La Strada (1954)

Seventy years ago, Federico Fellini broke with neo-realism, the movement that brought the post-war Italian cinema international recognition, to create a much more personal film. Although it seems realistic on the surface, LA STRADA has lyrical and fairy tale elements that have led critics to call it Beauty and the Beast in reverse. Anthony Quinn is a circus strongman, a brute of a man living to indulge his appetites. He buys a simple peasant girl (Giulietta Masina, Fellini’s wife) to assist in his act, but she soon grows attracted to a poetic clown (Richard Basehart), leaving the strongman incensed. The film established Fellini as one of the world’s great directors and prefigures his more expressionistic later films like La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8 ½ (1963). 

d. Federico Fellini, 108m, DCP

70^TH ANNIVERSARY PRESENTATION

The 4K restoration of LA STRADA was completed using a 35mm dupe negative preserved by Beta Film GmbH. Restored by the Criterion Collection and The Film Foundation at Cineteca di Bologna’s L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory. Restoration funding provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.