La Strada

When Abruzzo is Oscar Worthy

Here we are—it’s finally that time of year when all movie lovers, from the most die-hard cinephile to the occasional Netflix viewer, do everything they can to catch up on the ten films nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The Oscars are like a summary of the film season; you may not have kept up with every release month by month, you may have lost track of your favorite director lately, but if you catch up on all the nominated films, on paper it’s as if you’ve seen the best films released throughout the year.

And if you’re a big fan of quick summaries, all you need to do is check out the winner of the Best Picture category, and you’ll be up to date on the major movie releases of 2024.

This year, on the night of March 10–11 (Italian time), the 96th Academy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will be broadcast from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s latest film, leads the pack with 13 nominations, while representing Italy is Matteo Garrone, whose film Io Capitano is among the five finalists for Best International Feature Film.

In addition to Oppenheimer, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Martin Scorsese’s latest epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, are also in the running for Best Picture, along with Anatomy of a Fall, winner of the Palme d’Or at the last Cannes Film Festival; Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers; Bradley Cooper’s Maestro; Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Creatures; Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest; Past Lives; and American Fiction.  

There are many big names in this year’s Academy Awards, but as residents of Abruzzo, we can’t help but root for the only person from Abruzzo actually in the running:
Bradley Cooper.

By now this should be common knowledge, but we’ll remind those who might have missed it: both of the American actor’s grandparents were Italian through and through. His mother, Gloria Campano, is the daughter of Angelo Campano, a police officer originally from Naples, and Assunta De Francesco from Ripa Teatina—both of whom emigrated to the United States.
Christian Iansante, his official Italian voice actor, also has Abruzzese roots, having grown up with his family in Chieti. As the saying goes, you can take the boy out of Abruzzo, but you can’t take Abruzzo out of the boy.

Although this year’s festival is packed with interesting films, Maestro is, for obvious reasons, our favorite.

© Thomas Hawk, Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Maestro chronicles the life of classical music icon Leonard Bernstein, from his debut as a conductor to his later years, and highlights his defining traits: his precocious talent as a composer, his rebellious and unconventional nature, and his exceptional skill as a conductor. In addition to focusing on Bernstein’s life story, the film delves deeply into his difficult relationship with his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre, played by Carey Mulligan.

Throughout his career, Bernstein felt two sides within himself: the introverted, solitary, and creative side of the composer, and the flamboyant, rebellious, and self-celebratory side of the conductor. This ambivalence, which Bradley Cooper portrays magnificently on screen, inevitably spills over into his relationship with his wife.
While his relationship with Felicia Montealegre satisfies one part of the composer’s complex personality, the other part is inevitably drawn to men, leading him to have several affairs with young musicians throughout his married life.

The film is a story of emotions that are either held back or let loose too freely, and it’s wonderful how Bradley Cooper has managed to capture such intimate aspects of the life of a genius and his lifelong partner.

In various interviews, Cooper has spoken about the profound influence Bernstein had on him, both as a musician and as a person, and has cited him as a source of inspiration for his dedication and passion for cinema.

Maestro has received eight nominations so far, and as residents of Abruzzo and lovers of good cinema, we can only wish the film and its director the very best of luck.

Felicia and Leonard Bernstein after the premiere of Medea, December 1953
© GetArchive, Public Domain Media (Creative Commons License)

Since the first Academy Award was presented in 1929, Italy has received a total of thirty nominations (the most recent this year for Garrone) and has won a total of 14 Oscars: 3 Special Oscars and 11 Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film. The first film to receive this award was Federico Fellini’s La strada.

Although the film was shot in 1954, it did not win the award until 1957, the year this category was established.
Some of the film’s final scenes were shot between Ovindoli and Rocca di Mezzo, making this Fellini masterpiece the only film shot in Abruzzo to have ever won an Oscar for Best Picture.

