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Part of Road Movie- a Poem about the Pebble / Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue

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Thought was bom blind, but Thought knows what is
seeing.
Fernando Pessoa

T

ZBIGNIEW
BENEDYKTOWICZ

he cited brief and concise text by Aleksan­
der Jackiewicz, published some 13 years ago,
captures the essence and meaning of La Strada and, at the same time, of the whole Fellini oeuvre.
By analysing details in several approaches Jackiewicz
offered the reader a synthesis, and while referring to
the “Charlie and Gelsomina” comparison he warned
To Piotr Skrzynecki
us against superficial perception. Stressing the simila­
rities and differences he declared: be careful. “Charlie
and Gelsomina” - La Strada by Fellini. The same cine­
ma, but simultaneously so very different. Thanks to La
Strada we are at the same spot, along the same road,
This is why apart from Jackiewicz I shall refer to only
but further on.
several texts published in “Kwartalnik Filmowy”, ren­
La Strada appears to be a film most resilient and
dering them the prime point of reference. Already a
least susceptible to analysis. It is the most “closed”, comparison of those opinions would require the intro­
complete and consistent of the director’s accomplish­ duction of an amendment. It turns out that this par­
ments, simple and complex, perfect. But not in a man­ ticular film, which we would be inclined to describe as
ner that would make it possible - slightly twisting Jack“closed” and complete, remains, and actually is, open
iewicz’s reflections - to describe it as a cold film.
and incomplete. The number of interpretations de­
I
am fully aware that just as there exists a vast liter­pends on the number of their authors.
ature and myriad analytical and interpretation tracks
La Strada is not a mere metaphor or a fairy tale:
in reference to Fellini’s entire oeuvre and its particular
The lifeless, cloudy autumn landscape offers no joy.
stages the same could be true in the case of La Strada. I Winter brings death. It is not true that the processions,
used the words: "could be” because in contrast to oth­ nuns, wedding, Nature, Geslomina, the embittered phi­
er films by this great poet and visionary of the cinema
losopher “Il Matto" are mere symbols, as some would have
in the case of La Strada I find them less interesting and
it. (...)
they appear to be least necessary.
This is a real, cruel and irreversible drama, treated
Is it possible to say something new about La Stra­ quite seriously and unfeelingly. (A. Jackiewicz)
da?
Petr Kral2 called Fellini the greatest showman
I
do not need to “know” anything about the film.among poets and the most poetic author among
Nor do I require a key.
showmen. He stressed the entropic character of Fel­
I
prefer to keep my attention focused on the im­lini’s imagination and film narration while taking as
agery, which has left a deep imprint on my memory. I a point of departure the spectacle, and in particular
would rather consider its powerful force, which I expe­ the type of spectacle produced by the American cin­
rienced seeing it for the first time.
ema, and then referring to the specific, i.e. European
Would such an attitude not be closest to the
spectacular qualities of films by the author of La Strachallenge made by the director himself, about whom d a, enhanced with the experiences of aesthetic and
(citing Dante) Cardinal Silvestrini wrote that in the
cultural tradition. (A Fellini spectacle differs from
first song of Paradise the poet says: «To soar beyond
loud show business and the smooth, cold American
the human cannot be described in words. Let the example
show due to the fact that alongside the presence of
be enough to one for whom grace holds this experience
this cultural memory, referring to centuries of im­
in store». Transhumanation denotes transcending that,
ages, visions, and symbolic depictions it resonates
which is human. Federico sought, examined, and followed with extraordinary force with sounds and images
this invisible dimension, which he conjectured in man,
borrowed from the artist’s most personal treasury. The
claiming that nothing is known and everything is imag­ prominent elements of Fellini’s film stories are also
ined. Woe to those who wish to understand —one must
European individualism and subjectivity. Importance
merely listen.1
is attached, especially in the case of this sort of en*
tropic narration, to marginal images (the role of the
Such an approach is not concerned with exclusive­ backstage) alongside the personal treasury. From this
ness. In this respect - I am well aware - I share the
point of view - not surprisingly - an evaluation of La
same experience with other authors writing about Fel­ Strada turns out to be not the best (although, con­
lini. Each has his “own” Fellini, his “own” La Strada.
trary to Jackiewicz, it reveals its “passionate” aspect):

