Part 7 – The thief’s neighbourhood

This is Part 7 of a guide to the filming locations of Vittorio de Sica’s 1948 film Ladri di biciclette (known in the English-speaking world as The Bicycle Thief or Bicycle Thieves). The modern locations are presented in Google Streetview windows: you can use the controls to pan around and, if you zoom out, you can even move to see things from a different angle.

Antonio is now so desperate that he decides to visit the fortune-teller, who is in Trastevere (see Part 2). She is unhelpful, but, as Antonio and Bruno leave, they suddenly see the thief, and follow him up an alley (the alley is Vicolo della Frusta, off Via della Paglia, just around the corner from the fortune-teller’s house).

Antonio and Bruno follow the thief to his neighbourhood, first chasing him through a brothel and then into his own house around the corner, whereupon the neighbours team up to expel them. There’s a rather confusing geographical leap here, as the film makes it looks as though the thief’s neighbourhood is close to the fortune-teller’s in Trastevere, but it was actually filmed near the Via di Panico, which is about a mile away on the other side of the river. In his book Italian Neorealist Cinema, Christopher Wagstaff suggests that this blurring of space is deliberate, and that we are meant to imagine the thief’s neighbourhood as being in Trastevere. However, at the end of the sequence the neighbours specifically tell Antonio “stay out of the Via di Panico”, so the filmmakers must have intended their Roman viewers to be aware that Antonio and Bruno have travelled to a different part of town.

Anyway, the specific location is the Vicolo della Campanella, a small street leading off Via di Panico. The building used to represent the brothel appears to have been remodelled with extra windows and doors, but the layout of the windows and the wall decoration on the nearby buildings prove this street corner to be the location of the action.

Antonio leaves, and the neighbours hurl abuse at him.

He and Bruno trudge off down the Via di Panico.

They continue down the Via Vecchiarelli, a few blocks down. This all makes geographical sense as they return to the city centre to catch a bus back home.

But fate has one last twist in store for Antonio…

← Go back to Part 6. Go forward to Part 8 →

Sources
– Gordon, Robert S.C. Bicycle Thieves. BFI Film Classics. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008.
– Tesori di Roma.
– Wagstaff, Christopher. Italian Neorealist Cinema: An Aesthetic Approach. University of Toronto Press, 2007.

Written by David Nicol (Department of Theatre, Dalhousie University). Screenshots are from the excellent Criterion Collection DVD of Bicycle Thieves. Here is a guide to purchasing a copy of the film in your region. Note: visit these locations at your own risk and research the area before going there; also, some of the locations may be private residences so please be respectful and don’t annoy the owners. If you have corrections or additional information please post them in the comments.