How do Harmony Korines Gummo and Vittorio de Sicas Ladri di Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) Represent...

Jeremy Isaacs Essay 2

How do Harmony Korine’s Gummo and Vittorio DeSica’s Ladri di biciclette, Represent Reality in

order to explore the Marginalised in Society?

In the world of Gummo, the characters not only constitute the virtual milieu we observe, but actually facilitate its production. They ultimately do this for the same elementary reason that we watch it: to widen thenarrowness of their/our thought patterns1. If the pleasureof cinematic spectatorship lies in the on-screen projection of a fantasy, then this is perfectly reflectedthrough the type of escapism the characters engage in. Unlike the Italian neorealist film Ladri di biciclette, which ‘showcase[es] a locale as defined by social problems and as defining those who dwell in it’, Gummo focuses on thecharacters’ collective experience of the milieu2. This collective experience is produced by a propensity for cathartic fun; depicted by the director from a detached position that enhances our voyeuristic pleasure in viewing it. The locale, shot in poor neighbourhoods of Nashville, Tennessee, but claimed by various characters to be Xenia, Ohio after a tornado, details the decayed moral standards of the locale’s inhabitants; an anomie particular to ‘horrific socio-economic conditions3.’ Despite the poverty-stricken backdrop, Harmony Korine objectifies their disenfranchisement by portraying characters that are unaware of their own social problems.Ladri di biciclette, on the other hand, latches on to the characters and their struggle, making us identify with them. The film follows Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) and his son Bruno (Enzo Staiola) in their attempt to locate Antonio’s stolen bicycle, which, if notfound, will spell unemployment and impoverishment in a socio-economically deprived post-WWII Rome. The series ofordinary and incidental events often deviate from the 1 Gilles Deleuze, Pourparlers [Negotiations], trans. by Martin Joughin (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 19.2 Benjamin Halligan, ‘What Was the Neo-Underground and What Wasn’t: AFirst Reconsideration of Harmony Korine’, in New Punk Cinema, ed. by Nicholas Rombes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 180-192 (p. 190).3 Halligan, p. 191.


main ‘quest’ for the bicycle, and yet both their ‘wastingtime’ and active searching propels an investigation into the alienation and absurdity of existence4. What these twofilms share is a concern with subjective representations of reality. Though they are from different cultural epochs, they share the same concern for revealing unpleasant aspects of daily life. Both films investigate alienation and poverty while depicting seemingly purposeless situations in objectively real social settings.

The denizens of Xenia, Ohio are not motivated by self-destruction, but by destructive acts that anchor them to their community. These ‘spectacles of destruction,’ as Benjamin Halligan puts it, are a juvenile tactic to keep alienation at bay5. We watch with a voyeuristic distance, as two of the protagonists, Solomon (Jacob Reynolds) and Tummler (Nick Sutton), kill stray cats to sell to a Chinese restaurant in order to fund their recreational activities of having sex with a Down syndrome prostitute and sniffing glue. Of course, itis no real surprise that even the killing of cats is its own pleasurable reward. We see Solomon, humorously holding a cigar in his mouth and wearing a toy fireman’s helmet and a topless Tummler, whipping an already dead cat to fast-paced Black Metal. Other episodes of destruction include footage of satanic rituals, now dead adult identical twins bathing each other and drunken hicks wrestling chairs. Halligan suggests that these ‘sequences of degradation’ are motivated by a nihilistic impulse. He claims the characters are defined by, ‘commodity-fetishised nihilism6.’ As Korine is submissive to the characters’ collective experience of the milieu he’s envisioned, it is not only their image that is distinguished by a nihilistic aesthetic, (for example, the Heavy Metal t-shirts and patches they don) but also the entire film. Even non-diegetically this aesthetic is used, evident in the Heavy Metal soundtrack. This image however, is merely a superficial pose, though one fully believed in by the characters. Halligan’s claim that the 4 Mark Shiel, Italian Neorealism: Rebuilding the Cinematic City, p. 55.5 Halligan, p. 189.6 Halligan, pp. 180-192 (p. 184).


characters ‘authenticate’ this aesthetic by possessing an, ‘actual desire for annihilation,’ seems to have misinterpreted these destructive acts as life-denying rather than life-affirming7. The characters are ultimatelymotivated by a desperate will to experience life8. It is in fact the depraved nature of these acts that gives their lives meaning and purpose. It is the fetishised ‘difference’ the characters define themselves by, which validates their collective identity of a frustrated and marginalised people. The products of idealised ‘difference’ then, authenticate a desire not for annihilation, but for catharsis.