Road Movie - a Poem
about the Pebble

245

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

the master of observation, embedded in Fellini, differs not
only from the showman —he is also no ordinary teller of
stories. The majority of this director’s films in which the
most important is the story and the scenario becomes, in
the American mode, the very axis of the film and includes
alongside his “manneristic works” also those regarded as
inferior in the Fallini oeuvre: the tearful psychologism of
La Strada (1954) is by no means more convincing than
the linear character of Orchestra Rehearsal (1978) or
And the Ship Sails On (1983).5
Finally, a third opinion, that of Andrzej Werner4,
who warns us against an a-intellectual (refusing to use
the intellect) or unthinking, stereotypical reception
and perception of Fellini’s work:
In this way, there emerged a legend about a charming
and brilliant primitive who fell in love with everyone and
must be loved by all in return. Extremely useful proved to
be the kindly donnish - and otherwise useful —tendency
towards referring the object of the analyses to a context
characteristic only for him. To his birthplace, the folk cul­
ture within whose range he grew up, or the circus which
he visited to remain once and for all within the limits of its
arena.
A little boy in the middle of the arena, standing in
the spotlight together with the creatures dancing around
him - the products of his imagination and love, and the
bane of his future life. Who does not member the clos­
ing frame of 8 1/2, who does not recall Gelsomina and
246

Zampano, that innumerable procession of musicians, ac­
robats, clowns, strongmen without whom Fellini would not
be himself. Now, let us add friends from his hometown of
Rimini, Gradiska, third-rate whores from the suburbs of
Rome, all those failed actors, singers and dancers ... and
we have a complete portrait: the type of culture in which
he grew up, to which he was attached, the protagonists
of an ensuing beautiful and poignant story. He stands in
the middle, already grownup, a magus, a great magician,
intuitive, emotional —the opposite of the scientific mind.
A sa Nisi Masa.
After all, such an approach is feasible. It probably
contains a great amount of truth that will always remain
inaccessible for me. For all practical purposes I am arguing
about the manner in which art is seen, the contact with it.
One can relegate all problems or even see them clearly, but
they still do not seem to pertain to me.5
Comparing those several opinions one could ask: is
La Strada a cold film? ,‘ passionate’’?, emotional? (tear­
ful), realistic? A commonplace (linear) story? Is this a
film that can be interpreted and examined in a closer
or more distant context? A psychological film: a story
about concrete people? Or a symbolic film, concealing
under the outer realistic stratum something more? A
film about transhumanation, the process of transcend­
ing beyond that, which is human? A film that seeks,
studies and follows the invisible dimension foretold in
m an...?

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

Important questions. It would be absurd, however,
to propose a single answer and to recognize that only
it is correct and genuine. Each of those statements, in
my opinion, contains some sort of an essential, partial
truth about La Strada. All show just how ambiguous
this film, ever evading our divisions into that, which
is veristic, psychological, and symbolic, actually is. In
this respect, La Strada, an ambiguous film or one with
many meanings, can be an excellent example of con­
currence between the nature of film and the symbol,
as described by Heinz Politzer, maintaining that the
significance of the symbol consists of a capability of
crossing its limits. It is a sign both secret and visible,
proclaiming a general truth; the possibilities of com­
menting on the latter are just as great as the number
of its interpreters. Quot capita, tot explicationes. This
is true symbolism, Goethe declared in: Maximen und
Reflexionen über Literatur und Ethik, where the particular
represents the general, not as dream and shadow, but as a
live and immediate revelation of the unfathomable6.
In this respect, La Strada as a symbol combining
assorted spheres of experience and levels of reference
in its capacity as a living momentary revelation of the
unexamined, accessible both to “simpletons” and in­
tellectual giants.
It is as a symbol7 uniting the individual, concrete,
sensual, emotional and historical with the supra-tem­
poral, abstract, and intellectual that La Strada speaks
to us in a particularly visceral manner.
One has to ask the poets why the world is suffering
(David M. Turoldo8).
In La Strada we find ourselves in the very centre of
that question. It would be difficult to pretend that it
does not concern us.
*

