Poetry and Reality. Devastated Landscapes of the Soul: La Strada (The Road, I 1954)

Federico Fellini’s global success La Strada from 1956 in Italy initially provoked a fierce public argument, in which some influential leftist critics claimed, the film was “betraying” neorealism. It tells the moving story of a young woman, Gelsomina, brought up in poor rural post-war Italy, whose mother sold her to a brutish travelling showman, Zampano, carrying around his whole existence in an improvised vehicle. He abuses her as his aide, object of his sadistic lust of power and also sexual object. She however, surrenders to him, defiantly at first, but increasingly with an expression of compassion, even love. The article examines how a film character at first sight imposing as a pure victim, also in a religious sense, can seize the viewer as mentally strong and quite self confident. Gelsomina seems psychologically dependent when she decides to stay with Zampano, even when facing better options for her life. But she freezes in mental derangement after Zampano had killed his adversary Matto, Gelominas friend. In deep movement the viewer watches him abandon Gelsomina. Years later he learns that she had perished after he recognizes her melody. This film music, composed by Fellini’s lifelong closest collaborator, Nino Rota, is one of the strongest means, the film uses besides the neorealistic imaging and the excellent actors, in order to free the character of Gelsomina from her victim state and showing her deep psychic power. The title melody is being repeatedly interpreted by the actress Giulietta Masina on the trumpet in an unforgettable manner and leads to Zampano’s reformation process at the end of the film showing him in deep despair and for the first time in compassionate and humane affection.