[Oe List ...] grief and Christmas

[Richard Alton]

Jack, just watched La Strada after an all night search...Kanopy did work
once I found my library card. I was pretty clear about the 'Christ Event'
in Mountain's life, but harder in this movie. Did the Christ event kill
Zampanos and/or Gelsomina? Was the 'Fool" the Event in both of their lives?
If so, I liked Mountain climbing into the ring a lot better..but have to
admit that I was a big fan of Miss Miller.
Dick

On Sun, Dec 27, 2020 at 2:03 PM W. J. via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
> This Christmas season has been loaded with a mixture of joy to the world
> and global grief unlike anything I have previously experienced in my 80
> years on earth.
> Sometimes it's easier to let our celebrative spirit and holiday cheer
> obscure our communal grief over the dire straits so much of humanity is
> experiencing this year and the next. And the reality that our health and
> that of our family members may be at risk.
> In this moment I was 'inspired' last night to screen two Fellini movies--*La
> Strada* and *Nights of Cabiria*-- for a very small group of invited
> colleagues, along with a meal and movie discussion. It was our last weekly
> Movie Night in this year.
> Some of you may remember that we used to show *La Strada* on Saturday
> night in RS-1, long before *Requiem for a Heavyweight* became our
> standard fare.
> I recall showing *La Strada* at a Lake Junaluska Methodist youth
> conference back in the early '60's with Mathews, Slicker, and Pierce on the
> teaching team. And maybe Fred Buss. My memory is slightly dimmed with the
> passage of time and my brain drain.
> But the movie still ends with that powerful scene
> <https://youtu.be/rR-JvfjXS9M> in which Anthony Quinn (as Zampanò, not
> Mountain Rivera!) is lying drunk on the beach and finally just wailing and
> overwhelmed with grief over realizing how much he's lost by living in his
> illusion that other people don't matter to him.
> They do.
> And especially the young woman he lived and worked with and then abandoned
> when it was convenient.
> Hearing a woman singing that little bit of Nino Rota's theme music
> <https://youtu.be/tcecJ0WjI38> brings it all back to him.
> It's the last of several transformative events (or 'Christ-events' as we
> called them) in the movie.
> Let us not forget that celebrating Christmas is about rehearsing the story
> of a transformative event happening in our midst. THE transformative event,
> if you will, that brings forth a new, transformative era in human history.
> In the movie Gelsomina <https://youtu.be/_vIvjl4H524> is a very strange,
> weird, childlike female clown, a Nobody Christ-figure. Without exactly
> knowing what she's doing, Gelsomina embodies a transformative spirit that
> speaks to the pervasive suffering of human beings around her.
> In this Christmas season, let us be the Nobodies whose transformative
> presence acknowledges our common grief and calls others to hope.
> Marshall
> You can stream *La Strada* for free on Kanopy (with a library card). Or
> on TCM, the Criterion Channel, or HBO Max.
>
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-- 
Richard H. T. Alton
One Earth Film Fest ( OEFF)
Green Community Connections
Interfaith Green Network
T: 773.344.7172
richard.alton at gmail.com
**Save the Date! One Earth Film Festival 2021, March *
http:www.oneearthfilmfestival.org

Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
Won't you be my neighbor?
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