Bicycle Films
Bicycle Films 自転車の映画
Our first real "job" was, at age 11, working as a paperboy delivering the long-gone Philadelphia Bulletin on a three-gear Raleigh. The route was short: 28 daily papers, 20 on Sundays. It took 45 minutes in good weather, an hour in the rain, and two plus hours in snow.
A few years later Breaking Away was released. Because of that film, we ended up riding 500 miles on a Peugeot ten-speed beater to New Hampshire with six friends from high school. It was the only bike that required no maintenance on the trip.
In college, we saw De Sica's The Bicycle Thief and wept at the ending.
In graduate school, and back home in the city, we began to ride for work, pleasure, convenience - and because we didn't have a dime to our name. The above Peugeot was pulled out of storage and refitted.
Two cities, two continents, and two decades later, we are now pedaling in Kyoto.
Since then, the world of cycling has undergone a revolution in design, marketing, concept, and use.
Here are some of CycleKyoto's picks for the best films related to cycling.
Films on Cycling
Pedal
Peter Sutherland documents a feared and infamous breed: New York City bike messengers.
The book comes with a DVD that covers the 2005 Cycle World Messenger Championships, which was held in New York.
The DVD shows messengers dealing with traffic and features many interviews.
The Bicycle Thief
Vittorio De Sica's classic film (1947) The Bicycle Thief tenderly - and brutally - shows post-war Italy's destruction, and the savage force of will required to just survive.
The film was filmed on location in the streets of Rome.
The drama revolves around a man and his day to day travails. His job - delivering movie posters on his bicycle - is put in jeopardy when his bike is stolen. He has no money to buy another bike - but must have the job to feed his family.
Despondent, he and his son walk and walk in search of the bike. Too poor to buy another, they must find it. The ending is heart-wrenching.
Le Gamin Au Velo (The Kid with A Bike)
The Dardenne borthers have struck again. This 2011 film from the Belgian brothers tells the story of an 11-year-old boy who turns for help to a woman after his father abandons him.
It premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and took home the festival's Grand Prix.
Note: It has not yet been released on DVD.
Breaking Away
Peter Yates's 1979 film is a wonderful coming of age story about a group of four young men stuck in small town Indiana.
It stars Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Haley, friends who all live in the college town Bloomington. They are working class boys - sons of "cutters," the rock cutters who built the town - with no future.
Christopher's attempt at leaving this world is via a bicycle. He begins racing, and then falls into a romance with an upper class girl at the university.
Beijing Bicycle
Beijing Bicycle is a 2001 film about a young man, Guei, from the provinces who has moved to Beijing.
He is diligent and honest and working hard to pay for a company bicycle to make it his own. But it is - shades of The Bicycle Thief - stolen just before he makes the last payment. Then he is fired. If and only if he can find the bike, he will get his job back.
While searching, he discovers the bike now belongs to a young student who bought it used, not knowing that it was stolen.
The fight over ownership is brutal and unforgettable.
Cyclist
Director Mohsen Makhmalbaf retells a story from his youth in the 1988 film Cyclist. The story involves a poor man who earns money to save his ill wife by riding a bicyle for days without stopping to rest.
The man is a poor refugee from Afghanistan whose wife is in hospital. The man nearly commits suicide over her health, but was rescued by his young son. What follows is a test of endurance for the woman he loves.
People gather to watch the spectacle of the man on his bike. Horrific and moving.
Bicycle Dreams
Bicycle Dreams is a documentary about the Race Across America, a coast-to-coast 3000-mile bicycle race to cross the USA in just ten days. Riders face desert heat, mountain climbs, and brutally long stretches of flat never-ending open road.
The race is moreover struck by tragedy. More than a film, more than a race, this is a search for identity. It was filmed and released in 2010.
We Are Traffic & Return of the Scorcher
We Are Traffic! is a terrific documentary about the "Critical Mass" bicycle and environmental movement.
Critical Mass - for the few of us still not in the know - is a monthly ritual of taking back the streets by bicycle activists who ride en masse.
These advocates and activists are battling traffic congestion, pollution, and road rage - to name but a few of the car-related ills - and in general pressing for transportation alternatives.
We Are Traffic! follows and chronicles this grassroots movement from its early days in San Francisco, in 1992, to its global spread.
Return of the Scorcher examines bike culture and lifestyles around the world. It was filmed in China, the Netherlands, Denmark, and even the U.S.
The "scorcher" of the title is a nickname given to early automobiles. The film looks at among other topics love, rebellion, feminism, and more - and all through the prism of cycling. Those interviewed include Marcia Lowe, Ellen Fletcher, Michael Replogle, Iain Boal, George Bliss, and others.
Bike Like U Mean It
Bike Like U Mean It looks at a group of Austin, Texas, bike activists.
In Texas - and many other places in the US - riding a bike for transportation is the act of an activist. It is a statement.
The people in the film are promoting not merely cycling but a different way of living in an urban setting.
Paperboy
This short documentary follows a group of paperboys.
The result is amusing and fascinating. They are a perhaps a dying breed - the newspapers they deliver are not long for this world - and their work may be going the way of the dinosaurs.