La Strada

La Strada (The Road) - 1954

Director: Federico Fellini
Writers: Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano
Players: Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart
IMDB #205 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047528/]

The Gist:
Zampano, a traveling vaudeville type buys a side kick/"wife" for 10,000 lire from a poor family. He teaches her his act, knocks her around now and then, forces his sexual advances on her, brazenly sleeps around with other women, and gets drunk a lot. The girl, who is heartbreakingly adorable in this film, suffers his brutish temperament only occasionally working up courage to leave. He finds her, beats her up a little, she comes back to him. Then later she has a chance to leave him for a wonderfully kind, tight knit family of a traveling circus but she stays with Zampano. Then she has a chance to leave with another vaudeville actor who is obviously fond of her and she is obviously fond of him. Somehow through her conversation with him she becomes more committed to stay with Zampano. Then as Zampano tries to steal from a covenant who has kindly put them up she objects and is shaken in her conviction. However, when she leaves with Zampano in distress a nun offers her shelter in the covenant and she declines. Then when she starts going crazy near the end we see some trace of humanity in Zampano which would almost justify her staying with Zampano if he had shown any of this up to this point in the film. But he doesn't. Anyway, for all this film's high brow status it is at least a little of a battered wife story.

Why It's Kind of Cool:
The girl is amazing, absolutely amazing. I have a great crush on her and am a little jealous after finding out that she was Fellini's wife (especially after watching 8 1/2 and realizing how much he probably slept around on her). The parallel even in this film is sort of startling: that her brutish husband whore's around so much, that Fellini was probably not so different. And yet she stays with him up until Fellini's death, and stays with Zampano until she goes crazy and Zampano ditches her on the side of the road during winter (yes, that happens and the film expects you to feel sorry for him at the end). Anyway, the girl keeps the film going because without her insane screen presence it would feel like a pretty conventional art house film, like a watered down Bergman or something. However, with her wonderfully expressive qualities and her vaudeville silent era mannerisms she steals the whole damn movie giving cause to its stature in film. She reminds me of an insanely hot woman version of Harpo Marx. I only wish she ended up with the other vaudeville actor instead of staying in this frustrating cycle of destruction which makes the film hard to watch.

Why It Could Be Better:
I think I've probably already expressed what I don't like about this film. Perhaps some people would "tut" me and say that her suffering is the art of the film. Bah, I say. The psychology behind her choices is certainly interesting but we really are not given enough of Zampano to see him as anything but a two dimensional character. I find this frustrating, because if I'm to be tormented with this woman I want to see what she sees in him and I never do really. Beyond that it really was on the verge of being conventional, I could occasionally feel stiff direction from Fellini when it came to the girl's otherwise great performance. Moments where she was obviously supposed to "show" the audience what she was feeling but felt a little forced. Along with that, both characters change in significant ways but the change is handled strangely. In fact, Zampano's change in particular is a little overwrought and far too late in the film to be very effective. But it is undoubtedly a great movie, if only to consider it as an eccentric performance piece for Giulietta Masina.