374 Bicycle Thieves

[dad1153]

Saw "The Bicycle Thieves" Sunday night on Criterion DVD after coming back from a theatrical showing of "Kick-Ass" (don't ask! ). The last five minutes of "The Bicycle Thieves" are some of the most heart-breaking and wrenching scenes I've ever seen in cinema (though De Sica's "Umberto D" made me cry more), the ultimate 'screw you' to Hollywood's 'happy ending' movie formula (which is driven home earlier with the Rita Hayworth posters). Enzo Staiola gives one heck of a genuine and convincing child performance; he and co-star Lamberto Maggiorani practically achieve co-star status as the movie unfolds. The close-ups of Bruno sell the desperation of the situation his father finds himself in, and the backdrop of post-WWII Italy opens the movie to welcomed (but unnecessary for its enjoyment) analysis of the socio-economical symbolism of the characters and story. Loved the scenes at the restaurant and when Antonio seeks the help of his singing friend to look for his stolen bike in the middle of a political meeting plotting a future that would take care of poor people like him (dreamy theory contrasted with then-pressing hardship reality) but the crowds keep pushing him out. Didn't even notice the man that gave Antonio his bicycle job was at that political meeting. Melodrama is certainly an easy way to describe this flick but the emotional pathos it achieves isn't earned with cheap manipulative tricks but the oldest trick in the cinema: keeping things simple and easy-enough to follow.

Much more humane and universal than what its title implies, "The Bicycle Thieves" is a universal father-son story that is unashamed of being what it is. Having grown in Central America I can see now the influence that De Sica's movies and the Italian neorealist movement in general had on Mexican cinema/TV (particularly the still wildly popular late 40's/early 50's Pedro Infante movies like "Pepe El Toro"), which were piped through Spanish-speaking Latin America for decades and shaped generations of movie/TV watchers. Haven't seen the documentaries (got the disc from the NYC Public library which didn't include the bonus disc) but it's hard to believe that it took until spine 374 to get this movie into the collection; it's one of those titles you assume has been Criterion since forever but just got added a few years back.

[domino harvey]

Passive Aggressive reference

[AtlantaFella]

Passive Aggressive reference

Thank you, that first photo is priceless. I may just post it to my Facebook wall and unfriend anyone who doesn't get it.

[hangman]

Passive Aggressive reference

Number 2 had me laughing hard. I suddenly feel like revisiting Bicycle Thief now.

[MichaelB]

Bicycle Thieves finally got corrected in the US when Criterion took it up a few years ago.

But I wonder when someone's going to have a go at tackling The 400 Blows? Or is that meaninglessly literal English rendition of a specific French idiom too indelible a part of film history?

(It reminds me of the French subtitle adorning the title of Jerzy Skolimowski's Moonlighting at its Cannes premiere - Au clair de la lune).

[ellipsis7]

Bicycle Thieves finally got corrected in the US when Criterion took it up a few years ago.

Even this is not a strictly correct translation of the Italian title LADRI DI BICICLETTE, which literally means THIEVES OF BICYCLES, i.e. 2 plurals encompassing the multiplicity of acts including the original robbery of the father's bike, and the later abortive attempt by the father to take a bike himself, and all the many other similar crimes in Rome at the same time... This reading of the title is also talked about in the BFI Classic BICYCLE THIEVES by Robert S. C. Gordon, which however reverts in its book title to the English friendly version which is easier to the eye and ear ...

[Perkins Cobb]

The absolute most idiotic is Pleasure Party as a translation of Chabrol's Une partie de plaisir.

[TMDaines]

Bicycle Thieves finally got corrected in the US when Criterion took it up a few years ago.

Even this is not a strictly correct translation of the Italian title LADRI DI BICICLETTE, which literally means THIEVES OF BICYCLES, i.e. 2 plurals encompassing the multiplicity of acts including the original robbery of the father's bike, and the later abortive attempt by the father to take a bike himself, and all the many other similar crimes in Rome at the same time... This reading of the title is also talked about in the BFI Classic BICYCLE THIEVES by Robert S. C. Gordon, which however reverts in its book title to the English friendly version which is easier to the eye and ear ...

That's partly true but also a little misunderstanding the Italian language. The only way of forming the possessive in Italian is possessed object di possesser. So in Italian a distinction between "Bicycle Thieves" and "Thieves of Bicycles" isn't really possible. Now really "Bicycle Thieves" isn't even a true possessive (as opposed to Bicycles' Thieves) but that's how we in English would express this relationship where one thing isn't really possessing the other. I think "Bicycle Thieves" is just as fine a title as "Thieves of Bicycles" in striking that balance in being true to the original but also sounding native in the target language.

[MichaelB]

I actually thought about discussing this linguistic conundrum in the booklet essay I wrote for Arrow Academy's Bicycle Thieves, but my Italian isn't good enough to speak with any great authority, and I didn't want to simply echo (or indeed plagiarise) Robert Gordon.

As you say, the challenge is to come up with something that's both an accurate translation of the original, and something that sounds idiomatically correct in English. I read a festival report from the early 1970s that referred to Bergman's Whisperings and Cries, which I assume is a literal translation of Viskningar och rop. This could just about work in English (as could Thieves of Bicycles), but it sounds clunky - like a translation, in fact.

Bicycle Thieves is arguably the best idiomatic English rendition of Ladri di biciclette because it admits the possibility that there might be more than one bicycle, while confirming for certain that there's more than one thief. And the latter is the really crucial point that the old US translation The Bicycle Thief completely misses - I think most people would take it as read that more than one thief would steal more than one bicycle.

