The moving image is the only essential part of movies. This movie is not full of grand speeches, eloquent metaphors, or even long conversations that last more than a minute long. Still, the delivery of the story is unhindered, and the emotional cash placed into it is not any less. Everything in this movie is predicated on the image, whether it be the serene pastures, the techne of the threshing machines, the swarm of locusts, and the visceral blaze that…

One essential aspect of being Human is a directedness towards others, a care outside of self-interestedness and egoism and a desire projected outwards onto the other humans of the world. La Strada demonstrates such a principle at all points in the film. Even when Zapano so forcefully rejects the love and kindness presented to him by Gelsomina, there is a feeling that it is an act, that he is merely being his strong-man artist persona, and that there is a…

A wonderful movie. Chaplin is here able to masterfully tell a story of his time, against the backdrop of the Great Depression and economic issues at the forefront of society. This ‘modern’ world is not made for characters like Chaplin’s, and so he bounces around job to job, out of and in jail, all while in love. Love here is what allows our character to transcend the harshness and the reality of the times, he is able to endure it…