La Strada is a fundamental structure of Fellini’s en­
tire oeuvre, a milestone along the path of the develop­
ment of his artistic vision and film. In La Strada we
remain at the very source of all the images of the di­
rector’s cinematic accomplishments and come across
all his past and future imagery (a foretaste of future
films). One could classify and name the images in a
purely scientific manner as: antecedent, precedent
and "first”, forecasting future continuations and de­
velopments, as well as distinguish the domain of the
unique ones.
Let us concentrate on a single example: the sea.
The sea appears and is present throughout I Vitelloni
and subsequently in many other films, all the way to
Casanova, where it is most artificial (the almost rustling
waves are made of black plastic) but, paradoxically,
moving and true. Nowhere, however, was it present
with such poignant and startling force as at the begin­
ning and end of La Strada, particularly in the finale.
The same holds true for other images: the road, distant
places passed along the way, suburbs, and towns. In
247

La Strada we find ourselves in precisely such a suburb,
but it turns out that actually “we are in Rome” before
Rome came into being, as if before ab urbe condita, prior
to the construction and development of the whole im­
age of the town. In La Strada - (Rome is an excellent
example) - presence that becomes voluble via absence
is particularly poignant. This is the absence of some­
one or something. We are as if afore time or at the
beginning of time, in a concrete place and outside it,
on our way, down a road (before, as in Roma, we find
ourselves in a traffic jam on a highway). The same ap­
plies to other images, motifs, and characters.
The precedence is Gelsomina, but do her sensitiv­
ity, simplicity, naivete, surprise at the world, need of
love (take the scene of imitating a tree, her dancing
gait, her solitary dance in a deserted location) not
bring to mind - though I realize that this is an inappro­
priate expression so let me put it differently: are they
not a foretaste of another solitary dance, performed
in the mist, “in the dead season” in Amarcord (young
men pretending to be dancing with female partners).
Gelsomina ... - do we not find her, albeit in a differ­
ent costume (no longer rags) and wearing a magnifi­
cent turban (what wonderful hats!), busy cultivating
her flowers: in other words, do we not discover her
in Giuletta finding out about her husband’s infideli­
ties in “manneristic”Juliet and the Spirits? Two scenes:
does Gelsomina, led to a sick child, and Giuletta,
led to a seer-hermaphrodite, not perceive the world
with the same fear and astonishment? “Giuletta and
Gelsomina. Who has not sat before his own heart’s cur­
tain? (Rilke9). What about Ginger and Fred? Although
thanks to Jackiewicz we already know how illusory ex­
ternal similarities can be (Charlie and Gelsomina) in
this case we do not have to be excessively cautious10.
We are on the same path, but much further on. Gel­
somina, Gelsomina.
The texts about La Strada known to me are domi­
nated by an approach interpreting the film from the
viewpoint of familiarity with the completed Fellini
oeuvre. Teresa Rutkowska wrote:
La Strada is in its entirety a parable about roaming.
A s in the Baroque novela picaresca the journey across the
geographical space of Italy in rain, mud, heat and frost is
actually a spiritual journey, an individual quest for oneself
in an eschatological perspective11. Jacek Trznadel12 drew
attention to the presence in La Strada of even older
forms: the commedia dell’arte (after all, the nickname
“ Rifle” given to Zampano comes from a scene enacted
by him together with Gelsomina and announced as the
newest farce; the commedia dell’arte is thus distinctly
cited), references to the late mediaeval morality play,
theatrum mundi.
But even interpreted and deciphered via the Ba­
roque La Strada does not possess a Baroque nature.
This is a film that is almost ascetic and crude, especial­

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

ly in comparison with Fellini’s later works. La Strada
is deeply immersed in its contemporaneity but takes
place, as we have said, beyond time, as if prior to time.
We find ourselves at a crossroads of time, somewhere
between realism or, as historians of the cinema are in
the habit of saying, Italian neorealism and its later vi­
sion. Its symbolic, one would be inclined to declare, is
much more natural, organic.
In La Strada, just as in a grain of sand13, we can see
the whole Cosmos registered “earlier” and “later” in
Fellini’s works.
*

