La Strada
A dollar got you a folding chair in the drafty lecture hall
with a handful of other wretched grad students.
Then the big reels and low-tech chatter of a sixteen-millimeter projector.
La Strada. Rashomon. HMS Potemkin. La Belle e le Béte, before Disney got his hands on it.
And The Bicycle Thief, and for God's sake, La Strada.
You can't find them at the video store anymore. Only the latest G-rated animated pixilated computer-generated prequels.
That's just the way it goes.
Even if you could, you'd see them on DVD, restored, colorized, scratch-free,on a plasma-screen TV.
With your wife, your dog, your degree. You'd get up to answer the phone, check on the baby.
You're just not young enough, or poor enough, or miserable enough anymore to see--really see
Les Enfants du Paradis, or Ikiru, or The 400 Blows. Or, for God's sake, La Strada.
George Bilgere
