The performances by Giulietta Masina as the waif Gelsomina, Richard Basehart as the fool, and Anthony Quinn as the strongman Zampano, have been acclaimed for their power and sometimes ridiculed for their sentimentality. The debates over what these characters and the story represent, and the position of the film within the neorealist genre, continue today. This translation and critical edition of the continuity script for "La Strada" is a guide to the film. The notes to the shooting script enable the reader to reconstruct some of Fellini's changes while shooting the film. The edition also contains an introduction, which analyzes the work's place in film history and provides a number of articles on the film's production. Fellini's most interviews and statements on "La Strada" are included as well.
Until his retirement in 2007, Peter Bondanella was Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, Film Studies, and Italian at Indiana University. A member of the European Academy of Sciences and the Arts and past President of the American Association for Italian Studies, Bondanella has written numerous books and articles on Italian literature and cinema and has translated or edited a number of Italian literary classics (Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Cellini, Vasari). His latest works are A HISTORY OF ITALIAN CINEMA and NEW ESSAYS ON UMBERTO ECO (Eco is shown in the photo on the left with Bondanella on the right). Bondanella now lives in Utah's desert country (St. George, UT) with his two Italian greyhounds Dante and Gianluca and his wife Julia.
