Federico Fellini's《La Strada》(1954)

电影王国国民

Federico Fellini's
La Strada




Along with Roberto Rossellini’s Rome Open City (1945) and Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948), Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954) is among the most important films of post-war Italian cinema.   Rome Open City and The Bicycle Thiefare the two films that introduced Italian Neo-Realism to the world andrestored Italy’s place of prominence in international film culture. Butit was Fellini’s La Strada, built upon a firm Neo-Realistfoundation yet possessing something more—a fairy-tale-like narrative,resonant with archetypal characters whose lives illuminate the basictruths of the human condition—that revealed the full aesthetic richnessof Neo-Realism just as it was being transformed by Fellini intosomething other than a faithful recording of mundane reality. It isthis sometimes whimsical, sometimes hallucinatory visual and narrativequality in Fellini’s work that distinguished him from his fellowNeo-Realists and which, even more significantly, pointed the way tofuture styles and directions in world cinema. As meticulously situatedas the characters and plot of La Strada are in the particularities of post-war Italian society, La Stradahas always conveyed to audiences a certain universal significance whichhas made it one of the most revered films in world cinema; an artisticmasterpiece that transcends national borders to deliver a profoundcommentary on the nature of the human condition and our most basicneeds as sentient creatures.


La Strada possesses afable-like simplicity that conceals the film’s seemingly unplanned,episodic structure. As a filmmaker who came of age during the floweringof Italian Neo-Realism, Fellini has an unerring instinct in La Strada forcreating an often harshly realistic portrayal of post-war Italiansociety. Certainly the film’s attention to lower class and sociallymarginalized characters reflects the politics of Neo-Realism and itsgoal of developing the cinema as a tool for representing and analyzingthe experiences of average, ordinary people, an impulse that arisesfrom Neo-Realism’s roots in Italian Marxism. Evidence of pervasivepoverty and the scarring effects of war are brilliantly incorporatedinto the mise-en-scene of the film through Fellini’s art direction and costume design.   His use of actual locations in La Strada,rather than the more easily controlled environment of the film studio,and his use of untrained actors in several minor roles, likewisefollowed basic Neo-Realist aesthetic principles that aimed atpresenting a more authentically realistic image of the world.


But Fellini was always something morethan a realist. Every Fellini film possesses a certain ineffablepoetry, a sense of magic and wonder that can range from the hilariousto the frightening to the uncanny. He is what I would call, mixingliterary and cinematic modes, a "magic neo-realist." In Fellini’s filmswe ultimately encounter a fidelity to something larger and more complexthan a strictly empirical notion of social and economic reality. Weencounter a highly subjective view of the world, often grotesque anddistorted, brimming with both irony and pathos and filtered throughFellini’s profoundly humanistic vision as an artist. Indeed, the uniqueblend of reality and surreality that Fellini’s films offer, their deftmingling of the objective and the subjective, reality and dreams,constitute the very essence of that often-used adjective in filmcriticism—Felliniesque. Fellini’s pursuit of his own, personalvision as an artist often made him a controversial figure withinItalian film culture, where other directors and critics complained thathis films failed to live up to the strict ideological requirements ofNeo-Realism. Such complaints had little effect on Fellini, however, whocontinued to pursue his visionary approach to cinematic storytellingover the course of a nearly 40-year career.
La Stradawas Fellini’s third film as a director, and it single-handedlyestablished his international reputation as a director of art-housecinema, winning numerous honors and prizes including the Academy Awardas best foreign film in 1954. La Strada must also be seen asthe product of several fertile collaborative relationships betweenFellini and others, most notably his wife, the actress Giuletta Masinawho plays the gentle, simple-minded Gelsomina, and the composer NinoRota, whose musical scores in numerous Fellini films make an enormouscontribution to their effectiveness. This is especially the case with La Strada, for which the musical score itself was a huge international hit.



La Stradameans "the road," and the film is best understood as a journey taken bythe two main characters: Gelsomina (Masina), a simple-minded youngwoman who is sold by her family to a brutish, itinerant carnival strongman, Zampano (Anthony Quinn). Traveling the countryside in a crudehutch attached to the strong man’s motorbike, Gelsomina is abused andmistreated by Zampano until she is finally driven to madness and death.Along the road they encounter "The Fool," (Richard Basehart) a circusacrobat and clown who teaches Gelsomina that there might be more tolife than her servitude to Zampano. The Fool and Zampano are depictedby Fellini as a study in contrasts: the strong man’s sullen brutishnessand awkward demeanor around others stand in sharp contrast to thegraceful and loquacious Fool, whose free-spirited contempt forauthority leads him to taunt and ridicule Zampano. Finally the strongman confronts the Fool, and in the fight that follows he accidentallymurders him. Gelsomina, already the victim of Zampano’s physical abuse,witnesses the Fool’s death, and begins a slow descent into madness.Finally, unwilling and unable to care for the increasingly derangedGelsomina, Zampano abandons her to fate.


