Federico Fellini's exploration of heart and mind in La strada

¶ … renowned film makers of this century Federico Fellini. Fellinni was born in Rimini on 20 January 1920. He was the son of Ida Barbiani who was of Roman origin and his father was Urbano who was a travelling salesman. Even while he was in high school, Fellini became famous as a caricature artist and this helped him get the job of a film promotional artist at the Fulgor cinema.

His directorial career was dotted with many accolades, several Oscar winning movies and almost all his films were critically acclaimed. The more famous films that were directed by Fellini were La strada - which won an Oscar and was among the first films in a series of films that sealed his place amidst the greatest of the film makers. Other famous films by the director were Le notti di Cabiria- an Oscar winning film, La dolce vita- won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, 81/2-an Oscar winning film, Fellini Satyricon, Fellini Roma, Amarcord), Il Casanova, Prova d'orchestra, Ginger e Fred and Intervista.

The three films that would be critically discussed here are la Strada or The Road, Il Bedone or The Swindler and Le Notti di Cabiria or Nights of Cabiria.

La Strada

This film deals with the inner self and is one of the masterpieces of Fellini. The film relates the strive between the heart and the mind of the soul and the tug of war in a person about the actions and their consequences when one performs the actions according to either what the heart or the mind says. In this film the conflict is seen when Zampano buys a female assistant, Gelsomina, for himself from a family that is poor and living in abject poverty. Zampano is essentially cruel and a strong man who travels along with a carnival. Gelsomina is to serve Zampano as his clown, cook and concubine. Zampano teaches her to conduct simple routines while they travel from one village to another to take part in carnivals and acting clowns to make money. Zampano is cruel and abusive and often beats up the girl for failing to say the introductory lines correctly. The abusive nature of Zampano, though torments the girl for a while, she gets back to her happy ways that she knows soon after and tries to forget the ugly things of life and takes the most pleasure of the simple things that life has to offer to her. Despite the hardships the girl is acutely devoted to Zampano.

The context of the film is set in the rural life of Europe where there is life and happiness amidst of all the troubles of life. This is what Fellini most wanted to convey. After the great depression of the 1930s and the destructive second world war, life was slowly returning back to normal and but was not easy. Fellini tried to portray the eternal truth of life that life is not always a bed of roses and perhaps there are more thorns than there are roses in life.

However Fellini, in this film also brings out a silver lining when he takes the duo to a small time circus where the due is to perform. Here again Fellini throws up another truth of life, uncertainty. When one nearly accepts fate and resigns to live the life offered to him or her, fate often intervenes to present a second chance. The girl, tormented and abused by Zampano, meets a clown who is very different to her master.

They both strike a good relationship and when the clown asks her to leave Zampano and join him on the road in a manner similar t that of Zampano, the clown is astonished to find out that the girl was peculiarly dedicated to her hard master. The clown advises the girl, somewhat ruefully, to wait for her beastly strong man and her master. The clown epitomizes the scene by telling her that perhaps her purpose of being in the world was to serve Zampano. Later in the film, Zampano meets the clown and ends up accidently killing him. While the girl whims and begs for mercy to spare the clown, Zampano does not pay any heed to her please. He leaves and deserts the girl as the strong man later gets a pang of conscience and he lets the girl go. During the end of the film, when the strongman accidently come sot know of the death of his former companion, the girl, he breaks down crying as he realizes that he has lost the only companion he ever had. A strong man, who always listened to his mind and not to his heart ultimately learns the greatest lessons of his life after he starts listening to his heart. This film is thus a classic disposition by Fellini about the constant conflict of the soul between the heart and the mind.

Le Notti di Cabiria

The last of the trilogy by Fellini, this film is based on the life, exploits, fun, hardships, humiliation, betrayal and the subsequent discovery of peace and happiness of an aging prostitute in Rome. In the film, the prostitute uses her toughness to ward off police raids and confront the other more aggressive prostitutes. She also uses her strong personality to ensure that she is not tossed around by her clients.

But the catch in the film comes when Fellini, while portraying this strong side of her character in the film, also depicts her to be weak and shows the viewer that the aging prostitute s not everything about money and strength and she's not just looking for some quick money. Like any other human being, this prostitute craves to be loved and to be taken care of. As a lifetime of struggle and attempts to find this love, she is taken by her job to many potential clients or lovers. The film also shows how this prostitute, who manages to take a one month break from her profession after she falls in love, is betrayed by her lover and has to get back to her profession as the search for love, life and peace continues for her.

Through the film Fellini depicts the urban life setting of the time and draws the life circle of almost everyone in the society who looks for love, care, happiness and ultimately peace. Through the life of the prostitute, Fellini manages to depict the cycle of seeking of peace and love and happiness among human beings and how often they fail and crumble under the pressure of failure only to rise up and seek life and peace once again. This is exactly what happens to the aging prostitute in the film where her search for peace, love and happiness continues even after she is betrayed and she continues this search even while she enacts the role of a prostitute to its fullest. Her search never stops until ultimately she manages to find love and complete happiness.

This is also depicting of the life cycle of societal people, a vicious circle at that, where there is perhaps no end to the search for peace and happiness and true love. The never ending quest leads very human to strive for what that individual considers to be the ultimate goal in life. While most do not manage to attain complete happiness, some manage to do so thus completing the circle of life.