La Strada is a road movie about people of the road,
migratory birds - le gens du voyage14. This is a film about
Artists. Who can forget the magnificent imagery from
La Strada: the scene of the calling, when we see Gel­
somina running out from behind a dune against the
backdrop of reeds waving in the wind, rushing further
along a beach towards the sea. Faster, faster! She is
accompanied by a crowd of intrigued children, urging
her on. The joy of the calling is accompanied by news
about the death of her older sister. Pain becomes com­
bined with joy. Gelsomina must make decisions “all
alone”, although everything seems to have been re­
solved and settled without her. She is uncertain, does
not know what to do, and wavers. After all, the money
obtained from selling her will provide food for the chil­
dren. From the very first scene we witness uncertain­
ty, ambiguity, a mixture of sadness and joy, farewells,
partings and facing the unknown, the different, the
new, that, which is ahead of us and will accompany us
constantly along this path.
Yes, the world depicted in La Strada is cruel, but
who can forget the happiness with which Gelsomina
hurries to inform her neighbours that she will become
an artiste?
Who can forget Zampano! That ritual announce­
ment, bursting with pride: Zampano e arrivato!, a
proclamation of something that we shall witness in
a moment, something unusual and grand but also, at
times, painfully ironic and comical, combined with a
curious home-vehicle (a real American Davidson) and
that, which we shall see in a minute... (Whenever I
see him I have to tease him - says “The Fool”). Who
does not recall that tragic image in which Zampano,
having found out about Gelsomina’s death, now all
alone, head bent low, walks around the circus arena
announcing his act in a guttural voice totally at odds
with his part.
I know of no more genuine and moving scene of
drunkenness than the one from La Strada, with Zam­
pano causing a fight, being thrown out of a bar, fight­
ing with his own shadow (we can only imagine what
he is experiencing). Perhaps a similar image could be
encountered only in literature - e.g. in Under the Vol­
cano by Malcolm Lowry, where in the deep recesses of
248

a bar one of the intoxicated customers keeps on re­
peating: Mozart was the man who wrote the Bible.
*

La Strada - a road movie, about people of the road,
itinerant artists.
But who are they, tell me, these Travellers, even more
transient than we are ourselves, urgently, from their
earliest days,
wrung out for whom —to please whom,
by a never-satisfied will? Yet it wrings them,
bends them, twists them, and swings them,
throws them, and catches them again: as if from oiled
more slippery air, so they land
on the threadbare carpet, worn by their continual
leaping, this carpet
lost in the universe.
Stuck on like a plaster, as if the suburban
sky had wounded the earth there.
And scarcely there,
upright, there and revealed: the great
capital letter of Being.........and already the ever-re­
turning
grasp wrings the strongest of men again, in jest,
as King August the Strong would crush
a tin plate ( ... ). [Rilke15 ]
People of the road.
Zampano. Where do you come from? Gelsomina asks
him. Zampano: From my part of the country.
Gelsomina: Where were you born?
Zampano: In my father’s house.
Once “The Fool” finds out from Gelsomina that
after a brawl there is no longer any place for him or
Zampano at the circus he declares:
- I have no home and no roots... And nobody will
care.
- And your mother?
- ... What will you do? Are you staying or are you
going?
La Strada is a register not only of Fellini’s future
films - that s y m b o l i c fleeting figure of Zampano
is the black clad motorcycle rider who crosses a small
town in Amarcord to vanish in the distant darkness.
The landscapes, small towns, suburbs, and roads swal­
lowed up by Zampano’s strange vehicle divulge also
the future American road movie. Are the protagonists
from Easy Rider and Scarecrow not Zampano’s distant
American cousins?
La Strada, a film about people on the move, is a
record of much more. This holds particularly true for
the artists. Those in La Strada are unique. In the first
encounter between Gelsomina and Il Matto (“The
Fool”) after her departure or rather escape from Zam­
pano she notices the acrobat high overhead, a highwire artist with the wings of an angel walking on a
tightrope suspended between houses in the very centre

