Word: strada
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Strada...
Gelsomina's (Guilietta Masina) sister Rosa has already died on the road with Zampano's (Anthony Quinn) one-man travelling show when "La Strada begins." Needing another assistant, Zampano returns to Rosa's village where the girls' mother agrees to sell Gelsomina to Zampano also, in exchange for 10,000 lire. The other children are going hungry and Gelsomina herself is regarded as somewhat worthless; she is exceedingly timid and does no work to help the family. If this exchange seems somewhat coldhearted, it only hints at the treatment Gelsomina will receive throughout the rest of the film...
...film won the 1954 Oscar award for Best Foreign Film. In addition to suberb acting. "La Strada" is visually stunning. Fellini uses warm sepia-washed black and white film throughout, and alternates between a soft and hard focus lense filter. Very rarely does he use either pure black or white. In a Bergmanesque fashion, he places the camera strategically to strengthen the film's allegorical strains. Gelsomina is always seen from slightly above, as if she were being watched by a guardian angel. During an Easter parade the camera looks upwards, circling around the massive crosses to emphasize their grandeur...
...film career that spans half a century, the Italian-born De Laurentiis produced a handful of successes that include the Fellini-directed La Strada (1954), Serpico (1974), King Kong (1976) and Conan the Barbarian (1982). But the hits have been overshadowed by hundreds of commercial duds, most notably the $50 million sci-fi film Dune, a 1984 mega-flop that helped send Dino down the chute...