Was it me that broke my heart? Did I have a heart to break?

[sovay]

I completely failed to post about La strada (1954) whenever it was before Readercon I finally saw the film from start to finish; I cannot remember now any of the notionally intelligent things I wanted to say about it, except that I loved it. It's paired itself up in my mind with The Seventh Seal (1957), another story that felt like watching cards dealt out from a stranger's deck of icons, spare and essential. This one is more commedia than mystery play; its characters have the simplicity of masks, but their faces are real. A strongman with one trick and a motorcyle, his assistant who looks as though human is not her natural shape. I confess myself blown away by Richard Basehart. He made a perfectly fine Ishmael in Moby Dick (1956), but as the wire-walker known as Il Matto—the Fool—he's absolutely amazing. He performs his act with the cardboard wings of an angel on his shoulders and a white tear painted on his cheek, spotlighted against the black sky in the miraculous grace of someone who never does touch the ground, but he's a trickster, mercurial and troublemaking, whose gentleness toward Gelsomina is as impulsive as his merciless taunting of Zampanò; he courts his own death and snickers and presents a fey silent clown of a girl with her soul in the form of a pebble even as he sets in motion the events that will destroy her, and in the end he, too, cannot escape the world. How in the hell did this man end up remembered for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea? He and Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn are some of the most extraordinary things I've seen on a screen. And Fellini does numinous like gangbusters—not in the shove and fervor of a saint's day procession, but in the lone figure on the tightrope: a tin cup, a battered trumpet, a leather jacket cracking at the seams. Even with Marcello Mastroianni, I have trouble believing I'll love 8½ (1963) more. We'll see. First I'm sleeping. Tomorrow, complex social interactions.

Comments

[blubeagle.livejournal.com]

Ooh--LA STRADA! I am so in love with this movie! Giuletta Masina is so perfect in this movie. I'm a circus/carnival freak and I loved this movie so very much that I incorporated parts of the idea into a twenty page fanfic story--of a sort. I incorporated parts of U2's video for "All I Want Is You" and Depeche Mode's "Halo," for the full effect...but it works. :+)

What was your favorite part? For me it's the whole thing. Just perfect, I think. :+)

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ms. Sonya, for this post. You've just made my week.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I need to see this film again.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I remember seeing this film at my grandmother's house. I'd like to see it again; I remember only that it was sad....

[time-shark.livejournal.com]

I remember when I first saw La strada in film class; though images from it still haunt me, somehow it seems like everyone around me had been moved to tears and somehow I had not been. I long to see it again knowing Fellini's work as I now do.

[negothick.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this and bringing back old memories. I didn't see La Strada until after I had taken part in a one-act play set in a circus and clearly a fan's rewrite of the movie. Our high-school age actors performed the play at a local coffeehouse, appropriately dark and decaying on a postcard-sized stage. It wasn't until college and a bad print of La Strada that I made the connection.

[larryhammer]

Is that Peter Bellamy another of his settings of Kipling?

---L.

[sovay]

Is that Peter Bellamy another of his settings of Kipling?

It is indeed.

[sovay]

I'd like to see it again; I remember only that it was sad....

It is, I suppose, but I still loved it . . .

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

but I still loved it

Oh, I understand that. I love lots of things that are sad.

[larryhammer]

Excellent. Thankee!

---L.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Am I misremembering? I could swear they screened it for us in high school, in the cafeteria, and I was (being me then) deeply bored and embarrassed. I'd like to see it again now that I'm (much) older and less mortified by poetry.

Nine

[sovay]

I need to see this film again.

I think it's going to be one I keep coming back to.

[sovay]

Giuletta Masina is so perfect in this movie.

Yes. I think I discovered her backwards—Le notti di Cabiria (1957) was my introduction to both her and Fellini—but she really is. No one else has her face.

You've just made my week.

Thank Federico Fellini, not me!

[sovay]

I'd like to see it again now that I'm (much) older and less mortified by poetry.

You would probably now appreciate its archetypes.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Sounds a fascinating movie, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

First I'm sleeping. Tomorrow, complex social interactions.

I've similar sentiments, myself. Just back from Catskills Irish Arts Week.

I hope you've slept well.

[sovay]

Sounds a fascinating movie, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

As you may be able to tell, I recommend it highly. I'm sure copies can be found in your local libraries and things.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

As you may be able to tell, I recommend it highly.

I did suspect that, yes.

I'm sure copies can be found in your local libraries and things.

Likely so. Sometime when I can find the time, I'll check it out.

[negothick.livejournal.com]

You know, I think you're right! Debbie (the author of that play) could have seen it there, even though it had slipped from my memory.
Those flickering, dim b&w movies, out of focus on patched screens--how they can haunt us.