[ellipsis7]

Absolutely right, TMD, re. the difference in construction of the Italian possessive to English... I'm picking this up at present in my own Italian studies...

[zedz]

Bicycle Thieves is arguably the best idiomatic English rendition of Ladri di biciclette because it admits the possibility that there might be more than one bicycle, while confirming for certain that there's more than one thief. And the latter is the really crucial point that the old US translation The Bicycle Thief completely misses - I think most people would take it as read that more than one thief would steal more than one bicycle.

Exactly. Does any native speaker understand from "Bicycle Thieves" that only one bicycle is stolen by multiple people? It's like talking about a union of truck drivers - do you really imagine that the thousands of members all share the same truck? "Bicycles' Thieves" is grotesquely unidiomatic.

Back on topic, I was very pleased to see MoC correct the mistranslation of the Pasolini title, since the original title is extremely pointed and significant. That pointed point was pointed out to me nearly a quarter of a century ago, and every time I've seen the mistake perpetuated since it's irked me.

[domino harvey]

Too Many Thieves, Not Enough Bicycles

[zedz]

Is that the Frank Tashlin remake?

[Der Spieler]

But I wonder when someone's going to have a go at tackling The 400 Blows? Or is that meaninglessly literal English rendition of a specific French idiom too indelible a part of film history?.

I'm happy to see someone bring this up. I'm French and I always found the English title totally insignificant.

[swo17]

You can get away with correcting the translation when it's only slight so that the revised title is still instantly recognizable to those only familiar with the incorrect one. If you changed The 400 Blows to something more accurate, like, I dunno, Breaking Bad: The Movie, this would lead to mass confusion and likely precipitate the end of the world.

[zedz]

And presumably you want to reach, at the very least, the people who desperately want to purchase on DVD / BluRay the film you are releasing. If you've got a release strategy that will tend to exclude that absolute core market, all the linguistic purity in the world won't prevent you from being an idiot.

[swo17]

See also what MoC did with The Flowers of St. Francis. They include a more accurate translation as a subtitle but avoid confusion by prominently displaying the untranslated title.

[knives]

Though in that case I think the translation is better as the subtitle for the original title is referring to a wholly different character which is unclear.

[MichaelB]

See also what MoC did with The Flowers of St. Francis. They include a more accurate translation as a subtitle but avoid confusion by prominently displaying the untranslated title.

Or Harakiri/Seppuku.

Believe it or not, in the 1990s I actually overheard someone with an American accent ask in a London video shop whether Bicycle Thieves was the sequel to The Bicycle Thief, so even something as comparatively minor as Criterion's correction could cause confusion. And I agree that The 400 Blows, though linguistically ludicrous, is probably too firmly established to change now - at least Bicycle Thieves was always known under that title in Britain, and appears under that title in things like the 1952 Sight & Sound poll, so it was always present as a recognised alternative.

Mind you, the real pain is coming up with a plausible English title for a film that doesn't officially have one. A case in point: I recently reviewed Grzegorz Królikiewicz's Wieczne pretensje for Sight & Sound, and found three different English titles (Endless Claims, Eternal Grievances, Permanent Objections), any of which would have been OK since the film had never had a formal release in English-speaking countries.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

I agree that The 400 Blows, though linguistically ludicrous, is probably too firmly established to change now - at least

I don't know if it's a case of this title having seeped into my genes but I actually think it's quite a poetic little neologism given the sense of hardship AD goes through. If in the 60's it had come out with a more literal translation like Wild Oats or Crazy life expectations might have been a bit blunted.
N.B I note that the secondary dictionary definition of neologism means the misguided ravings of a psychotic so I might be wrong here.

[ellipsis7]

Sometimes there are simply two different titles for the same film, for instance Antonioni's THE PASSENGER in English (US, UK, Aus etc.) while in France, Italy, Germany etc. it is know as, and titled on the prints as, PROFESSION REPORTER/PROFESSIONE REPORTER etc. (there used also to be some minor variants in the cuts)... Frankly I don't have a problem with that ...

On another note, I remember the soul searching on this board to find the most suitable English equivalent sense of Rossellini's LA PRISE DE POUVOIR PAR LOUIS XIV, which I believe can never really be rendered with the same nuance and meaning as the French version...

[matrixschmatrix]

And I agree that The 400 Blows, though linguistically ludicrous, is probably too firmly established to change now

Firmly established enough that it seems almost impossible to imagine it under another name, surely. Idiomatic titles always seem to be difficult- appropriate though the title A Grin Without a Cat is for virtually any Chris Marker movie, it certainly doesn't seem to be a 'translation' in any meaningful way of "Le fond de l'air est rouge".

[zedz]

Believe it or not, in the 1990s I actually overheard someone with an American accent ask in a London video shop whether Bicycle Thieves was the sequel to The Bicycle Thief.

Cue rumbly trailer voice: "The Bicycle Thief II: Bicycle Thieves! Last time, it was personal. This time. . . it's professional!"

[manicsounds]

I still have to see this movie someday... my Criterion DVD is gathering dust in the closet...

[Gregor Samsa]

Believe it or not, in the 1990s I actually overheard someone with an American accent ask in a London video shop whether Bicycle Thieves was the sequel to The Bicycle Thief.

Cue rumbly trailer voice: "The Bicycle Thief II: Bicycle Thieves! Last time, it was personal. This time. . . it's professional!"

Followed by the haunting tale of change and social progress that is Bicycle Thieves II: Electric Bikealoo!