One of the indelible foreign films of the 1950s, it brought a kind of poetry to the screen that dazzled audiences at the time and still works today. The moon-faced Masina all but patented the adjective 'Chaplinesque' with her repertoire of cute frowns and alert smiles, hopeful eye-rolls and pantomimed wonder.” “A fable grounded in the elemental… the film that, for the rest of life, he held closest to his heart.” Hoberman’s column on LA STRADA in The New York Times. Restoration funding provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Restored in 4K by the Criterion Collection and The Film Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna’s L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, from a 35mm dupe negative preserved by Beta Film GmbH. An enormous international success and personal triumph for Masina, La Strada was awarded the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of its year. (1954) Bought from her mother to assist the act of Anthony Quinn’s brutish strongman “Zampanò,” Giulietta Masina’s simple-minded peasant girl Gelsomina is taught a haunting tune by a dreamy aerialist (American actor Richard Basehart) and assured that she too has a place in the world. Starring Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart Directed by Federico Fellini | Written by Fellini & Tullio Pinelli with Ennio FlaianoĬinematography by Otello Martinelli | Music by Nino Rota