The fetishistic nature of these ‘commercial categories’ positions the characters at a voyeuristic distance from their own behaviour9. The desire for catharsis is ultimately motivated by this voyeuristic distance and, along with the acquisition of ‘cheap thrills’, often comes in the act of imagining a world elsewhere. After the opening credits, the film begins with a collage of home-video-like footage, cut together amateurishly, ‘de-establishing information, rather than

7 Ibid.8 Ibid.9 Ibid.


present[ing] the usual Establishing shots10.’ An almost inaudible narration by Solomon plays over the footage. Hesays, ‘Xenia, Ohio. A few years ago, a tornado hit this place. It killed the people, left and right. … Houses were split open, and you could see necklaces hanging frombranches of trees. People's legs and neck bones were sticking out. Oliver found a leg on his roof. A lot of people’s fathers died and were killed by the great tornado. I saw a girl fly through the sky … and I looked up her skirt. … My neighbour was killed in half. He used to ride dirt bikes and three-wheelers. They never found his head. I always thought that was funny.11’ This is certainly an introduction; whether Solomon is introducingthe place we are looking at or not, remains ambiguous. The film often lapses into these ‘semiotic ruptures,’ which makes us unable to discern whether what we watch isreal or imagined12. The characters’ departures from a cohesive reality are what bind them to each other. For them, the act of expressing their imaginations without restraint ‘rescues’ them from their arbitrary lives wherea sense of responsibility has been supplanted by an excess of freedom13. The series of narrativising acts are not only their form of communication with one another, but with the audience. Our entering into the character’s perceptions and imaginations gives us an understanding ofthe narrative, paradoxically, through our lack of understanding of it, connecting us to their experience. This is not to say that we identify with them, for their behaviour is too histrionic. Thus, we too occupy a voyeuristic distance, seeing them as spectacles while sympathising with them. This is what Jay McRoy and Guy Crucianelli have called ‘benevolent exploitation14.’

10 Halligan, (p. 186).11 Gummo, dir. by Harmony Korine (Fine Line Features, 1997) [on DVD].12 Jay McRoy, ‘Italian Neo-realist Influences’, in New Punk Cinema (seeHalligan, above), pp. 39-55 (p. 46).13 Tom Austin Connor, ‘Genre-%!$?ing: Harmony Korine’s Cinema of Poetry’, Wide Screen, 1 (2009), 1-16 (p. 9).14 Jay McRoy and Guy Crucianelli, ‘“I Panic the World”: Benevolent Exploitation in Tod Browning’s Freaks and Harmony Korine’s Gummo’, Journal of Popular Culture, 42 (2009), 257-272 (p. 261).


In Ladri di biciclette, Vittorio de Sica’s vision of Rome society is one held together by moral standards and common values. The presence of the collective however, only functions to deny Antonio and Bruno access to it. Unlike Gummo, they are alienated from the collective, not included in it. When Antonio encounters the thief in his own residential area, ‘the Via Panico’, he apprehendshim, demanding the return of his bicycle. Immediately, countless men swarm Antonio, ganging up on him in defenceof their neighbour. With the help of a policeman, the father and son search the thief’s impoverished residence to no avail. As he leaves humiliated, a man shouts, ‘don’t forget: stay out of the Via Panico!15’ This scene, detailing Antonio’s sense of loss and loneliness, is one of many throughout the film. Though the film’s realist depiction of working-class people in ordinary circumstances suggests that we are to consider the film a‘reflection of Italian society,’ there are myriad elements that demonstrate the film is ultimately an artistic reinterpretation of reality16. This ‘depart from a strictly realist approach’ is evident in Antonio’s chance encounters with the thief, his almost exaggerated exclusion from the collective, and the final moment of absurdist irony when he attempts to become a bicycle thief himself17. These elements cause us to not only identify with Antonio’s plight, but to enter his interpretation of the world around him.

Our identification with Antonio’s alienation lures us into complicity in his belief that finding his bicyclewill reconnect him to the collective and once again give his life a sense of purpose. Though the story is a ‘traditional quest’ structure, most of the film’s action is composed of Antonio and Bruno wandering the streets ofRome18. Though Antonio has the intention of finding the bicycle throughout, he often lapses into actions motivated by an attempt to better understand himself. He

15 Ladri di Biciclette, dir. by Vittorio de Sica (Arrow Films, 1948) [on DVD]. 16 Peter E. Bondanella, Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present (New York: Continuum, 1983), p. 57.17 Bondanella, p. 59.18 Ibid.


takes Bruno to a restaurant, almost as an experiment to see if he’d enjoy living well if he had the money. He goes to the fortune-teller he earlier described as ‘nonsense,’ in an attempt to find something to believe in. Antonio’s inability to find an inner purpose is a lack of awareness of how important his family is to him. When he goes down to the riverbank to find the old man who knows the bicycle thief, people begin shouting that aboy is drowning. Though he immediately fears it is his son, once he sees Bruno was not the boy, he soon forgets the importance of his love for Bruno, and resumes his fixation with the bicycle. What he fails to see is that it is not the loss of the bicycle that has ‘created’ his alienation; it is his assumption that his internal well-being is contingent on an external object. In departing from what is actually meaningful to him, connecting with others, he is inevitably denied sympathy and inclusion bythem.

