La Strada (1954) La strada (original title)

Director:

Federico Fellini

Writers:

Federico Fellini (story) &
Tullio Pinelli (story) ...
(more)

Release Date:

16 July 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

You've been hearing about a great picture called La Strada (The Road)...now it is here!

Plot:

A carefree girl is sold to a traveling entertainer, consequently enduring physical and emotional pain along the way.

Plot Keywords:

Strongman | Traveling Circus | On The Road | Circus | Tragedy

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 10 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Anthony Quinn	...	Zampanò
Giulietta Masina	...	Gelsomina
Richard Basehart	...	Il Matto - The Fool
Aldo Silvani	...	Signor Giraffa
Marcella Rovere	...	La Vedova
Livia Venturini	...	La Suorina
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gustavo Giorgi	...	(uncredited)
Yami Kamadeva	...	(uncredited)
Mario Passante	...	Waiter (uncredited)
Anna Primula	...	(uncredited)
Goffredo Unger	...	Man Restraining Zampano from Attacking Matto (uncredited)
Nazzareno Zamperla	...	Man Restraining Zampano from Attacking Matto (uncredited)

Directed by
Federico Fellini

Writing credits
Federico Fellini		(story and screenplay) &
Tullio Pinelli		(story and screenplay)
Tullio Pinelli		(dialogue)
Ennio Flaiano		(screenplay) (as Ennio Flajano)

Produced by
Dino De Laurentiis	....	producer
Carlo Ponti	....	producer

Original Music by
Nino Rota

Cinematography by
Otello Martelli		(director of photography)
Carlo Carlini		(uncredited)

Film Editing by
Leo Cattozzo		(film editor)

Production Design by
Mario Ravasco		(uncredited)

Art Direction by
Enrico Cervelli		(as E. Cervelli)
Brunello Rondi

Costume Design by
Margherita Marinari		(uncredited)

Makeup Department
Eligio Trani	....	makeup artist (as E. Trani)
Dante Trani	....	makeup artist (uncredited)

Production Management
Angelo Cittadini	....	production supervisor
Danilo Fallani	....	production supervisor
Luigi Giacosi	....	production manager
Giorgio Morra	....	production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Moraldo Rossi	....	assistant director

Art Department
Paolo Nuzzi	....	assistant art director
Tom Jung	....	poster artist (uncredited)
Tom Jung	....	poster designer (uncredited)

Sound Department
R. Boggio	....	sound
Aldo Calpini	....	sound (as A. Calpini)

Camera and Electrical Department
Roberto Gerardi	....	camera operator (as Roberto Girardi)
A. Piatti	....	still photographer

Editorial Department
Lina Caterini	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Franco Ferrara	....	musical director

Other crew
Marcello Partini	....	laboratories owner
Carol Riethof	....	director: Trans Lux English language version
Peter Riethof	....	director: Trans Lux English language version
Narciso Vicario	....	production secretary (as Narciso Vicari)
Herman G. Weinberg	....	title designer: English titles (credited in English version)
Arnoldo Foà	....	voice dubbing: Anthony Quinn (uncredited)
Cesare Polacco	....	voice dubbing: Aldo Silvani (uncredited)
Stefano Sibaldi	....	voice dubbing: Richard Basehart (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Ponti-De Laurentiis Cinematografica

Distributors

• Dino de Laurentiis Distribuzione (1954) (Italy) (theatrical)
• Trans Lux (1956) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Ustredni Pujcovna Filmu (1962) (Czechoslovakia) (theatrical)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1976) (USA) (TV) (network premiere)
• Embassy Home Entertainment (1886) (USA) (VHS) (subtitled)
• Embassy Home Entertainment (1986) (USA) (VHS) (dubbed)
• Criterion Collection, The (2003) (USA) (DVD) (subtitles)
• Homescreen (2003) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Madman Entertainment (2005) (Australia) (DVD)
• Madman Entertainment (2005) (New Zealand) (DVD)
• Homescreen (2008) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Atlantic Film (2007) (Sweden) (DVD)
• Homescreen (2010) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Constantin Film (1956) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Odeon (19??) (Hungary) (theatrical)
• Sovexportfilm (19??) (Soviet Union) (theatrical)
• Altomedia. Co. Ltd. (????) (Korea) (DVD)
• Altomedia. Co. Ltd. (????) (Korea) (VHS)
• Asociace Ceských Filmových Klubu (ACFK) (????) (Czech Republic) (DVD)
• Cinetel (????) (Hungary) (DVD)
• Janus Films (????) (USA) (TV)
• Kinowelt Home Entertainment (1999) (Germany) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Titra Sound Studios  recorded at: Trans Lux English language version

Also Known As:

"La strada" - Italy (original title)

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Australia:G | Australia:M (alternate rating) | Chile:18 | Finland:K-10 (1986) | Finland:K-16 (1956) | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 (canton of the Grisons) | West Germany:16 | Singapore:PG | Norway:15 (1995) | UK:PG (video rating) | UK:A (original rating) | Portugal:M/12 | New Zealand:R16 | Netherlands:6 (DVD rating) | USA:TV-PG (TV rating) | USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Bagnoregio, Viterbo, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Ponti-De Laurentiis Cinematografica

Trivia:

Won the first ever Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Goofs:

Continuity: The bonnet of the Fool's car is up as he repairs the tire and during the fight with Zampanò. When Zampanò pushes the car over the edge, it is closed.

