Boy and Bicycle

English, Media Studies, Film Studies, Moving Image Arts
Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4, post-16

The first film by Ridley Scott (director of Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator and others) shows a day in the life of a schoolboy playing truant. The schoolboy is played by his brother Tony, also now a film director. Key points are the stream of consciousness voiceover (which you could use to inspire writing); striking black and white photography, with great use of beautifully composed wide shots, POV shots, closeups and dramatic camera angles; the ‘60s setting, with bombsites; and the carefully constructed diegetic soundtrack. It also features music by noted film composer John Barry. It’s only 26 minutes long, so you can easily fit it into a lesson.

You could use the opening sequence, with its POV shots of the bedroom and voiceover, to explore point of view in writing. Throughout the film, you can consider how the closeups show the boy examining seemingly inconsequential details of his surroundings – the sun on the rim of a bicycle wheel, clouds and rain in a puddle – and how his surroundings spark his imagination and memory. Use this to inspire descriptive writing and poetry, filmmaking and photography.

To consider sound in film, try playing the sequence where the truant arrives at school, hears hymns being sung, then cycles away. Get students to think about all the extraneous sounds you would actually have heard in that location, and consider how the film just picks out the ‘characteristic’ sounds we need to understand the scene. ((You can download this clip from the BFI Creative Archive at http://www.bfi.org.uk/creativearchive/download/boyandbicycle1965-154241-cabfi0.mov?)

The complete film is featured on the compilation ‘Cinema 16: British Short Films’.