The Bicycle Thief

The Bicycle Thief starts by showing the poverty and the need for jobs. A large group of men who are out of work are standing around a man who is giving certain men jobs that they can do. However, the men tell him that they would be willing to do anything to get work. Antonio Ricci is the person who gets a job, hanging posters around the city. This requires a bicycle that he says he can get. It turns out that he had just sold his bicycle to get enough food to feed his family. They are living in poverty and are doing everything they can just to get enough food because Antonio is not working. Antonio’s wife goes around the house and takes all the sheets off the beds and they sell those to get money to buy another bike. The movie shows how many people are trying to sell whatever they own to get what money they can. There are huge piles of sheets and there are rows of bikes. Antonio gets the bike and therefore gets a job. However, almost immediately after starting to hang posters he has his bike stolen. Antonio’s life and work depended on a bicycle. Once it is stolen he can no longer work. They spend most of the movie trying to find the bicycle. He goes to the police, but they do not do much to help him, they just say that if he finds it himself they will have proof that it was stolen. Antonio does not seem to know how to deal with the loss of his bike and job. He knows that this will keep him in poverty. At one point he says, “You live and suffer to hell with it.” He seems that eventually he doesn’t care at all and takes his son to an expensive restaurant. However, while sitting there he again realizes how much he needs this job. Not many people try too hard to help Antonio. Throughout the movie it seems that people are doing whatever they can to get just enough.
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The father and son fail to find the bike and Antonio feels completely helpless. He tries to send his son home ahead of him and then goes to steal a bike. He sees no other way to survive than to steal another person’s bike, but he gets caught. The man who owns the bike seems to see this man’s trouble and doesn’t take him to jail. The end of the movie shows just how hard it is to get out of the poverty. Antonio and his son walk home with no bike and the son looks at the father as if to say not only “I am disappointed in you”, but also this act makes the son realize that they do not have a way out and looks at his father as if to say “What do we do now.” What do we do know? It is probably a question people who are in poverty ask sometimes. Many people could have helped Antonio get a bike, but they do not. People who see this movie should want to help those who are in poverty and just need a bike.