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

of a town, not somewhere in the suburbs. We too see
him - this is high, sophisticated art. He even invites
the spectators to join him for supper while in the air...
Can there be any comparison between Il Matto and
Zampano? It would resemble a comparison between
Heaven and Earth. What a crowded audience fills the
street! Suffice to look - lights, spotlights, a beauti­
ful and elegant woman dressed in a black dress with
jets glistening in the spotlight and with a coat draped
across her shoulders announces the show. After the
performance “The Fool” seeks refuge in a car from the
enthusiastic crowd, his adoring audience. Separated by
a windowpane he glances at Gelsomina staring at him.
Is any sort of a comparison possible: the artist’s car and
the dress decorated with jets, on the one hand, and
the pitiful vehicle used by Zampano and Gelsomina’s
cape, on the other. (True, we shall later see how much
pretence and pretentiousness there is - “The Fool”
will attempt to find out whether he is still permitted to
work at the circus - and that reality is quite different.
But then such is the fate of the artist: one day at the
top, the other - at rock bottom).
Upon numerous occasions16 emphasis has been
placed on La Strada’s connections with commedia
dell’arte, Baroque forms, and theatrnm mundi together
with their characteristic principle: the performance of
social types - stock characters. As long as drama origi­
nates from the unity of life and remains «sacer ludus» it
portrays the motion not of individuals but types, the ideal
representatives of the motion of life (Gerardus van der
Leeuw17). In order to illustrate the presence of this
principle in Fellini’s Ginger and Fred Jacek Trznadel
cited typology borrowed from Cervantes:
Come, tell me, hast thou not seen a play acted in which
kings, emperors, pontiffs, knights, ladies, and divers other
personages were introduced? One plays the villain, another
the knave, this one the merchant, that the soldier, one the
sharp-witted fool, another the foolish lover; and when the
play is over, and they have put off the dresses they wore in
it, all the actors become equal.
Yes, I have seen that, said Sancho.
Well then, said Don Quixote, the same thing happens
in the comedy and life of this world, where some play em­
perors, others popes, and, in short, all the characters that
can be brought into a play; but when it is over, that is to
say when life ends, death strips them all of the garments
that distinguish one from the other, and all are equal in
the grave.
A fine comparison! said Sancho; though not so new
but that I have heard it many and many a time...18
Naturally, we could search for such tipi fissi in La
Strada, a form much more ascetic and closer to the
commedia dell’arte, had it not been for the problem ac­
companying us from the very onset, namely, that what­
ever we would like to say it constantly evades us and
leads us further on. But let us once again take a closer
249

look. It is possible to seek in “The Fool” and Zampano
two types of harlequins, who appeared on circus arenas
during the 1870s - the so-called white clown: carefully
dressed, witty, and making refined jokes, and his partner,
the so-called foolish Auguste: simple-minded, dull, naive,
and humble, who allows himself to be dominated by the
tyrannical white clown19. Straight away, however, it
becomes obvious that nothing matches. “The Fool”
could be the white clown but the dim-witted “animal”,
“beast” Zampano (Auguste?!) is not really so foolish,
not to mention humble and simple-minded. Perhaps
the Zampano-Gelsomina couple? Just as impossible.
Black Zampano cannot be the white clown. The pro­
tagonists of La Strada outgrow the costumes of typical
dramatis personae and one would like to say that they
are living people and not marionettes. In the case of
La Strada, therefore, we may speak about the presence
of those forms only within a certain frame. The prin­
ciple, on the other hand, would consist of the image
constantly transcending that frame.
In other words, the most often and best applied is
not the principle of the game played with social types
but another, highly characteristic for the commedia
dell’arte, namely, the coexistence and co-appearance
of parti gravi and parti ridicoli. The score of La Strada
is written with laughter and gravity, the best example
being the significant and outright breakthrough con­
versation held by “The Fool” and Gelsomina. Prior to
the “serious part”, i.e. “the parable of the pebble” Il
Matto teases Gelsomina; leaping from place to place,
wriggling, almost dancing or performing his dance in
front of her, doubled over with laughter, he derides
and makes fun of Gelsomina:
—What a funny face you have. Are you sure you’re a
woman? You look more like an artichoke. {■ ■ ■ }. But how
did you end up with him?
—He gaveW 00 lire to my mother.
—That much?! ... I wouldn’t keep you a single day.
Later, when the serious scene, parti gravi, the con­
versation about the pebble, subsides to total silence
Gelsomina takes over and starts speaking like a “’true”

