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La Strada
Original Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Federico Fellini
Produced by	Dino De Laurentiis Carlo Ponti
Written by	Screenplay: Federico Fellini Ennio Flaiano Tullio Pinelli Story: Federico Fellini Tullio Pinelli
Starring	Anthony Quinn Giulietta Masina Richard Basehart
Music by	Nino Rota
Cinematography	Otello Martelli Carlo Carlini
Editing by	Leo Cattozzo
Distributed by	Trans Lux Inc.
Release date(s)	Sept. 6, 1954 (Premiere at Venice) Sept. 22, 1954 (Italy) July 16, 1956 (United States)
Running time	104 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

La Strada (English: The Road) is a 1954 Italian movie, directed by Federico Fellini.^[1]

Fellini cast his wife, Giulietta Masina, in the starring role of young elfin Gelsomina.

The picture was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1957.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Exhibition 3 Background 3.1 Filming locations 4 Music 5 Cast 6 Awards 7 Adaptation 8 Footnotes 9 External links

La Strada tells the story of Gelsomina, a clownish young girl sold for few coins by her impoverished mother to carnival strong man Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), who makes a living by drawing a crowd to a square, expanding his chest to break a chain, and then passing the hat.

Zampanò is physically and emotionally cruel, and viciously trains Gelsomina as his sidekick. She has a bird-like quality, delicate and strangely beautiful, as well as a prophetic ability to predict the weather, yet she is unable to avoid the brutish Zampanò's fits of rage and violence. Nonetheless, she retains an indefatigable child-like optimism.

Along the road they encounter 'The Fool' (Richard Basehart), a circus acrobat and clown who teaches Gelsomina that there might be more to life than her servitude to Zampanò.

Despite this, he talks her out of leaving him. The Fool and Zampanò have a long-standing enmity, and when Zampanò kills the Fool in a rage, it breaks Gelsomina's spirit.

When Zampano realizes this, he leaves her, experiencing remorse for the first time in his life. Years later, when he learns of her death, he breaks down.

The film was first presened at the Venice Film Festival on September 6, 1954 and won the Silver Lion. It opened wide in Italy on September 22, 1954.

In the United States it opened wide on July 16, 1956.

Fellini has stated that the idea of the character Zampano came from his youth while living in Rimini. In the coastal town there lived a pig castrator 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."^[2]

The picture was filmed in Bagnoregio, Viterbo, Lazio, and Ovindoli, L'Aquila, Abruzzo; Italy.

The theme music, composed by Nino Rota, 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. At the end of the movie, Zampano learns of Gelsomina's death when he hears a young woman singing this melody in a town he travels through, and he asks her where she learned it.

Gelsomina, in her childish view of the world around her, considers herself to be an artist because she learns to play the snare drum and trumpet, and to do a bit of dancing and play a clown. This lends a comic element to her character, which blends ironically with the melancholy story line.

• Anthony Quinn as Zampanò
• Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina
• Richard Basehart as Il 'Matto' - The 'Fool'
• Aldo Silvani as Il Signor Giraffa - Mr Giraffe
• Marcella Rovere as La Vedova - The Widow
• Livia Venturini as La Suorina - The Sister

Wins

• Venice Film Festival: 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: NYFCC Award Best Foreign Language Film; 1956.
• Bodil Awards: Bodil; Best European Film, Federico Fellini (director); 1956.
• Academy Awards: Oscar; Best Foreign Language Film; 1957.
• Blue Ribbon Awards, 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.

A musical based on the film, also named La Strada, opened on Broadway on December 14, 1969 but closed after one performance.

1. ^ La Strada at the Internet Movie Database
2. ^ Fellini, Federico. Fellini on Fellini, Delacorte Press: 1974, page 11.

• Criterion Collection essay by Peter Matthews.

Federico Fellini

Variety Lights (1950) • The White Sheik (1951) • I Vitelloni (1953) • L'Amore in Città (1953) • La Strada (1954) • Il bidone (1955) • Nights of Cabiria (1957) • La Dolce Vita (1960) • Boccaccio '70 (1962) • 8½ (1963) • Juliet of the Spirits (1965) • Satyricon (1969) • I Clowns (1970) • Roma (1972) • Amarcord (1973) • Fellini's Casanova (1976) • Prova d'orchestra (1979) • City of Women (1980) • And the Ship Sails On (1983) • Ginger and Fred (1986) • Intervista (1987) • La voce della luna (1990)

Cinema of Italy
Actors • Directors • Films A-Z • Film chronology • Cinematographers • Editors • Producers • Score composers • Screenwriters •

Preceded by Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1956

Succeeded by Nights of Cabiria