La Strada is a (
1954The year 1954 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 12 - The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda. The two were married in 1927.* A reproduction of "America's First Movie Studio", Thomas Edison's Black Maria, is constructed...
)
Italian neorealistItalian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...
drama directed by
Federico FelliniFederico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian film director. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century.- Rimini :Federico Fellini was born on January 20, 1920 to...
in which a naive young woman (
Giulietta MasinaGiulia Anna Masina was a Italian film actress. She starred in La strada and Nights of Cabiria, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 1956 and 1957, respectively...
) is sold to a brutish man (
Anthony QuinnAnthony Quinn was a Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, and Federico Fellini's La strada...
) and goes on the road as a part of his itinerant show.
La Strada won the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language FilmThe Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
in
1956The year 1956 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* August 4 - The last film serial, Blazing the Overland Trail from Columbia Pictures, is released.* November 15 - Elvis Presley's first film, Love Me Tender, opens....
.
Gelsomina (Fellini's wife
Giulietta MasinaGiulia Anna Masina was a Italian film actress. She starred in La strada and Nights of Cabiria, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 1956 and 1957, respectively...
), a fey young woman, is sold for 10,000 lira by her impoverished mother to the
GypsyThe term gypsy was a common term used to describe Romani people or Travelers.-Etymology:The Oxford English Dictionary states that a gypsy is a...
Zampanò (
Anthony QuinnAnthony Quinn was a Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, and Federico Fellini's La strada...
), to take the place of her now dead sister Rosa.
La Strada is a (
1954The year 1954 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 12 - The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda. The two were married in 1927.* A reproduction of "America's First Movie Studio", Thomas Edison's Black Maria, is constructed...
)
Italian neorealistItalian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...
drama directed by
Federico FelliniFederico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian film director. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century.- Rimini :Federico Fellini was born on January 20, 1920 to...
in which a naive young woman (
Giulietta MasinaGiulia Anna Masina was a Italian film actress. She starred in La strada and Nights of Cabiria, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 1956 and 1957, respectively...
) is sold to a brutish man (
Anthony QuinnAnthony Quinn was a Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, and Federico Fellini's La strada...
) and goes on the road as a part of his itinerant show.
La Strada won the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language FilmThe Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
in
1956The year 1956 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* August 4 - The last film serial, Blazing the Overland Trail from Columbia Pictures, is released.* November 15 - Elvis Presley's first film, Love Me Tender, opens....
.
Plot
Gelsomina (Fellini's wife
Giulietta MasinaGiulia Anna Masina was a Italian film actress. She starred in La strada and Nights of Cabiria, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 1956 and 1957, respectively...
), a fey young woman, is sold for 10,000 lira by her impoverished mother to the
GypsyThe term gypsy was a common term used to describe Romani people or Travelers.-Etymology:The Oxford English Dictionary states that a gypsy is a...
Zampanò (
Anthony QuinnAnthony Quinn was a Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, and Federico Fellini's La strada...
), to take the place of her now dead sister Rosa. Zampanò makes a living as an itinerant strongman, entertaining crowds by breaking an iron chain just by expanding his chest, and then passing around a hat for tips.
Zampanò uses cruelty, both physical and emotional, to train Gelsomina as his assistant, teaching her the
snare drumThe snare drum is a drum with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom...
and
trumpetThe trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BC...
, to dance a bit, and play the clown. However, she remains optimistic.
Finally, though, she rebels at her ill treatment and leaves, making her way into town. There she watches the act of another street entertainer, Il Matto ("The Fool"), a talented
high wireTightrope walking is the art of walking along a thin wire or rope, usually at a great height. One or more artists performs in front of an audience or as a publicity stunt...
artist and clown (played by
Richard BasehartJohn Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson....
). When Zampanò finds her there, he forces her to rejoin him. They join a ragtag traveling circus, and find Il Matto already working there. For reasons he himself cannot understand, Il Matto maliciously teases the strongman at every opportunity. After getting drenched by a pail of water, Zampanò chases after his tormentor with his knife drawn; both men are put in jail.
Il Matto is released first. He shows Gelsomina that there are alternatives to her servitude.
Despite this, he talks her out of leaving Zampanò, imparting to her his philosophy that everything and everyone has a purpose, even a pebble, even her. She decides that hers is to take care of her unappreciative master. After Zampanò is freed, she asks if he wants to marry her, but he brushes her off.
