comment #1

VoiceOfReason says ...

Woody Allen ripped that last shot for the final shot in Sweet and Lowdown. Now that I think about it Woody borrowed the whole plot of La Strada for S&L...

comment #2

BurmaShave says ...

I know this isn't a popular opinion, but I would have preferred that the film ended with him leaving her the trumpet (if memory serves me) and then the shot of him driving away.

comment #3

Sabina E says ...

people always borrow and steal ideas. Nobody is original.

comment #4

madskrilla says ...

Young Fellini was a huge Vittorio De Sica fan and he ran a special screening of LA STRADA for the great man and a few other movie people in Rome, terrified of De Sica's reaction. Lights go up at the end of the screening, and De Sica's eyes are red -- he has been crying.

Unfortunately, the relationship between the two men soured in later years -- De Sica disliked LA DOLCE VITA pretty intensely as, quote,"cheap" and "provincial", and didn't exactly keep the opinion to himself. Fellini heard that De Sica was dissing him and he never really forgave him.

I think De Sica, a notorious overactor, mostly by design (except in IL GENERALE DELLA ROVERE, his best work as an actor by far), as a director was in fact very attracted to restraint. High emotional wattage, yes. But lots of formal restraint (think GARDEN OF THE FINZI CONTINIS). Fellini must have indeed struck him as too much, way too much.

comment #5

Mr. T says ...

Good call VoiceOfReason....S&L is one of my favorite movies and the ending has always stayed with me since I first watched it YEARS ago.

comment #6

hailfreedonia says ...

mads,
i've heard the same story about de sica and fellini and their falling out. As much as I love restraint, I deeply love Fellini. The depiction of the popular press in La Dolce Vita was prescient. There's a scene where the papparazzi swarm around a woman as she gets out of a car and she's confused as to why they're taking her picture. She's even a bit flattered by the attention. What she doesn't know is that they are there because her famous husband has just killed their two children and himself. It's one of the most heartbreaking movie moments I can recall.

comment #7

lipranzer says ...

I haven't seen LA STRADA in years, but I do remember that ending. Anthony Quinn often got attacked for hamming it up, but the film wouldn't have worked as well without the deepness of emotion he carried.

comment #8

frankbooth says ...

I recently saw Il Bidone for the first time. It's low-key, realistic and grim, and the ending is brutal.

comment #9

sardine says ...

La Notte di Cabiria IS THE MASTERPIECE. Not La Strada.

comment #10

Edward says ...

Fellini made more than one masterpiece: La Strada, 81/2, La Dolce Vita, Amarcord, La Notte di Cabiria. Fred and Ginger is a minor masterpiece.

comment #11

hailfreedonia says ...

I would add 'Juliet of the Spirits', 'The White Sheik' and 'I Vitelloni' to the masterpiece list. I also love his episodes of Boccaccio 70 and Spirits of the Dead. Satyricon is hard to forget ... and I do also really like 'Il Bidone', a brutal, sad piece of neo-realism.