Reading Archeology: Bicycle Thieves, Luigi Bartolini and Vittorio de Sicca

"In the world in which this worker lives, the poor, to survive, have to steal from each other."

André Bazin, Neorealism.

Any resemblance to the reality in which two-thirds of the population of our planet live could be purely coincidental. . . Or causality? Did we ask the International Monetary Fund?

Bicycle Thieves is a novel written by Luigi Bartolini. Its original title is Ladri di biciclette. The book that I enjoy this week belongs to the Inter-American Collection of Great Contemporary Novels printed by Editorial Hemisphere in Buenos Aires in 1950 and has the passionate translation of José Blaya Lozano.

In addition, bicycle thieves was taken to the movies by the masterful Vittorio de Sicca and has an overwhelming force from the moment it was released as one of the great international successes of Italian cinema of the twentieth century.

I have read this work with great affection. The problem is that young people do not know what I'm talking about. You see, we are failing in the transmission of cultural goods and reggaetón on the radio and the stupidities on television do not help at all.

Who was Luigi Bartolini? Oh, young people, your ignorance is our fault. Forgive your significant adults. Many of them do not know what the thing is about.

Luigi Bartolini was an Italian painter and poet. Luigi Bartolini was born in Cupramontana in 1892 and died in Rome in 1963. Bartolini studied the engravings of Goya, Rembrandt, Signorini and Fatteri. Later, Bartolini wrote seventy books and turned etching into a true poetic communication channel.

Ladri de biciclette is his novel. Vittorio de Sicca, from here the Great Vittorio, made a film of this novel that tells how a worker is robbed and how, accompanied by his little son, he starts looking for the thief to recover his bicycle.

I can not say more about the film and the book except that they are different. Boys and Girls are going to have to be brave and watch the movie and read the book to understand it.

They say that Bicycle Thieves is considered the masterpiece of modern realism. That's partly because he was talking in the middle of the 20th century about what our newscasters are currently talking about . . . A more reason to see the reality that afflicts us.

Lía Olga Herrera Soto