time were ever present. In the editorial conversations he, may have, had with the Fiction Editor at The New Yorker considerations of time were, I suggest, less central than how 'many words', 'what column space placed where in the magazine', 'to run in a single edition or be spread across two' type questions.
Both 'The Bicycle Thief' and 'The Falls' fit with George's definition of a story as a linear temporal phenomenon but, as I see it, the crucial difference between them is that whereas those who watch the film will - normally - follow it continuously from start to finish carried along at a common pace whereas the pace at which the short story will be read is much more variable. A phone going off in a cinema is unwelcome, a phone going off when reading a story is - normally - no more than minor irritation if that.
Thanks for your response to my post, I hope you find mention of this further 'temporal' impression welcome (for being interesting) rather than irritating (for some lack of pith) and I will look forward to clicking open the two URLs you kindly signposted.
So interesting to read George's notes re: Bicycle Thieves in his Swimpages pdf and then go back to see what he saw within this film segment and perhaps see other things as well. He drew my attention to the happy soccer fans and the loving couple, but in my initial viewing, I only noticed them as cheering soldiers and the male partner of the loving couple as yet another soldier. Soldiers are at the river bank helping the drowning boy and at the base of the bridge where we are relieved to see Bruno waiting for his father. Not surprisingly, they pepper many more scenes throughout the movie. They were a constant reminder to me of the war which has laid waste to Italy, creating the post-war poverty and desperation. I don't know uniforms from uniforms but it seemed like these would be American soldiers? and if so, the American presence felt like another potential source of humiliation for these post-war Italians.
A young son watches his father as he attempts to regain his trust in humanity, God, and himself. Trust, faith, and religious belief...this is the meaning of "fides" in Italian. 'Fides' is the make of the bicycle, but it has been stolen and then (most likely) deconstructed.
They pursue the deconstructed pieces of the bicycle and there are wheels and circular shapes in many scenes (a symbol of primitive technology). The wheel serves also as a symbol of time, invoking generational trauma: the desperation and anger exhibited by the father. We feel how he lacks what he needs and this scarcity is so painfully juxtaposed with excessive supply ~ the bicycles (trust in humanity and God) that remain just outside of one's ability to reach them.
The boy is fully on his father's side, except for the moments after his father strikes him, and until his father makes amends to ease his own guilty conscience. The son becomes the authority figure briefly here and again when his father thinks he may have drowned, evoking a single-focused moment of clarity for the father.
However, the vagaries of a working-man's moral duties in an unjust society swoop in again, prompting the father's immoral choice to steal. The boy empathizes (when - at the end - he takes his father's hand). The boy understands that his father is motivated by the suffering he has felt at the hands of others and trusts in his father's unselfish bottom line: he needs to try to provide for his family, just like everyone else does (by hook-or-by-crook).
Distracted dad punishes loyal son and then fears he's lost him.
Hope & Despair in Post-War Italy. Grateful to watch this film again while noticing more elements in the storyline. Antonio's opportunity to provide for his family is swiftly lost during his first day on the job when a band of thieves make off with his bicycle. The brand name of the bike is Fides meaning faith, trust, fidelity. We think of the phrase bona fides -- meaning good faith, trustworthy. Has Antonio lost his faith, trust in himself, the socio-economic resources in post-war Italy? In the clip of Antonio and his son Bruno on the bridge, a truckload of soccer fans go by. Antonio says, "You live and suffer. To hell with it," when deciding to take Bruno for a meal with money they cannot afford to waste. At the restaurant, a band is playing while Antonio seems hopeful if just for the moment when he says to Bruno, "There's a cure for everything except death." Has Antonio resolved to just get on with things in hopes their luck will turn around? The glancing exchanges between Bruno and the wealthy boy sitting with his family at the next table is beautiful. As Bruno takes bites of the fried mozzarella, pausing to listen to his father he calculates the amount of money needed for a family to live that well. Both he and we the viewers are to understand the stark differences among those living in Rome at the end of WWII. Just enough material is presented in the film to narrow the choices for Antonio who will have to reconsider what makes a thief?
Logline: During the hunt for the solen bicycle, the father vents his anger on his son as his ego’s gets bruised. To reconcile with his son, he brings him to a restaurant to have a meal that they can barely afford.
Scene analysis: Before the slap, son was tailing behind his father, looking up at him. But after the slap, he distanced himself and walked up to the grass and hid behind a tree. Due to the distance apart and a wide lens is used, it gives the impression that the son is no longer looking up to his father, and they are on equal level now. The son did not forgive his father even when he came to look for him, as the son brushed off his father’s hand when he offered to help him to put on his coat. The walk along the river is another significant scene. At the start of the scene, the father occupied the left side of the screen and he walked under a shadowed path, while the son walked in the path that showed him walked in and out between shadow and sunlight. It gives the impression that son is contemplating if he should forgive his father.
Logline; Father risks losing his son in his desperation to provide for his family.
Choreography: they walk side by side until the father slaps his son. They walk together but with a large physical distance. The father goes one way frame left. The boy remains alone frame right. Fearing his son could be the boy that's drowning he turns back. He finds his son and they continue on together walking side by side once again. Together - apart - together again.
TICHN. The son puts both hands in his pockets when returning towards his father for the first time after the slap. His freedom of movement constricted. The son stands by a marble edifice alone whilst his father scrambles down a rough overgrown bank of the river. His father stepping over precarious ground whilst his son remains on solid ground. The son has removed his jacket. Part of me feels this is done authorially in order to create the moment where the father - now redeemed by worrying for the safety of his son - can tell him to put it on thus reaffirming his parental authority but also showing he cares he doesn't catch a cold.