Quotes:

The Fool:What a funny face! Are you a woman, really? Or an artichoke?

Movie Connections:

Featured in Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004) (TV)

Soundtrack:

You and You Alone

La Strada: Fellini's masterpiece

It is the early sixties in Annapolis, Maryland. Although a Third Class Petty Officer in the Navy, I am still in my teens & have never sampled the cinema except for what Hollywood has had to offer. I have just stumbled out of a theater & I am stunned yet aware that I have just witnessed a work of art that was devoid of compromise. That work was La Strada, a cinematic creation directed by Federico Fellini. I have viewed this film several times since but it never pales & each time I take away something new. In this post I'll concentrate on the main characters & some of the cast.

Anthony Quinn was perfect for the role of Zampano, the grubby strongman performer touring the villages & countryside of post-WW2 Italy. No other actor of the day could have possibly brought what Quinn brings to the role. There may have been some European actor who would not have shamed himself in the part, but I can't think of who it might have been & certainly no actor known by Hollywood could have done so well as Quinn. One has to resort to other eras & reach far into the imagination to attempt such speculation. If Wallace or Noah Beery, sr. could have managed a not too corrupted Italian persona; perhaps. If Gilbert Roland had lifted weights & taken supplements for a year; maybe. Victor McLaglen could never have passed for Italian – don't laugh – he had the rugged looks & the physique. Ricardo Montalban? Too handsome. Ditto, Victor Mature. Mitchum was way too 'American.' Nehemiah Persoff, Eli Wallach, Telly Savalas, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden, even Van Heflin, all considered, all rejected. Brando might have been credible. One remembers "A Streetcar Named Desire" & "On the Waterfront" & thinks: Possibly. But Quinn plays the role as if it was what he was put on earth to do.

Quinn's Zampano is earthily callous yet the viewer senses vulnerability buried deep within the character. Among other facets his perfect performance presents to the viewer is a faintly perceived inkling of past disappointments, of indirectly inferred reasons that Zampano is cruel & insensitive. Quinn's consummate technique paints the broad picture of a lout yet the viewer is able to pull a slender thread of sympathy from his character & that sympathy is necessary for the end of the movie. To be very bad & to still be likable, if only barely, is produced by Quinn as if it were a gift to the viewer. It is acting on the highest possible plane.

Giulietta Masina plays Gelsomina, a tattered urchin Zampano purchases from her poverty-bested mother. Here too, the viewer witnesses genius of casting. Masina's face is one of Fellini's main canvases in the film. It mugs, it displays pride, love & resignation in fleeting cascades of expression, sometimes all within a second. Even without the plasticity of her face her body alone would be enough to write volumes for the viewer. It gambols, prances, pratfalls & cunningly sneaks, sometimes at breakneck speed though the viewer's eye is never allowed to blur these perceptions despite the rapidity of much of the execution.

Richard Basehart plays the Fool, foil to Quinn's brute. Whereas Quinn's act subsists on feats of strength, Basehart's character is all about finesse: juggling, acrobatics & tightrope-walking. Zampano is awkward on those occasions that he attempts real affection toward Gelsomina. The Fool is light strokes of joviality; joking & flirting is his natural mode. Zampano's voice is gruff and in the baritone range; Basehart's lines are delivered high-pitched, with a lilting modulation. However, just as Zampano has an almost hidden vein of sensitivity, Basehart imbues his lighthearted portrayal with a close to imperceptible strand of hardness.

The vehicle of the plot is a journey, but a journey with no particular physical destination. In a work such as "Huckleberry Finn" Twain provides a direction(down-river with the current). Here the characters appear to wander aimlessly from place to place, seemingly interacting by chance with whoever they meet & somehow this very lack of goal helps to give the piece a lifelike aura of randomness. The viewer becomes unaware of watching a film. Like all truly great works of art, technique never intrudes & the viewer could be a fly on the wall.

This lack of artificiality allows the viewer to be fully immersed in the unfolding events. The landscape is the blasted Italian environment just after WW2 & is symbolic of the work's bleak message. The camera rolls on weeds, shacks, broken concrete, poorly maintained roadways, dry, desolate hinterlands & famine-ridden villages. There is no looking away allowed, the viewer is made to see, forced to behold stark realities.

It is impossible to say exactly what makes this film a masterpiece. By a mysterious & perhaps lucky combination of ingredients it propels itself into the highest circle of cinema. The end is emotionally wrenching & I would venture that few are able to leave it as I did long ago in Annapolis without a sense of having been deeply moved.