First swim of 2023

Scenes from recent walks

Film review: La Strada (1954)

After the surprising delights of The White Sheik, I thought we'd follow up with the other Fellini (that he made only a couple of years later) in our 50-film collection. A bit different, to put it mildly.  The story of how a brutish self-employed itinerant strongman (Zampano, a masterfully unpleasant performance by Anthony Quinn), having already killed her sister (in some unspecified way) buys an evidently simple young woman (Gelsomina, played by the Chaplinesque (the man himself praised her performance) wife of Fellini, Giulietta Masina) off her desperate single mother 

and slowly breaks her spirit until she goes mad and he (having mellowed enough to care for her for a while) abandons her on a wintry hillside.  And if that isn't enough, it includes a coda of finding out years later that she was taken in by a kindly family only to die in her sleep, evidently of a broken heart.  Oh, and I missed out the part where a good-natured, much more talented rival performer ("the fool" - another American, Richard Basehart), 

who has constantly teased Zampano just because he deserves it, and who offers the young woman the opportunity to escape the strongman while he's briefly incarcerated, instead persuades her that her purpose is to be the one person who loves the brute, is later (accidentally) killed by him.  This is what finally snaps Gelsomina's hold on reality. Fun!  Here's a scene after he's forced himself on her and she's convinced herself she could love him, and just before he invites over another woman that he'll end up spending the night with:

But...  Even though this is an ugly, bombed-out, Italy-of-the-margins, filled with ugly people scraping by, this film is so alive and the very opposite of enervating.  And even though I am not a fan of movies that are "fables," whose story is not really just the story of the characters (because too often the characters become cyphers), this film is going to stay with me.  Which doesn't exactly make me unique, given its status in the pantheon, but it goes to show that a great filmmaker has something intangible that can reach you even when you resist it.  I mean - a film where the heroine is a mildly mentally-handicapped sad clown?  That is set amongst circus folk?  And did I mention the sympathetic nun character? Shudder.  But it works.  (And after all, just try describing The Seventh Seal in a way that doesn't make prospective viewers run screaming.)  Slightly disappointing to find that it's not Quinn or Basehart speaking their fluent Italian, as all the voices were dubbed afterwards and they're actually counting in English as Fellini shouts instructions at them.  But Quinn really is a revelation - it's a volcanic performance of pure physicality.  (And apparently he really did learn his one feat-of-strength trick off actual strongmen performers.)  And the soundtrack is lovely. Ah go on - watch it.  I'll take the risk that you'll hate me afterwards.

I do envy their motorcycle mobile home, I have to say...

Film review: The White Sheik (1952)

 

Quick, when you think of Fellini, what's the first adjective that springs to mind?  Well, if it's not "funny" then you haven't seen this one, which is instantly the Fellini I most enjoyed (although there were certainly funny bits in Amarcord), although I will admit it doesn't have the heft of 8½ or La Dolce Vita.  What we have here is a whirlwind visit to Rome by a honeymooning young small-town couple with different ideas of the point of the visit.  

He, Ivan, the officious and controlling (if ineffectual) bridegroom (who kept reminding me of a mixture of Harpo Marx and Gene Wilder because of the way his eyes kept bugging) 

has an agenda that manages their time to the millisecond, and it's all to be spent with his relatives, in particular his uncle who works in the Vatican and has managed to score an audience with the Pope (along with 200 other couples). She, Wanda, the apparently mousy, but in reality determined and fanatical bride (Brunella Bovo, whose face is equally expressive and whose gift for comedy should've resulted in her rocketing to stardom after this film, instead of sliding into relative obscurity as she evidently did) intends instead to visit the offices of her favorite photo-comic (which apparently exploded in popularity in the 50s in Italy, and which were referred to as fumetti elsewhere), in the hopes of delivering a portrait she has drawn of her favorite character (the titular White Sheik) to the actor who portrays him (who, when we meet him, seems rather paunchy and ordinary, although she cannot see it).  She manages to squeeze an opportunity to do this into her husband's regimented agenda by asking for a bath in the hotel 

(it is early in the morning as they arrive in Rome by train, having apparently traveled through the night - and thus their marriage remains unconsummated) which he magnanimously allows.  She slips out while he is napping, but, alas, leaves the water running, which presents him with the first of many inconveniences on what is to be a long and humiliating day for him.  Thereafter we cut back and forth between Wanda's escapades - she starts out wonderfully, meeting the writer of all her favorite stories 

and contributing a cliffhanging line of dialogue for the latest installment of the White Sheik, but then becomes increasingly overwhelmed, as she is whisked off on a a truck to the seaside over 20 km outside Rome where she finally meets her idol 

- and Ivan's increasingly desperate attempts to convince his family that Wanda is confined to their room with a headache.  Wanda gets a role as a harem girl in the production, although her inability to stop beaming with joy rather undercuts the impression that she is in peril.  However, predictably, the White Sheik turns out to be a lech (putting the moves on her on a borrowed sailing boat) and a married one, at that, although Wanda buys his ridiculous story that his wife entrapped him with a potion (to his horror, when she repeats it back to the wife who shows up at the photoshoot).  Eventually Wanda runs off and is left behind by the crew when they can't find her.  She does make her way home (driven by another cad who had been at the beach and hung around the photoshoot all day - that's him in his undershirt) 

but cannot bear to face her husband and resolves to drown herself in the river, which, alas, turns out to be ankle deep at the place she attempts it.  Meanwhile Ivan wanders the streets sobbing until he is consoled by two ladies of the night (one of them is Cabiria, 

played by Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, who gets a whole film to herself later).  We do not know what happens to Ivan, but he is seen being led off by the non-Cabiria-prostitute and then shows up with a 5-o'clock shadow at his hotel in the morning to find his family already waiting in the lobby.  Before he can collect himself, he gets a phone call telling him that his wife has been institutionalized.  He faints, but recovers to find his family about to put him in the room that they think Wanda is in.  He hastily sends them away, promising to meet them at 11 at the Vatican for the rescheduled audience with the Pope.  This gives him time to rush to the institution, throw some clothes at Wanda 

and race to the Vatican.  Wanda is clearly a chastised woman as they are walking towards the Papal palace, but she insists that nothing happened and she remains pure.  At this he starts somewhat but hastily assures her that he is too (hmm....).  Fin.  What have we learned?  What have they learned?  Not enough to ensure a happy and settled life, I fear, but their tribulations were certainly fodder for our amusement over a brisk 90 minutes.  And now we just have 16 films of the 50 remaining...

NOW it's Spring

Dental (and then) Dam

Frederick's usual 6-monthly trip to the dentist is followed by the usual stroll round the Barton Nature Area on the way out of Ann Arbor. Unseasonably cold (it was supposed to snow last night). The dam is the Barton Dam.