The brand of the bicycle, ‘Fides,’ which in Italian means ‘faith,’ is not an implication that the bicycle actually represents faith, but rather, it represents Antonio’s false perception of the bicycle as faith19.

19 Century of Film 2012 [online]. [cited 20 August 2013]. Available from: <http://centuryoffilm2012.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/fides.html>.


Though the critic Peter E. Bondanella has described Antonio’s story as a ‘meaningless, absurd, human predicament,’ there is an almost didactic lesson in Ladri dibiciclette20. As Antonio hopelessly searches for meaning where it can’t be found, he never learns that his conception of faith is a flawed one and that real faith comes from within. We, however, do learn this as we watchhow ineffectual his search is. The film ends with Antonioand Bruno, bicycle-less, teary and gravely walking while holding hands, getting lost in a crowd, as the camera remains fixed. The dramatic final shot, coupled with the funereal soundtrack makes it clear that this is a tragic ending. However, much like the bicycle being his flawed interpretation of faith, this moment is tragic because Antonio interprets it as such. If we keep in mind that what we are seeing is Antonio’s perspective and not reality, then the final moment where father and son hold hands produces a hope that after the film’s ending, Antonio will learn the true meaning of faith and that love for his son, which is immutable, is far more important.

In conclusion, both Gummo and Ladri di biciclette employ the typical realist convention of depicting characters shaped by poverty. In Ladri di biciclette, the film uses this device more conventionally: to question and criticise socio-economic structures: in this case, Italy immediately after World War II. Antonio’s unemployment and inability to support his young family has removed himfrom the social order and this generates his inability tofind purpose to life. This simultaneously grounds the film in external social problems and in the character’s interior experience: Antonio’s society having shaped him.As Amédée Ayfre claims, ‘Above all … the objective, subjective, social, etc. are never analysed as such; theyare taken as a factual whole in all its inchoate fullness21.’ This equal weight given to the ‘objective,

20 Bondanella, p. 60.

21 Amédée Ayfre, 'Neo Realisme et Phenomenologie' ['Neo-Realism and Phenomenology'], in Cahiers du Cinema: The 1950s: Neo-Realism, Hollywood, New Wave, trans. by Diana Matias, ed. by Jim Hillier (MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 182-192 (p. 184).


subjective and social,’ allows Antonio’s story to be interpreted as a metaphor for the universal difficulty tofind meaning amidst a meaningless world22. In Ladri di biciclette, Antonio has been failed by the same social order he has an unwavering faith in, illustrating the inherent meaninglessness of it. This is problematic as it is this meaningless social order, which has constructed him. The difficulty to find objective truth within our limited subjective experience is an issue also explored in Gummo. In the twilight zone of Xenia, Ohio, the characters are resigned to their subjective experience, finding a sense of pleasure in freely expressing their identities. This expression binds them to each other, as their identity is one of a socially marginalised community. Their celebration of their ‘difference,’ is a response to the boredom of their milieu. This boredom is primarily a result of the erosion of social order, poverty merely being a by-product of it.

Word count: 2241

Bibliography

Ayfre, Amédée, 'Neo Realisme et Phenomenologie' ['Neo-Realism and Phenomenology'], in Cahiers du Cinema: The 1950s: Neo-Realism, Hollywood, New Wave, trans. by Diana Matias, ed. by Jim Hillier (MA: Harvard University Press, 1985)

Bondanella, Peter E., Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present(New York: Continuum, 1983)

Century of Film 2012 [online]. [cited 20 August 2013]. Available from: <http://centuryoffilm2012.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/fides.html>

22 Ibid.


Connor, Tom Austin, ‘Genre-%!$?ing: Harmony Korine’s Cinema of Poetry’, Wide Screen, 1 (2009), 1-16

Deleuze, Gilles, Pourparlers [Negotiations], trans. by Martin Joughin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990)

Gummo, dir. by Harmony Korine (Fine Line Features, 1997)[on DVD]

Halligan, Benjamin, ‘What Was the Neo-Underground and What Wasn’t: A First Reconsideration of Harmony Korine’, in New Punk Cinema, ed. by Nicholas Rombes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 180-192

Ladri di Biciclette, dir. by Vittorio de Sica (Arrow Films, 1948) [on DVD]

McRoy, Jay, ‘Italian Neo-realist Influences’, in New Punk Cinema, ed. by Nicholas Rombes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 39-55

McRoy, Jay, and Guy Crucianelli, ‘“I Panic the World”: Benevolent Exploitation in Tod Browning’s Freaks and Harmony Korine’s Gummo’, Journal of Popular Culture, 42 (2009), 257 - 272

How do Harmony Korines Gummo and Vittorio de Sicas Ladri di Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) Represent...

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