Classic Movie Review La Stada

La Strada

Directed by Federico Fellini

Written by Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano

Starring Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn, Richard Baseheart

Release Date September 6th, 1954

On June 13th, 2022, Martin Scorsese and The Film Foundation Restoration Screening Room hosted a free online screening of Federico Fellini’s remarkable 1954 romantic tragedy, La Strada. It’s the second free online restoration screening for Scorsese and The Film Foundation and they are going to be doing this once a month for anyone who loves classic films fully restored to their glory by The Film Foundation. And thanks to The Film Foundation, La Strada is another Fellini movie off of my bucket list of classics. 

La Strada begins on a tragedy and ends on a tragedy. In the beginning of the story we find our protagonist, Gelsomina (Giulieta Masina), idly gathering sticks on the beach. Gelsomina is called home for some terrible news. Gelsomina’s sister has died in some far off town. The man who had left with her sister so many years ago, Zampano (Anthony Quinn), a sideshow performer, is now back at her family home requesting the company of Gelsomina to take her sister’s place. He’s given Gelsomina’s mother 10,000 lire for her.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Classic Movie Review Rear Window

Rear Window 

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock 

Written by John Michael Hayes

Starring Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr

Released September 1st, 1954

Published March 12th, 2025 

Alfred Hitchcock’s genius, for me, boils down to two elements: juxtaposition and perversion. Hitch takes a thing or a person associated with a specific characteristic and places that person or thing in a different context, one opposite to how we perceive it. The Birds (1963) is a great example. Before The Birds, no one associated birds with anything remotely dangerous. Hitchcock takes Birds and turns them into horror movie villains, convincing us through the use of storytelling and the tools of cinema that even the most innocuous animal can be used as a symbol of a battle between man and nature. 

He enjoys this kind of juxtaposition in his actors as well. Take, for instance, Cary Grant in North by Northwest. Here, Hitchcock takes this bastion of handsomeness, charm, and good manners and repeatedly renders him helpless, hapless, and narrowly avoiding dangerous schemes not by his unending charm or good looks but by sheer chance and good luck. This flies in the face of our collective, cultural memory of Cary Grant as a debonair, accented charmer, a man constantly one step ahead of anyone he’s in a scene with. He is certainly the hero of North by Northwest but he does not drive the action, action happens to him. A leading man is supposed to be the catalyst of a story, Hitchcock takes the ultimate leading man of his time and robs him of his agency, forcing him to be subject to a plot rather than driving it. It's a juxtaposition of our expectations, of Grant's persona, and of the concept a leading man in a movie.

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media