Seminar: Bicycle Thieves

This lecture on Vittorio De Sica's masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (1948), examines a foundational work of Italian Neorealism that revolutionized cinema by telling the story of ordinary working-class Italians struggling against poverty and systemic inequality. 

Through De Sica's innovative use of non-professional actors, location shooting, and documentary-like realism, we will explore how the film transcends its deceptively simple plot—a father and son searching for a stolen bicycle—to become a profound meditation on the way human dignity is tested by the struggle to survive in post WWII Italy. 

About Andre Puca: 

Andre Puca received his B.A. in English from Cornell University, after which he earned his MFA in Film Studies from Boston University. He is a Senior Affiliated Faculty member at Emerson College, where he teaches courses on film and media studies. He has also taught film studies at Babson College as a Visiting Lecturer and presented papers at a number of conferences in the U.S., including the largest academic conference for film studies in the country, conducted by The Society For Cinema and Media Studies. In the past two years, he has served as instructor for three different Coolidge Education courses, two of them on Alfred Hitchcock. And while his primary research focuses on the history of American independent cinema, his most recent publication featured in The Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies was about the sadly overlooked Italian comedian and director, Massimo Troisi.