Federico Fellini with Giulietta Masina on the set of La Strada, 1954
© Père Ubu, Flickr (Creative Commons License)

The production of Federico Fellini’s La Strada was fraught with difficulties.
The screenplay, written in collaboration with Tullio Pinelli, had been ready since the end of filming on The White Sheik (1952), but due to the film’s poor box office performance, no producer was initially interested in financing the Rimini-born director’s second film.

It was a particularly dark period for Fellini, but thanks to the support of his friend Ennio Flaiano, in 1953 he decided to try telling a more intimate story, rooted in provincial life. A neorealist tale, yet at the same time lighthearted.
The two drew on their respective experiences of life in the provinces (Flaiano’s in Pescara and Fellini’s in Romagna), and from this period of reflection emerged I Vitelloni, a 1953 film.

Following the incredible critical and commercial success of I vitelloni and Ennio Flaiano’s subsequent collaboration on the screenplay for La strada, Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentiis decided to produce the film in 1953. Silvana Mangano was considered for the role of Gelsomina, the film’s protagonist. The Abruzzo-born actress Maria Pia Casilio also auditioned for the part, but before filming began, De Laurentiis decided to cast Giulietta Masina, Federico Fellini’s wife, in the role, while insisting on an international star of the caliber of Anthony Quinn for the male lead of Zampanò.

As is often the case with Fellini’s films, the story of La Strada is based on a personal experience. Tullio Pinelli was driving toward Turin when, passing through a narrow mountain road, he saw a large man pulling a cart covered with a canvas awning. A stylized mermaid was painted on a panel of the awning, and behind the cart a young girl was pushing; both were in very poor condition. From that vision, Pinelli had the intuition to portray that misery, that life of suffering, against the backdrop of an Italy that, on the contrary, seemed to be recovering.
Once he met with Fellini in Rome, the two began discussing the main characters of the story, and as usual, Fellini created some sketches to better visualize the features of Zampanò and Gelsomina.
From there, the rest of their story unfolded.

Federico Fellini, Anthony Quinn, and Giulietta Masina at the Nastri d’Argento awards ceremony, 1954 © Cinecittà SpA © Luce Historical Archive database, edited by Enrico Bufalini

Like La Strada, Fellini’s film is also about a couple.
Zampanò and Gelsomina, however, are not husband and wife, but something darker. Their bond is based solely on misery and poverty, and their existential journey is driven by the mere desire to survive, not by ambitions of success and greatness.

Fellini’s film tells the story of a rough, gruff man whom life has made seemingly unbreakable, and of a woman who is his complete opposite: naive, lost, and as pure as Dostoevsky’s “Idiot.”

Their relationship is completely dysfunctional—two wandering freaks, “street performers” seeking a place in society in an Italy profoundly changed after the two wars and in the midst of reconstruction.

Zampanò stubbornly travels on his old motorcycle, wearing his tattered leather jacket, and repeats the same magic trick ad nauseam, while Gelsomina, born into absolute poverty, simply cannot understand life or find a purpose for herself, and will ultimately destroy herself by staying close to a man so deeply and intimately torn apart.

Seven scenes were filmed in Abruzzo, but only five were included in the final cut because the most violent one—where Zampanò tries to drown Gelsomina in a bucket of water—was cut. Filming took place near the Fundoli woods, on the road to Secinaro (AQ), in the vicinity of Ovindoli, and Rocca di Mezzo. The epilogue of the story between Zampanò and Gelsomina takes place in these Abruzzo locations—the end of their tragic tale, their separation on life’s journey.

Amid the snow-covered landscape of the Aquila mountains, the two characters experience a catharsis. Zampanò falters and experiences the first moment of despair in his life, while Gelsomina finally finds the strength to free herself from the mental chains that bind her to that man.

The final scenes of La Strada were filmed in the mountains of Rocca di Mezzo
© Paramount Films

Samuele Coccione

An exile by necessity, but mostly out of masochism.
I love movies, books, and boredom.
I’ve been writing about Abruzzo cinema ever since it was “cool”
to be stuck at home.
I live in Milan, but I dream of working remotely with my feet soaking in the Tirino River.