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

woman and “wife”, causing “The Fool’s” even greater,
authentic (tinged with a note of admiration) laugh­
ter.
One of these days, I’ll take a match and set fire to
everything. Mattresses, blankets, everything. That’ll show
him. I never refused to go with him. He paid 10 000 lire.
I do my work and he hits me. That’s not right. He doesn’t
think. I tell him, and what does he do? What good does it
do? I’ll put poison in his soup too. I’ll set fire to it all! All!
If I don’t stay with him, who will?
Just like commedia dell’arte, La Strada, composed
of parti gravi and parti ridicoli, contains a brilliant syn­
optic of that, which is human20 but without actually
being commedia dell’arte. In La Strada and its protago­
nists, itinerant circus artists and masked clowns: the
rough-hewn Zampano, the “The Fool” as garrulous as
Capitano, and the fragile Gelsomina, we may recog­
nise only commedia’s essential features, bare outlines
of the characters described synthetically by van der
Leeuw.
Maschere are predominantly zanni, known under
a variety of names: Arlecchino, Truffaldino, Pasquino,
Scapino, Pierrot, Punch, Hanswurst, and Jan Klassen.
Regardless of their names they belong to two types: intel­
ligent and sprightly (Figaro) or a foolish sluggard. Then
there is Pantalone, angry and grumbling. The plot involves
love scenes, petty intrigues, feigned pedantry and, above
all, numerous brawls - quite an apt synopsis of human
life. The simpleton, bearing a common name, is funny but
receives lashes. Frequently, it seems that the whole world is
composed only of those who deal blows and those who re­
ceive them. Within this small world everything is constant:
Capitano always babbles. Apparently, habits and charac­
teristic traits belong to people due to their ranks: the fool,
the glutton, the miser, the harlot, the nurse, the cuckold,
the young lover —all are defined solely by their name. Cus­
toms and attributes, deeds, thoughts and emotions hang on
u s in the manner of clothes. The actor does not play the
role of a person but the part of a role21.
It would be difficult, however, to speak in this way
about the protagonists and actors of La Strada. The
former constantly oscillate between the model-like
characters of the commedia dell’arte while remaining
human and continually revealing some unexpected
trait of their personality.
Who are Zampano, “The Fool”, and Gelsomina?
In La Strada, a film about artists, the latter are not
equals. Suffice to compare “The Fool” and Zampano.
Can they be likened? “The Fool” - an Artist, ethereal,
sophisticated, a dancing tightrope walker. Zampano
- unsteady on his feet once he becomes drunk, impetu­
ous, ready to start a fight, a brawny strongman.
In La Strada - in contrast to Cervantes’ theatrum
mundi - once the comedy comes to an end and every­
one takes off his costume the actors are by no means
alike.
250

The art represented by Il Matto is celestial, refined,
full of lightness and talent. The art of the other is suf­
fused with effort and powerful, the sort that calls for
an announcement addressed to the spectators: If there
are any squeamish people in the audience I advise them
not to look.
In La Strada the blows were painful and aimed not
at the body of a puppet but at human feelings.
In La Strada - once again by way of contrast to
Cervantes’ theatrum mundi - not everyone descends
into a grave, and if death does remove the costumes
that differentiate them not all will go into a grave
identical and in the same way.
Fellini enclosed a psychologically penetrating and
all too human depiction of the artists’ life and milieu.
Artists are not equal but perennially compete. “The
Fool”- imaginative, talented and well aware of his flair,
must at every step of the way demonstrate superiority
over Zampanó and point out the latter’s frailties and
the inferiority of his art; he is unable to walk past with­
out ridiculing and constantly provoking. He tries to
steal Zampanó’s partner, Gelsomina, who is not worth
five cents in his opinion but whom he would readily in­
clude into his stage performance. On the other hand,
despite petty intrigues, Signor Giraffa, the owner of
the circus, is right when he says that all artists form a
single family. After all, it is “The Fool”, unable to un­
ravel why Zampanó keeps Gelsomina at his side, who
shows her true vocation and the reason for remaining
on the road with him: He told me to stay with you. La
Strada portrays the complicated world of artists: We’re
all one big family here, we all work together ...
In the conflict between the regal, proud Zampanó
who strenuously and with toil works for the sake of
his art and celebrates it, and who respects inner hier­
archy and the hierarchy of the world (while regarding
Il Matto as a tramp, the bastard son of a gypsy), and
the constantly provocative, light-hearted, surprising,
full of fantasy, talent and lightness “Fool”, to whom
art comes so easily, we can recognise a clash involving
two other artists. Toutes proportions gardées, Zampanó
and Il Matto are the Salieri and Mozart of the art of
the circus.
La Strada is a record not only of Fellini’s entire
oeuvre, his forthcoming works, and the American road
movie of the future, but also of visions and themes em­
barked upon and subsequently developed by masters
of world cinema. La Strada contains a discernible fore­
cast of images, a seed planted once and for all, a base
for all future films about artists, a prognosis of Ama­
deus by Milos Forman22 and Babette’s Feast by Gabriel
Axel after Karen Blixen23. Who can forget a meeting
in La Strada, brimming with mutual respect, tact ,and
fascination and involving two, ostensibly competing
paths: via activa and via contemplativa, the encounter
of a nun and an itinerant Artiste (a meeting of reli­

