Monday, October 31, 2016
Bicycles vs. Uniforms: Who Has the Last Laugh?
On the surface Bicycle Thieves and The Last Laugh have the same plot. In both films the protagonist either loses his job or will likely lose a job and in a desperate bid to restore that job they need to reacquire or even steal a precious object that symbolizes their position, a bicycle or a uniform, respectively. Furthermore, if we ignore the "happy ending" imposed by the studio on The Last Laugh, both protagonists end the movie defeated and depressed with seemingly little hope for a better future. Nonetheless, despite these similarities, these are different movies. In what way are they different? What is the social or moral message of each? What are each say about the society of their times (Germany in the 20's and Italy in the 40's)? How do they differ on questions of social mobility, morality or the family? Is one more hopeful or cynical?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Although Bicycle Thief and The Last Laugh both seem to have optimistic endings, only Last Laugh does. The last laugh has an ending that is used to dissuade the audience from believing that anything but a happy ending can happy in the ideal world of a movie. A sad and lonely man gains a lot of money due to circumstances that are simply never going to actually occur in the real world. However, the concept of a man losing his only means of making money and barley escaping jail due to the need to be a father figure is a little bit more plausible. In the end of Last Laugh you have the sense that the old man and his friend will be happy for many years to come due to their great fortune. However, with Bicycle Thief, he still has to go home and he still will have to find another job due to not finding a bike. These movies differ because one is the stereotypical movie idealistic world with a happy ending and one is the opposite. You are not left in suspense with either one because you can tell where each man is headed. One is going back to his wife to eat and drink more, and the other is going back to his wife with nothing to show for his efforts. The Last Laugh brings into play the concept of luck, and that if you are in the right place at the right time good things can happen to you, while Bicycle Thief portrays the concept of what happens if you are in the right place at the wrong time.
ReplyDeleteEven though the films, The Last Laugh and Bicycle Thieves, have many commonalities, they are still different movies. Firstly, the moral messages between the two films are significantly different. In The Last Laugh, the underlying moral message is to always tell the truth or in other words, don’t be someone you’re not. After being degraded to a less powerful job, the protagonist continues to lie and act as if he is still the bell hop in order to protect his social standing in his community. He soon finds out the consequences of doing such when the community finds out, making it an even bigger deal than it needs to be. However, in Bicycle Thieves, we learn that the moral message is to not sink down to others levels, no matter the circumstances. By exhausting all of his options when looking for his stolen bicycle, Lamberto thinks that it is acceptable to steal another man’s bicycle, which in the end, only makes matters worse. Secondly, another aspect I find interesting between these two films is the importance of having a job. Despite this commonality, these men work for primarily two different reasons. In The Last Laugh, the hotel doorman works solely for the powerful social standing he receives in return of having such a high ranked job. The powerful social standing becomes addicting and makes the job that more important to him because without it, he is nothing. In Bicycle Thieves, Lamberto works out of necessity. His family needs the money desperately and therefore takes any job that is offered to him.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the Last Laugh and Bicycle thieves have many similarities, they are two very different movies from two different times. The moral message from Bicycle Thieves is not to stoop to the lower levels of others. In other words, if your friends jump of a bridge will you jump off a bridge? If your bike gets stolen and that greatly affects your life, does it make sense to turn around and do the same thing to someone else? How could it affect them? The film was really about maintaining your morality even if everyone around you is making bad decisions. In Bicycle thieves Ricci’s bike was stolen, then he went on a journey to find it. After he failed to find it, he turns into the thief and tries to steal someone else’s bike. The film then shows the reaction of his son Bruno, who may actually be one of the only moral people in the movie. Bruno’s reaction was one of disappointment. It was almost that the roles had switched, and Bruno was a father disappointed in his son, and Antonio was the ashamed boy. Antonio was pressured by his financial situation and believed that if the thief that stole his bike could get away with it, why can’t he; however, it did not work out as planned. The message from The Last Laugh is about identity and the consequences of trying to be someone you’re not. The main character, the doorman, loses his job because of his age. He is ashamed so he pretends he still has his “prestigious” job. This causede worse consequences. If he had just fessed up, and said that he lost his job, there would still be disappointment, but not embarrassment. Also, in the Last Laugh the doorman was degraded by his entire community, but in Bicycle Thieves, Antonio was only degraded by his son.
ReplyDeleteBicycle Thieves and The Last Laugh, share many similarities, however, one focuses on personal image, where the other refers to maintaining a post-war life. In The Last Laugh, the doorman is stripped of his uniform and his duties, much like in Bicycle Thieves, when Antonio loses his bicycle and is stripped of his duties of posting advertisements. Although these two protagonists seem almost identical, there is one major difference. When the doorman loses his job, he is miserable because his reputation is crushed. Whereas when Antonio loses his job, he is dejected because he can no longer sustain an income to help fund his family. While the doorman and Antonio share identical feelings about their loss, they have different reasons, which underlines an financial difference between the two characters and their respected movies. Besides their economic state, the two characters differ in their levels of morality. Although the two both attempt to steal back their appropriate belongings, Antonio knows how morally wrong it is to steal another Frenchman’s bicycle. Whereas, the doorman only cares about his personal image and without a care, he attempts to retake possession of the uniform. Besides just the characters in the movie, The Last Laugh portrays a more derisive look upon a man, who loses his job, unlike in Bicycle Thieves, where the viewers feel sorry for a man who loses everything, and allows his world to come crashing down all around him.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe Last Laugh and the Bicycle on a number of levels, but when it comes down to their overall messages, the two are very different. The moral of both stories is to understand there will be ups and downs but how you deal with them reveals who you truly are. But what makes the last laugh different is that it dealt with a man who was so adept to his job that the downfall just hurt him so immensely. He loses his job due to old age and not being able to complete it anymore. He wasn’t prepared to lose his job and ends up hiding it from the people who knew about his successes as a doorman and his superiority over them. He portrays this false image that he is still a doorman and once they find out, he is ridiculed and shunned by his family and friends. Instead of accepting the reality of the situation and regrouping himself for the future, the doorman lets it get the worst of him and that ultimately is his downfall. Ricci in Bicycle’s Thieves downfall is losing his bike and feeling like the world is over. After trying to find his bike in every way and in every place, he goes to the worst result, attempting to steal someone else’s bike. To go to the lowest level of degree, of ruining someone else’s things to try to make amends right for yourself is very selfish on Ricci’s side. He should’ve owned up to his responsibilities and accepted he wouldn’t be able to continue the job and search for a new one. His son is by his side the entire time absorbing his every move, his reactions, actions, etc. So Ricci setting the bad example sent his son the message that maybe that was okay, to result to negative measures. But it’s wrong and his son at a young age that he is, shouldn’t have that way of living taught to him. Both men show their true colors when things go wrong and end up affecting not only themselves, but those around them more than anything. I understand having a job is very important to both men and their situations, but things happen and both men should’ve found ways to dealing with them in a more appropriate way because they still are representing themselves and others.