Both men are fired from the circus. During the course of his travels, Zampanò comes upon Il Matto, fixing a flat tire on an empty stretch of road. He punches the clown several times and, satisfied with his revenge, starts to leave. Il Matto complains that his watch has been broken, then unexpectedly collapses and dies. Zampanò hides the body and pushes his car off the road.
He is relieved to get away unseen, but the killing breaks Gelsomina's spirit. After ten days, she is still unable to deal with her grief. When they stop for a meal, he abandons her as she is taking a nap. Four or five years later, he is drawn to a woman singing a tune Gelsomina often played. He learns that the woman's father had found Gelsomina on the beach and kindly taken her in. However, she wasted away and died. Zampanò gets drunk and wanders to the beach, where he breaks down and cries uncontrollably.
Cast
- Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn was a Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, and Federico Fellini's La strada...
as Zampanò
- Giulietta Masina
Giulia Anna Masina was a Italian film actress. She starred in La strada and Nights of Cabiria, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 1956 and 1957, respectively...
as Gelsomina
- Richard Basehart
John Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson....
as Il Matto - the Fool
- Aldo Silvani as Il Signor Giraffa - Mr. Giraffe, the circus owner
- Marcella Rovere as La Vedova - the Widow
- Livia Venturini as La Suorina - the Nun
Background
The idea for the character Zampanò came from Fellini's youth in the coastal town of
RiminiRimini is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, near the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...
. A pig castrator lived there who was known as a womanizer: according to Fellini, "This man took all the girls in town to bed with him; once he left a poor idiot girl pregnant and everyone said the baby was the devil's child." In 1992, Fellini told Canadian director
Damian PettigrewDamian Pettigrew is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, author, and multimedia artist, best known for his cinematic portraits of Balthus and Federico Fellini...
that he had conceived the film at the same time as co-scenarist
Tullio PinelliTullio Pinelli was an Italian screenwriter best known for his work on the Federico Fellini classics I Vitelloni, La strada, La Dolce Vita and 8½.-Biography:...
in a kind of "orgiastic synchronicity":
"I was directing I vitelloniI Vitelloni is an Italian comedy drama film directed by Federico Fellini. Recognized as a pivotal work in the director's artistic evolution, the film has distinct autobiographical elements that mirror important societal changes in 1950s Italy....
, and Tullio had gone to see his family in Turin. At that time, there was no autostrada between Rome and the north and so you had to drive through the mountains. Along one of the tortuous winding roads, he saw a man pulling a carretta, a sort of cart covered in tarpaulin... A tiny woman was pushing the cart from behind. When he returned to Rome, he told me what he'd seen and his desire to narrate their hard lives on the road. 'It would make the ideal scenario for your next film,' he said. It was the same story I'd imagined but with a crucial difference: mine focused on a little traveling circus with a slow-witted young woman named Gelsomina. So we merged my flea-bitten circus characters with his smoky campfire mountain vagabonds. We named Zampanò after the owners of two small circuses in Rome: Zamperla and Saltano."
Filming locations
The picture was shot in
BagnoregioBagnoregio is a comune in the Province of Viterbo in the Italian region Latium, located about 90 km northwest of Rome and about 28 km north of Viterbo.-History:...
,
ViterboViterbo is an ancient city and comune in the Lazio region of central Italy, the capital of the province of Viterbo. It is approximately 100 kilometers north of Rome on the Via Cassia, and it is surrounded by the Monti Cimini and Monti Volsini. The historic center of the city is surrounded by...
, Lazio,
OvindoliOvindoli is a village and comune of the province of L'Aquila in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. Close to Rome, it is a popular resort for both summer and winter sports, including hiking, biking, equestrian activities and downhill and cross-country skiing.-Geography:Ovindoli lies in the...
,
L'AquilaL'Aquila is a city in central Italy, both the capital city of the Abruzzo region and of the Province of L'Aquila. , it has a population of 73,150 inhabitants, but has a daily presence in the territory of 100,000 people for study, tertiary activities, jobs and tourism...
, and
AbruzzoAbruzzo Abruzzo Abruzzo (IPA: /aˈbruttso/ is a region in Italy, its western border lying less than 50 miles due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east...
.
Music
The theme music, composed by
Nino RotaNino Rota was an Italian composer best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini, or Luchino Visconti...
, contains a wistful tune which appears in the story line as a melody played by the Fool on a miniature violin, and later by Gelsomina after she teaches herself to play the trumpet.
Distribution
The film premiered at the
Venice Film FestivalThe Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the Lido, Venice,...
on September 6, 1954 and won the Silver Lion. It opened wide in Italy on September 22, 1954, and in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on July 16, 1956.
