Thoughts: Another great Fellini film starring Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina. Gelsomina comes from a poor family whose mother sells her to Zampano (Anthony Quinn), a traveling circus performer. In the process of the movie, she falls in love with Zampano, in spite of the cruel manner he treats her, and meets Il Matto – The Fool (Richard Basehart) who is also after her affection. The English translation of La Strada is “the road”. The road the traveling performers are on is correlation to their lives; the ups and downs and twist and turns. At the end of the film, Zampano who is made out to a brute in the beginning becomes human and that scene alone is quite powerful. Now I have to watch 8 ½ and La Dolce Vita.
(M) Notti di Cabiria, Le (Nights of Cabiria). (Federico Fellini, 1957) Grade: A
Thoughts: My first Fellini film and it was amazing. Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) is a prostitute looking for a man to love and take care of her but all she can find is heartache and mistrust. She runs into one creep after another and even a movie star Alberto Lazzari (Amedeo Nazzari) until a chance meeting with Oscar D’Onofrio (Francois Perier), an accountant. Could this be the love Cabiria has been looking for all her life? The last few scenes of the film are heartbreaking and yet strangely uplifting. Personally what made the film so amazing was Giulietta Masina as Cabiria. Her acting ability and talent shines through this role which was meant for her. Giulietta embodies bits of Chaplin and other vaudeville acting skills. Why they don’t make films as good as this anymore is beyond me.
1 comment:
I have both these films in my Queue and they were at the top of my list but I got 8 1/2 first and it is sooooo long and I had no idea what was going on that I decided not to watch his other movies at this point. I'll have to give these two a try since you enjoyed them so much. If you watch 8 1/2... please let me know what you think because I couldn't even finish it.
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