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

gion and art) who recognized in each other the two
evangelical sisters: Mary and Martha24. Who can for­
get that gaze with which the nun and Gelsomina look
at each other, discovering in it (for us and in front
of us, the spectators) the deepest possible community
shared by them [nun to Gelsomina]: Y o u follow your
bridegroom, I follow mine.
La Strada also has a scene in which we descend
into the innermost recesses of time, beyond the Ba­
roque image of theatrnm mundi, commedia dell’arte,
and the mediaeval morality play, a scene in which
they can be of no further use and render no further
assistance. In order to arrive at this scene we must
first climb upwards, bypassing the overlapping and
mutually permeating images of monumental Nature
with its eternal majesty, as if we were descending to
the roots of time, beginnings close to the creation of
the world (genesis), seeing on the way a lake encircled
by mountains, and then, right around the corner,
driving down into a gentle valley with three trees in
order to notice, oh, we have just passed it: a wrecked
car - “The Fool’s” defeat. Now we have to stop and
turn off the engine so that it would stop rattling and
total silence could reign... This is a scene in which
the music by Nino Rota comes to a complete stand­
still - it has been accompanying us along the way,
frenzied, captivating, pushing us forward, unwinding

251

the surface of the road before us: a ribbon composed
of swallowed-up images, appearing and vanishing,
passed in front, in the back, and on the sides. In this
scene the music comes to a standstill as do all parti
ridicoli and parti gravi, and even the most delicate tone
vanishes so that we could experience silence and ter­
ror from centuries bygone despite the birdsong and
scenery straight out of paradise. In La Strada Fellini
recorded this image and guided us toward it. A ter­
rifying image: the fratricide of an artist (as if there
was not enough room in the world for both, as if they
could not live alongside each other under the same
Sun). Fellini lets us know that watching the story of
Zampanó and “The Fool” we are taking part in the
story of Cain and Abel25.
In La Strada Fellini wrote the Bible.
Just as in the Writ, so here too we see and wit­
ness jealousy, fervent competition, wounded pride,
and humiliation, revenge, teaching him a lesson. We
shall watch the undeserved death of the Innocent. By
accident? We shall see Zampanó’s pure, biological,
“animal”-human fear portrayed with complete real­
ism. The terrifying fear of man, fear of punishment.
(From that moment: A fugitive and a vagabond shalt
thou be upon the earth! / Genesis 4,12/). Loneliness,
Escape. We observe realistically described, incompre­
hensible death that can be never understood or appre-

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

surprise. This holds true for the construction of the
film, its structure and dramaturgy — in La Strada Fel­
lini had written the Bible of the cinema.
*

hended with the mind, unnoticed death, of which we
are still unaware, death that will arrive in a moment:
- Hey, you broke my watch!, death with which we can­
not come to terms to the very end, which we cannot
believe (Come on, get up - don’t act like a clown!), the
“foolish” death of an artist, an actor, a clown. In the
La Strada scene of Il Matto’s death the experience of
death has been recorded with the entire realism and
force of the image:
We know nothing of this going away, that
shares nothing with u s . We have no reason,
whether astonishment and love or hate,
to display Death, whom a fantastic mask
of tragic lament astonishingly disfigures.
Now the world is still full of roles which we play
as long as we make sure, that, like it or not,
Death plays, too, although he does not please u s .
But when you left, a strip of reality broke
upon the stage through the very opening
through which you vanished: Green, true green,
true sunshine, true forest. [...]26
*