Reception
Italy and France
Tullio Cicciarelli of
Il Lavoro nuovo saw the film as
"an unfinished poem, but one deliberately unfinished for fear that its essence be lost in the callousness of critical definition, or in the ambiguity of classification. La strada cannot be classified nor does it sustain the weight of rational discussion and comparison (when the film was shown at the Venice Film FestivalThe Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the Lido, Venice,...
, many critics saw in it suggestions of ChaplinChaplin is a surname of English, Ukrainian and Belarusian origin. Surnames of English origin are derived from the occupational name for a clergyman, while Ukrainian and Belarusian uses are derived from chaplya, meaning ‘heron’ or ‘stork’...
). The film should be accepted for its strange fragility and its often too colorful, almost artificial moments, or else totally rejected. If we try to analyze Fellini's film, its fragmentary quality becomes immediately evident and we are obliged to treat each fragment, each personal comment, each secret confession separately".
In
Il Secolo XIX, Ermanno Contini praised Fellini as
"a master story-teller. The narrative is light and harmonious, drawing its essence, resilience, uniformity and purpose from small details, subtle annotations and soft tones that slip naturally into the humble plot of a story apparently void of action. But how much meaning, how much ferment enrich this apparent simplicity. It is all there although not always clearly evident, not always interpreted with full poetical and human eloquence: it is suggested with considerable delicacy and sustained by a subtle emotive force".
Released in France in 1955, Dominique Aubier of
Les Cahiers du cinéma thought
La strada“belongs to the mythological class, a class intended to captivate the critics more perhaps than the general public. Fellini attains a summit rarely reached by other film directors: style at the service of the artist’s mythological universe. This example once more proves that the cinema has less need of technicians - there are too many already - than of creative intelligence. To create such a film, the author must have had not only a considerable gift for expression but also a deep understanding of certain spiritual problems".
Influence
A
musicalLa Strada is a musical with lyrics and music by Lionel Bart, with additional lyrics by Martin Charnin and additional music by Elliot Lawrence. It is based on the 1954 film of the same name by Federico Fellini. Bart wrote the score in 1967 and made a demonstration recording, although the musical...
based on the film opened on
BroadwayBroadway Theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, is the theatre associated with the 40 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City...
on December 14, 1969, but closed after one performance.
Serbian rockSerbian rock is the rock music scene of Serbia. During the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and the 1980s, while Serbia was a constituent republic inside Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Serbian rock scene was a part of SFR Yugoslav rock scene.-History:...
band
La StradaLa Strada was a Serbian band from Novi Sad. Even though the band released only one album, it is considered a highly influental band.- New Wave era :...
took their name from the film.
Awards and nominations
La Strada won more than fifty international awards, including an Oscar in 1956 for Best Foreign Language Film, the first prize ever given in that category.
Wins
- Venice Film Festival
The Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the Lido, Venice,...
: Silver Lion, Federico Fellini; 1954.
- Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists: Silver Ribbon; Best Director, Federico Fellini; Best Producer, Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti; 1955.
- New York Film Critics Circle Awards
New York Film Critics Circle Awards are given annually to honor excellence in cinema worldwide by an organization of film reviewers from New York City-based publications. It is considered one of the most important precursors to the Academy Awards....
: NYFCC Award Best Foreign Language Film; 1956.
- Bodil Awards
The Bodil Awards are the major Danish film awards given by Denmark's National Association of Film Critics . The awards are presented annually at a ceremony in the Imperial Cinema in Copenhagen. Established in 1948, it is one of the oldest film awards in Europe...
: Bodil; Best European Film, Federico Fellini (director); 1956.
- Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is...
: Oscar; Best Foreign Language FilmThe Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
; 1956.
- Blue Ribbon Awards
The are film-specific prizes awarded solely by movie critics and writers in Tokyo, Japan.The awards were established in 1950 by which is composed of film correspondents from seven Tokyo-based sports newspapers...
, Japan: Blue Ribbon Award, Best Foreign Language Film, Federico Fellini; 1958.
- Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain: CEC Award, Best Foreign Film, 1958.
- Kinema Junpo Awards, Japan: Kinema Junpo Award, Best Foreign Language Film; 1958.
Nominations
- Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion, Federico Fellini; 1954.
- British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a British charity that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation...
: BAFTA Film Award; Best Film from any Source, Italy; Best Foreign Actress, Giulietta Masina; 1956.
- Academy Awards: Oscar; Best Writing, Best Original Screenplay; Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano; 1957.
External links