Music is another right-brain faculty, and whenever the film introduced the poignant little tune that Gelsomina learned from The Fool, I was reminded of the passage from The Wind In The Willows, where one of the characters says, about the distant music that captivated him down by the riverbank, that "the call in it was stronger even, than the music was sweet.". "[15] By the time it was fully complete, Fellini's shooting script was nearly 600 pages long, with every shot and camera angle detailed and filled with notes reflecting intensive research. Danielle Hipkins receives funding from AHRC and British Academy. -Zampano hits the fool and the fool bangs his head against the metal of the car. There are signs that Gelsomina has started to become a healing force for him, beginning to awaken his capacity for empathy and love. He realizes how lost he is without her, because she was the heart-center that gave meaning to his life. He learns that the woman's father had found Gelsomina on the beach and kindly taken her in. Zampano confronts the fool who spurs a fight. Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson have mentioned the film as an inspiration for their songs "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Me and Bobby McGee", respectively,[95][96] and a Serbian rock band took the film's name as their own. [15], Fellini secured financing through the producers Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti, who wanted to cast Silvana Mangano (De Laurentiis' wife) as Gelsomina and Burt Lancaster as Zampanò, but Fellini refused these choices. SOAS Festival of Ideas: Decolonising Knowledge, Aston Talks: Engineering 21st century logistics systems: a cultural perspective - online public lecture by Professor Ed Sweeney, Children's Half-Term Lecture (online): Cats, Bats, and Pointed Hats - Halloween and the history of witchcraft, Who to trust on Covid-19? [49] This is one of three primary themes that are introduced during the titles at the beginning of La Strada and that recur regularly throughout the film. [28], The new schedule caused a conflict for Anthony Quinn, who was signed to play the title role in Attila, a 1954 epic, also produced by De Laurentiis and directed by Pietro Francisci. La Strada was made over forty years ago, and Jung was not a mainstream influence, but Switzerland isn't very far from Italy, and Jung had already published his theories then, so I'm guessing that Fellini might have been influenced by him. [14], Fellini wrote the script with collaborators Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli and brought it first to Luigi Rovere, Fellini's producer for The White Sheik (1952). "[1] As a result, the film demanded more time and effort than any of his other works, before or since. Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), a young woman, learns that her sister Rosa has died after going on the road with the strongman Zampanò (Anthony Quinn). This was the film that, for international audiences, marked a break with the incredibly influential Italian Neorealism that had produced films like Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948). A musical based on the film opened on Broadway on 14 December 1969, but closed after one performance. And, the first time Gelsomina sees this feat it represents two opposing ideas. The film has found its way into popular music, too. What it surely presents is a 20th-century, sadomasochistic vision of masculinity and femininity as anything but complementary, one that still haunts us today. Oh, the poor wretch! "La Strada: Realism and the Comedy of Poverty." Its French release the next year found a warmer reception.