Boy and Bicycle

Ridley Scott’s short-film debut is a remarkable cross between the aesthetics of British kitchen-sink realism and the expressive advertising style of hyper-aestheticised tableaux, the first generation of which Scott himself subsequently became one of the most distinctive experts. But like his brother Tony’s short One of the Missing, which followed a year later, Boy and Bicycle remains a formal exercise that in retrospect offers a look at the roots of the director's subsequently fully formed style and approach to his craft. (2020.11.06)