La Strada (Criterion Collection) 08/21 Blu-ray (Rental)

With this breakthrough film, Federico Fellini launched both himself and his wife and collaborator Giulietta Masina to international stardom, breaking with the neorealism of his early career in favor of a personal, poetic vision of life as a bittersweet carnival. The infinitely expressive Masina registers both childlike wonder and heartbreaking despair as Gelsomina, loyal companion to the traveling strongman Zampanò (Anthony Quinn, in a toweringly physical performance), whose callousness and brutality gradually wear down her gentle spirit. Winner of the very first Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, La strada possesses the purity and timeless resonance of a fable and remains one of cinema’s most exquisitely moving visions of humanity struggling to survive in the face of life’s cruelties. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES 4K digital restoration, undertaken in collaboration with The Film Foundation and the Cineteca di Bologna, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Alternate English-dubbed soundtrack, featuring the voices of Anthony Quinn and Richard Basehart Audio commentary from 2003 by Peter Bondanella, author of The Cinema of Federico Fellini Introduction from 2003 by filmmaker Martin Scorsese Giulietta Masina: The Power of a Smile, a documentary from 2004 Federico Fellini’s Autobiography, a documentary originally broadcast on Italian television in 2000 Trailer PLUS: An essay by film critic Christina Newland