“Dramatic tension generally requires an element of conflict. The nineteenth-century theorists suggested that conflict requires the presentation of an onstage clash of wills between hero and his antagonists. Later critics pointed out that in many cases, when a story is really rewarding, the tension may be a matter of not what happens, but how it happens. This is the effect of tension arising out of aspects of character rather than plot…For example, the suspense in de Sica’s The Bicycle Thief is really much less the problem of Ricci’s stolen bicycle than about his relationship with his son.”
Alexander Mackendrick
On-Filmmaking
Page 12
P.S. This is what Roger Ebert wrote a 1999 review, “The Bicycle Thief” had such an impact on its first release that when the British film magazine Sight & Sound held its first international poll of film makers and critics in 1952, it was voted the greatest film of all time.”
