La Strada by Federico Fellini http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/94-out-of-100-for-la-strada.html ‘La Strada has become "one of the most influential films ever made", according to the American Film Institute…It won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1957…It was placed fourth in the 1992 British Film Institute directors' list of cinema's Top 10 films…’ - 10 out of 10

 

La Strada by Federico Fellini http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/94-out-of-100-for-la-strada.html  ‘La Strada has become "one of the most influential films ever made", according to the American Film Institute…It won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1957…It was placed fourth in the 1992 British Film Institute directors' list of cinema's Top 10 films…’

10 out of 10

 

 

This film is a classic sounds like a cliché, only this is the epitome, the paradigm – there could be a paradigm shift of course, and this could be dismissed and canceled by…Cancel Culture, because it depicts violence against women, and the central character Gelsomina aka superb Giulietta Masina, spouse of the resplendent director (who has had a nervous breakdown during the filming of La Strada) Federico Fellini, is humiliated, abused and to some extent, her tragic (spoiler alert) fate is determined by the vile Zampano aka legendary Anthony Quinn seen in other classics, one landmark is Zorba the Greek http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/10/note-on-zorba-greek-novelist-nikos.html where Quinn is the hero

 

When a paradigm is mentioned, the definition of paradigm shift comes to mind, just as it is explained in the Booker Prize Winner Vernon God Little http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/06/vernon-god-little-by-dbc-pierre-divine.html by DBC Pierre - a novel so exhilarating that I have made a shirt with the title on it, and this gave me the idea of having more, with Proust, Kingsley Amis, Malamud, O’Flannery and other such luminaries inscribed on it, just like crowds wear the infamous Che on their chests – where we get some hilarious fragments, one has Immanuel Kant transformed, because of ignorance, misapprehension and other into Manual Cunt…but one of the memorable segments is the one of the shift

One personage explains to Vernon God Little what paradigm shift is by telling him to think he comes into a room, where he finds a stranger with a finger up his grandmother’s us – ‘what do you say to that, and the answer is ‘bastard, I will teach you a lesson’, but then you find that the man had in fact learned that your granny is in great danger, and unless he does something drastic and disgusting, she will die, and this is why you saw him like that…what do you feel now…well, the fellow is a hero and I am grateful’ – you see, this is a paradigm shift, explains the figure, and we could say we remember the definition forever…

 

Gelsomina is a simple woman, innocent, charming, but ignorant of the ways of the world, when she is bought from her family by Zampano aka Anthony Quinn – let me insert here another motion picture in which the actor is glorious, Lawrence of Arabia http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/07/lawrence-of-arabia-written-by-robert.html if not the most magnificent ever made, clearly one of the top five, the sheik played by Quinn says a line that I use often ‘I am a river to my people’ – Zampano is a ‘strong man’, literally, his spiritual strength is questionable, to say the least, for if he is proud, ready to take revenge on anybody who laughs at him, he uses his power to vile ends, to abuse, harass, ultimately enslave Gelsomina, and then he can also kill…

 

To begin with, the association with Zampano may feel as a liberation, an escape, if he is not even one of the middle class, for he has to endure privations in his jalopy, with which he travels from one town to another, at least Gelsomina has the chance to see some of the world now, if left in her home, she would have suffered from destitution, hunger, other humiliations…still, it is debatable if she would not have had a ‘better’ fate, had she not aligned her road with the angry, domineering, selfish Zampano

He is showing his strength in public places, while she beats a drum, and then spectators are supposed to give some money for the performance…at one stage, they join a circus, where we see some of the familiar characters, present in most of the Fellini magnum opera http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/note-on-la-dolce-vita-written-and.html one of the most important, indeed, a sort of third piece in a loose ménage a trois of sorts, is Il Matto aka The Fool, we could see him as the clown

 

Il Matto could well be the jester we find in Shakespeare http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/03/king-lear-by-william-shakespeare.html ‘jesters do oft prove prophets’ he has a complex role, one of his functions is to expose Zampano, torment him, use irony and teasing, prompt Gelsomina to leave him, she does not have to be a servant, she could leave with The Fool, but she is loyal, and when her companion and abuser is in jail, she waits for him, instead of finding a better life with the circus or The Fool

Il Matto has something of The Joker http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/10/joker-based-on-work-by-bob-kane-bill.html because if Zampano really deserves more than just mockery, given that he inflicts pain on his travelling partner, humiliates, despises and torments her, the clown has a provocative stand, at one point, he throws a bucket of water over the angry performer and the latter takes a knife, ready to murder the Joker, which he may well do, if he has the chance, once out from prison, where the police take him

 

The suffering is almost general, it is not limited to the main character, however awful it particularly is for Gelsomina, Italy after World War II was in a bad shape (like most of Europe, Japan and the other realms affected by the great calamity) and poverty and destitution where omnipresent, sometimes alleviated by the performances of people like Zampano, Gelsomina, Il Matto and the traveling circus – our country will become like Italy in the 1970s, an article in The Economist argues, a country of immigrants, not emigrants, seeing as we have seen an influx of workers from Nepal, Bangladesh and other emerging lands…

Finally, this is a sad, if compelling and admirable saga, where we could feel compassion not just for innocent and enchanting Gelsomina, but even for Zampano, seen in the context of his generation, he was just one of a multitude of aggressive men, a time when this was the rule, not the exception – this is in no way a justification, a support for the fellow, it is just a way of saying he was stupid enough to know nothing else, he was also a product of lack of education, learning to act as he did from the rest of the men…

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html