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'The Bicycle Thief' is so well-entrenched as anofficial masterpiece that it is a little startling to visit it again after manyyears and realize that it is still alive and has strength and freshness.Givenan honorary Oscar in 1949, routinely voted one of the greatest films of alltime, revered as one of the foundation stones of Italian neorealism, it is asimple, powerful film about a man who needs a job.Thefilm, now being re-released in a new print to mark its 50s anniversay, wasdirected by Vittorio, who believed that everyone could play one roleperfectly: himself. It was written by, the writer associatedwith many of the great European directors of the 1940s through the 1970s.

Inhis journals, Zavattini writes about how he and De Sica visited a brothel to doresearch for the film-and later the rooms of the Wise Woman, a psychic, whoinspires one of the film's characters. What we gather from these entries isthat De Sica and his writer were finding inspiration close to the ground inthose days right after the war, when Italy was paralyzed by poverty. Thestory of 'The Bicycle Thief' is easily told. It stars LambertoMaggiorani, not a professional actor, as Ricci, a man who joins a hopelessqueue every morning looking for work.

One day there is a job-for a man with abicycle. 'I have a bicycle!'

Ricci cries out, but he does not, for ithas been pawned. His wife Maria strips the sheets from theirbed, and he is able to pawn them to redeem his bicycle; as he glances through awindow at the pawn shop, we see a man take the bundle of linen and climb up aladder to a towering wall of shelves stuffed with other people's sheets.Thebicycle allows Ricci to go to work as a poster-hanger, slapping paste on wallsto stick up cinema advertisements (a large portrait of providesan ironic contrast between the world of Hollywood and the everyday lives ofneorealism). Maria, meanwhile, goes to thank the Wise Woman, who predicted thatRicci would get a job. Ricci, waiting for her impatiently, finally leaves hisbicycle at the door while he climbs upstairs to see what's keeping her; De Sicais teasing us, since we expect the bike to be gone when Ricci returns, and it'sstill there.Then,of course, it is stolen, no doubt by another man who needs a job. Ricci and hissmall, plucky son Bruno search for the bicycle, but that's animpossible task in the wilderness of Rome, and the police are no help.

FinallyRicci gives up: 'You live and suffer,' he tells Bruno. 'To hellwith it!

You want a pizza?' In a scene of great cheer, they eat in arestaurant, Bruno even allowed to drink a little wine; the boy looks wistfullyat a family eating platters of pasta, and is told by his father, 'To eatlike that, you need a million lira a month at least.' Alittle later, to his astonishment, Ricci spots the bicycle thief, and pursueshim into a brothel. An ugly crowd gathers.

A cop arrives, but can do nothing,because there is no evidence and only Ricci as witness. And then, in the famousclosing sequence of the movie, Ricci is tempted to steal a bicycle himself,continuing the cycle of theft and poverty.Thisstory is so direct it plays more like a parable than a drama. At the time itwas released, it was seen as a Marxist fable (Zavattini was a member of theItalian communist party). Later, the leftist writer Joel Kanoff criticized theending as 'sublimely Chaplinesque but insufficiently sociallycritical.' David Thomson found the story too contrived, and wrote,'the more one sees 'Bicycle Thief,' the duller the man becomes and themore poetic and accomplished De Sica's urban photography seems.' True,Ricci is a character entirely driven by class and economic need.

Jagged alliance. There isn't alot else to him, although he comes alive in the pizzeria scene. True, the moviedoesn't make a point of contrasting his poverty with high-living millionaires(wealth is illustrated as the ability to buy a plate of spaghetti). But if thefilm is allowed to wait long enough-until the filmmakers are dead, untilneorealism is less an inspiration than a memory-'The Bicycle Thief'escapes from its critics and becomes, once again, a story. It is happiest thatway.Andits influence isn't entirely in the past. One of the 1999 Oscar nominees forbest foreign film is ',' from Iran, about a boy wholoses his sister's shoes.

In it there is a lovely passage where the fatherlifts his boy onto the crossbar of his bicycle and pedals to a richneighborhood, looking for work. The sequence resonates for anyone who has seen'The Bicycle Thief.' Such films stand outside time. A man loves hisfamily and wants to protect and support them. Society makes it difficult. Whocannot identify with that? VittorioDe Sica (1902-1974) was a handsome man, much in demand as an actor, whose firstfilms as a director were light comedies like the ones he often worked in.Perhaps the harsh reality of World War Two jarred the optimism needed for suchstories, and in 1942 he made 'The Children are Watching,' a film thatcame soon after Visconti's 'Ossessione.'

The Visconti film, based onJames M. Cain's hard-boiled novel The Postman Always Rings Twice is often namedas the first of the neorealist films, although even in silent days there werefilms that boldly looked at everyday life in an unvarnished way.DeSica and others often used real people instead of actors, and the effect, afterdecades of Hollywood gloss, was startling to audiences. Pauline Kael remembersgoing to see De Sica's first great film, 'Shoeshine,' in 1947, justafter a lovers' quarrel that had left her in a state of despair: 'I cameout of the theater, tears streaming, and overheard the petulant voice of acollege girl complaining to her boyfriend, 'Well I don't see what was sospecial about that movie.' I walked up the street, crying blindly, no longercertain whether my tears were for the tragedy on the screen, the hopelessness Ifelt for myself, or the alienation I felt from those who could not experiencethe radiance of 'Shoeshine.'

For if people cannot feel 'Shoeshine,' what can theyfeel?' Neorealism,as a term, means many things, but it often refers to films of working classlife, set in the culture of poverty, and with the implicit message that in abetter society wealth would be more evenly distributed.

'Shoeshine'told the story of two shoeshine boys sent to reform school forblack-marketeering; Kael's description of it could function as a definition ofthe hope behind neorealism: 'It is one of those rare works of art whichseem to emerge from the welter of human experience without smoothing away theraw edges, or losing what most movies lose-the sense of confusion and accidentin human affairs.' 'TheBicycle Thief,' De Sica's next film, was in the same tradition, and afterthe lighthearted 'Miracle in Milan' in 1951 he and Zavattini returnedto the earlier style with ',' in 1952, about an old man andhis dog, forced out onto the streets. Then, in the view of most critics, DeSica put his special gift as a director on hold for many years, turning outmore light comedies ('Marriage, Italian Style,' 'Yesterday,Today and Tomorrow'). The two important exceptions are 'TwoWomen' (1961), which won an Oscar for her portrait of ahomeless woman during the war, and '(1971), about an Italian Jewish family that tries to ignore the gatheringclouds of doom. Both screenplays were by Zavattini.'

TheBicycle Thief' had such an impact on its first release that when theBritish film magazine Sight & Sound held its first international poll of filmmakers and critics in 1952, it was voted the greatest film of all time. Thepoll is held every 10 years; by 1962, it was down to a tie for sixth, and thenit dropped off the list. Its 1999 re-release allows a new generation to see howsimple, direct and true it is-'what was so special about it.'