#0000C/#219: FELLINI, Federico: La Strada (1954)

FELLINI, Federico (Italy)

La Strada [1954]

Spine #0000C/Spine #219

Blu-ray/DVD

There has never been a face quite like that of Giulietta Masina. Her husband, Federico Fellini, directs her as Gelsomina in La Strada, the film that launched both of them to international stardom. Gelsomina is sold by her mother into the employ of Zampanó (Anthony Quinn), a brutal traveling strongman. They join up with a traveling circus where Zampanó encounters his old rival, tightrope artist the Fool (Richard Basehart). With La Strada, Fellini left behind the familiar signposts of neorealism for a poetic fable of love and cruelty. The Criterion Collection is proud to present La Strada, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1956.

108 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

in Italian

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2003/2020

Director/Writers

Based on a story by Federico Fellini and Tullio Pinelli.

Dialogue by Ennio Flaiano.

Screenplay by Fellini, Pinelli, with the collaboration of Flainao.

Fellini was 34 when he directed La Strada.

Other Fellini films in the Collection:

#0000C/#189: The White Sheik (1952)
#0000C/#246: I Viteloni (1953)
#0000C: Il Bidone (1955)
#0000C/#49: Nights Of Cabiria (1957)
#0000C/#733: La Dolce Vita (1960)
#0000C/#140: 8½ (1963)
#0000C/#149: Juliet Of The Spirits (1965)
#0000C/#747: Fellini Satyricon (1969)
#0000C/#848: Roma (1972)
#0000C/#4: Amarcord (1973)
#0000C/#50: And The Ship Sails On (1983)
#0000C: Intervista (1987)

The Film

Surely, Fellini’s first real masterpiece.

Casting his wife (Giulietta Masina) as Gelsomina was no mere act of nepotism — she is a star, and one who, growing up in the silent era, and absorbing all manner of Charlie Chaplin’s genius tramp, is the sad clown incarnate here.

Some critics howled at the casting of two big American stars — Anthony Quinn (Zampanò) and Richard Basehart (The Fool) — but both deliver inspired performances, despite whatever qualms one may have (then or now) about the Italian tradition of dubbing everything.

La Strada flows like a river of cinema — scenes dissolving softly into one another — and unexpected touches of the divine, like the Fool teaching Gelsomina the universality of a pebble (so Zen!) …

The Catholics loved the final scene, when — with no dialogue — Quinn looks up to the stars and seems to have a great epiphany.

The viewer who took this ride are often brought to tears at that point. I know I was.

Score

Film composers have always “borrowed” music from the classical repertoire, from Chaplin to John Williams, James Horner, et al borrow heavily from Shostakovich, and other sources.

There’s nothing wrong with that. But for this film, the great Nina Rota grabbed the thematic material wholesale. Compare:

La Strada theme

Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings, 4th mvmnt.

Film Rating (0-60):

56

The Extras

The Booklets

#0000C only:

Eighty-two page booklet featuring an essay by David Forgacs.

“For all the warmth and tenderness of several moments in La Strada, many critics and viewers have found the character of Zampanò hard to take. He buys Gelsomina, rapes her, beats her, forces her to come back to him after she tries to leave, says she must do as she is told. And it is another man, Zampanò’s mischievous antagonist, the Fool, who tells Gelsomina that perhaps Zampanò needs her, at which point she decides she must stay with him. Fellini said he created the almost animal-like character of Zampanò because he wanted to explore the difficulty men have in communicating their feelings, and this aspect of the film has strongly influenced other filmmakers, such as Martin Scorsese. Fellini also defended the character of Gelsomina by saying her conscious acceptance of her situation was a mark of her superior strength.”

154-page booklet featuring an introduction by Bilge Ebiri and essays by Michael Almereyda (Primary Sources); Colm Tóibin (Imagined Homes); Carol Morley (Life on Earth); Stephanie Zacharek (Tough Love); and Kogonada (There is No End).

Almereyda:

“In every Fellini picture, there is at least one scene involving a vaudevillian display of dancing, or song and dance … at least one character in each film qualifies as a fraud, liar, or thief, and this swindler/trickster character usually wears a distinctive headgear … there’s at least one incident of infidelity per film, at least one boisterous group meal, at least one scene acknowledging, in a mocking or majestic fashion, the circuslike aspect of Catholic pageantry … in each film, a character’s inner and outer reality are show to be interwoven. These realities can be violently at odds, but somehow, within the arena of the movie, an uncanny convergence takes place, temporarily or as in an extended fever dream that devours rational boundaries. Over time, this convergence — the coalescing of real life (memory, history) and dream life (fantasy, cinema) — became Fellini’s dominant subject and theme.”

#219 only:

Eight-page wraparound featuring an essay by Peter Matthews.

“The tawdry circus milieu folds reality back on itself by poetic imitations of life-as-art and art-as-life. Seedy carnivals and fifth-rate clowns form cherished motifs in Fellini’s cinema — along with angels, con men, lunatics, and monsters. La Strada already hints at the kind of radical artist he would become — one less interested in communicating legible meaning than in unburdening his private obsessions, myths, memories, and dreams. It’s a moot point whether Fellini’s later autoerotic spectacles don’t finally shut the viewer out. But in La Strada, reality still disciplines the magic, and the effect is more magical than ever.”

#0000C/#219:

Commentary

From 2003 by Peter Bondanella, author of The Cinema of Federico Fellini.

Quite useful. He beautifully describes Fellini’s techniques and how he captured the magic through patience and persistence.

Video introduction

From 2003 by filmmaker Scorsese.

Who admits the major influence that the film had on his career.

Federico Fellini’s Autobiography

A documentary originally broadcast on Italian television in 2000.

Fine stuff, except that most of the material concerns another film, La Dolce Vita, including clips of Ekberg plunging into the Trevi fountain.

Alternate

English-dubbed soundtrack, featuring the voices of Quinn and Basehart.

Worth watching to hear the two American actors. The rest of the dubbing is horrible.

Trailer
 

Extras Rating (0-40):

34

56 + 34 =

90

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