La strada

There has never been a face quite like that of Giulietta Masina. Her husband, the legendary Federico Fellini, directs her as Gelsomina in La strada, the film that launched them both to international stardom. Gelsomina is sold by her mother into the employ of Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), a brutal strongman in a traveling circus. When Zampanò encounters an old rival in highwire artist the Fool (Richard Basehart), his fury is provoked to its breaking point. With La strada, Fellini left behind the familiar signposts of Italian neorealism for a poetic fable of love and cruelty, evoking brilliant performances and winning the hearts of audiences and critics worldwide. The Criterion Collection is proud to present La strada, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1956.

Federico Fellini
Italy
1954
108 minutes
Black & White
1.33:1
Italian
Spine #219

Special Features

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound
Video introduction by Martin Scorsese
Audio commentary by Peter Bondanella, author of The Cinema of Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini’s Autobiography, a 2000 documentary originally broadcast on Italian television
Optional English-dubbed soundtrack featuring the voices of Anthony Quinn and Richard Basehart
New essay by film scholar Peter Matthews
New and improved English subtitle translation
Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

New cover by Aesthetic Apparatus

Purchase Options

DVD 2 Discs $31.96 SRP: $39.95

Collector's Sets

Collector's Set

Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films

DVD Box Set

50 Discs

$650.00

Special Features

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound
Video introduction by Martin Scorsese
Audio commentary by Peter Bondanella, author of The Cinema of Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini’s Autobiography, a 2000 documentary originally broadcast on Italian television
Optional English-dubbed soundtrack featuring the voices of Anthony Quinn and Richard Basehart
New essay by film scholar Peter Matthews
New and improved English subtitle translation
Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

New cover by Aesthetic Apparatus

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Cast & Credits

Cast

Giulietta Masina: Gelsomina Di Constanzo
Anthony Quinn: Zampanò
Richard Basehart: The Fool
Aldo Silvani: Widow
Livia Venturini: Nun

Credits

Director: Federico Fellini
Screenplay: Federico Fellini
Screenplay: Tullio Pinelli
with the collaboration of: Ennio Flaiano
Based on a story by: Federico Fellini
Based on a story by: Tullio Pinelli
Dialogue: Ennio Flaiano
Director of photography: Otello Martelli
Music: Nino Rota
Editing: Leo Catozzo
Assistant director: Moraldo Rossi
Production director: Luigi Giacosi

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Explore

Federico Fellini

Writer, Director

One of Italy’s great modern directors, Federico Fellini was a larger-than-life maestro who created an inimitable cinematic style combining surreal carnival with incisive social critique. While his most popular—and accessible—film, the darkly nostalgic childhood memoir Amarcord, is a great entryway into his oeuvre, 8½, a collage of memories, dreams, and fantasies about a director’s artistic crisis, is perhaps his masterpiece. In his early career, Fellini was both a screenwriter for neorealist pioneer Roberto Rossellini and a newspaper caricaturist in postwar Rome, competing influences he would bring together with startling results. After such early works as I vitelloni, Fellini broke away from neorealism’s political strictures with the beloved La strada, and from there boldly explored his obsessions with the circus, societal decadence, spiritual redemption, and, most controversially, women, in such films as Nights of Cabiria, Juliet of the Spirits, and And the Ship Sails On.