Each of the three main characters hascertain obvious affinities to natural elements. Gelsomina is associatedwith water; we first encounter her on the beach at her home andthroughout the film her returns to the ocean are shown as cleansing andrestorative. Giuletta Masina’s performance as Gelsomina is one of themost outstanding features of La Strada and one of the greatperformances in film history. She displays a perfect balance ofinnocent vulnerability and sympathetic openness to others that iscontinually bruised in her dealings with Zampano. In film criticism theword most often used to invoke such a delicate interplay of comedy andpathos is Chaplinesque, and the spirit of Chaplin’s "Little Tramp" hovers over Masina’s carefully nuanced performance.

   

[ 本帖最后由 电影王国国民 于 2007-10-24 18:42 编辑 ]

电影王国国民

原帖由 电影王国国民 于 2007-10-24 06:38 PM 发表
Federico Fellini's
La Strada




Along with Roberto Rossellini’s Rome Open City (1945) and Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948), Fe ...

The Fool is associated with the air. Asan aerialist and high-wire artist, we first see him high above a crowdof spectators eating a plate of spaghetti, and his costume consists ofa pair of wings. The Fool represents a carnivelesque energy which seeksto subvert authority and puncture the masculine pretensions of Zampano.Though brash and egocentric, the Fool possesses a generosity of spiritthat makes him an emblem of the artist: the creative individual whoreaches out to others through artistic expression. He is a teacher andsavior figure in the film, and through "the parable of the pebble" thathe teaches Gelsomina, he bestows upon her an understanding and sense ofpurpose which can redeem even her sad existence. Zampano, in contrast,is a loner and outsider who views other people as either instruments tobe bent to his will or obstacles to be overcome and vanquished throughbrute strength. He is associated with the earth, and with impulses thatare base, often animalistic. His violent temper and aggression alsomake him a figure evocative of fire. Yet most often he conveys a sullenmistrust towards others that reveals his underlying fear. Zampano islike a dog that has been kicked so often he has become hostile andsuspicious of everyone he meets.


Fellini’s La Strada isfundamentally about different ways of being human, three different waysof interacting with your fellow human beings, and thus about threedifferent ways of finding meaning in human existence. For Gelsomina itis the wide-eyed openness and sensitivity to other beings and forces inthe universe that makes her a magical, even holy, presence in the film.She, too, can be seen as a kind of savior through whose death Zampanois finally brought to some kind of emotional and spiritual awakening.For the Fool, the meaning of life is to be found in the play ofpersonal expression, the performance of self for others that has madehim a star attraction of the circus. This is also why the Fool is sucha fascinating and attractive figure for Gelsomina, despite the factthat he ridicules her and calls her ugly. Still, through the "parableof the pebble," the Fool is able to impart to Gelsomina a sense of herown value and purpose in life that redeems her even in the midst ofZampano’s brutal treatment. However, the interpersonal and existentialchoices that Zampano makes determine that he will be unable to find anyredemptive meaning to existence, any purpose to his endless wanderingsas a circus strong man. He seems doomed to continuously perform an actthat increasingly becomes a parody of masculinity and male strength andthat scarcely conceals his basic loneliness and inability tosympathetically engage with other human beings.


Zampano is the real subject of Fellini’sfilm. Anthony Quinn’s brooding, laconic performance as Zampano has theeffect of making the character seem remote and distant; he is oftenseen only on the edges of the frame, in the background, as in the firstscene when he comes to purchase Gelsomina and Fellini places himhovering in the background while our attention is focused on the dramaof Gelsomina’s separation from her family. But his centrality to thefilm is clearly established by the ending of La Strada. Severalyears have gone by and the strong man has become noticeably older whenhe arrives at a seaside village where he hears a young woman singingthe plaintive melody that had become Gelsomina’s theme. Zampano learnsof her death from the young woman. Later in the evening, after hisperformance, Zampano wanders down to the beach where he is overwhelmedby his thoughts. The final, redemptive moment occurs when he stares upat the stars and begins to cry, signaling the emergence of humanemotions which he had long suppressed and denied. But it is too late;Gelsomina is dead, and the humanizing influence of her gentle spirit islost in the overwhelming sense of grief and isolation experienced byZampano.


Clearly La Strada can be seen asboth a Christian religious parable and an Existentialist philosophicalstatement. Yet Fellini rejected such obvious interpretive frameworks,preferring instead to create a sense of openness and ambiguity in thefilm, another indication of Neo-Realism’s influence on the director. Hespecifically removed from early drafts of the script all overt Catholicsymbolism and Existentialist didacticism in order to fashion a film ofrare visual poetry and emotional impact. Finally, La Stradacannot be reduced to either a religious or philosophical argument. Itis a film that must be experienced within the context of each viewer’ssense of the human condition and the need for gentleness andcompanionship that gives human existence whatever sweetness it iscapable of possessing. La Strada—The Road is perhaps atoo obvious metaphor for the journey we are all embarked upon; ajourney in which how we treat others is inevitably the final measure ofour own happiness.

[ 本帖最后由 电影王国国民 于 2007-10-24 18:42 编辑 ]

电影王国国民

绝顶佳片！
下次[漫谈浅说]我写写这个。

jasonau

appreciate ur info.
but really a test of patience.:rolleyes:

电影王国国民

really?
How about this sexy woman:

jasonau

原帖由 电影王国国民 于 2007-10-24 18:54 发表
really?
How about this sexy woman:

that's a test of self-restraint.

ronnylin001

经典中的经典，可惜还没看过。