[On the margin:] Despite its entropic imagination
disintegrating into as if independent images La Strada
has an uncommonly precise construction and narra­
tion. On the one hand, even if something appears and
becomes established we cannot be certain that this is
the way things are going to be. Take the example of
the afore-mentioned automobile belonging to “ The
Fool”, perceived and described as a status symbol of
his superiority - as if it could be the object of envy!
- that breaks down and becomes the direct cause of
his death. It is outright strange and inconceivable that
Zampano’s rackety contraption does not stop working
even once in the film. On the other hand, despite the
fact that La Strada seems to be governed by cast iron
rules taken straight out of Chekhov’s drama, and that
we should know right from the beginning that if a gun
appears then we can be certain that it will be fired,
it turns out to be just as inconceivable that right to
the finale we shall be shocked, startled, and taken by
252

One has to ask, the poets why the world is suffering.
In La Strada we find ourselves in the very centre of
that question.
This is why if one were to seek some sort of a coun­
terpart of the film - a film about artists in which the
latter, having cast off their costumes, do not remain
equal nor when after death tears off their costumes
they do not all descend into the grave identical - then
much closer than Cervante’s theatrum mundi would be
another fragment of the global theatre: that from El
gran teatro del mundo by Calderon, evoked by Carlos
Saura in his film: Elisa, My Life. This fragment appears
in Saura’s film as a school spectacle performed by lit­
tle girls and allows, urges, and helps us to think of a
poor girl surrounded by children and somehow a child
herself (Are you sure you’re a woman?), abandoned by
us. Poor Gelsomina, left in deserted ruins at the edge
of some road:
[Girl WORLD] Come, mortals, come! Prepare for the
World Theater Performance. Speak, Supreme Maker.
[Girl A UTH OR] If man could choose, none would
ever choose pain. AII would choose a role of power
unaware that it is only a role. They believe it is life.
Supreme Maker, know which role suits you. Paquita,
thou shalt be King.
[Girl KING] I as King shall govern and be wor­
shipped. Give me your gold.
[Girl WORLD] Why gold?
[Girl KING] Such is my role.
[Girl AUTH OR] The Fair Maiden of Beauty will
be Conchi.
[Girl LADY] Great is my joy! I am Beauty itself!
Give me jasmine, musk and roses. Mine are the stars
in heaven, the envy of the sun.
[Girl A UTH OR] Antonia will be the Rich and Pow­
erful.
[Girl WEALTHY LADY] Mine are riches, luxury
and pleasure
[Girl A UTH OR] Angeles, the Worker.
[Girl PLOUGHSM AN] The Worker? I object!
[Girl AUTH OR] The Worker. You’ll work from
dawn to dusk. I command you.
[Girl PLOUGHSM AN] I object!
[Girl A UTH OR] I command you.
[Girl PLOUGHSM AN] I object.
[Girl AUTH O R] Take thy plow. Sofia, thy role is dis­
cretion. Rosa Maria, the Poor and Miserable. Maria
Jesús, the Unborn Child.
[Girl CHILD] An easy enough role...
[Girl Word] Take thy place.

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

[Girl THE POOR] Why am I the Poor in this comedy?
Why give tragedy only to me? Why can’t I be King? Or
Rich? Are they better men, to be given better roles?’
[Girl AUTH OR] The P o o r . I give you nothing, for
that is your Worldly reward. I strip thy garments.
Thou shaIt waIk naked. AII must pIay their part in
this Comedy. The better man pIays better his roIe, be
it Rich or P o o r . The renumeration shaII be earned if
merited. On this stage, Iife is but a performance.
[ALL] On this stage, Iife is but a performance.27
*

Writing and reflecting upon the hundredth anni­
versary of the cinema about La Strada, in which we
discover successive forms of the theatre of the world
(the film registers yet another unrealised image: The
great Theater of Oklahama calls you!.. . Everyone is wel­
come! ... from Kafka’s Amerika, which Fellini planned
to screen), it is impossible to forget the director’s fa­
vourite image of the world of the circus, permanently
present in his oeuvre and in particular in La Strada,
which it organises and in which it appears in an ex­
tremely significant manner. Take the example of the
magnificent scene of rolling up the tent of Signor
Giraffa;’s circus, the announcement appearing at the
end of the film: Everybody come to the circus!... This
evening - a great spectacle, and the image of the are­
na against the backdrop of the sea. La Strada, a story
about itinerant artists, seen today against the back­
ground of the entertainment proposed by the presentday cinema - that ’’art for the poor” - leads us to the
suburbs, takes place somewhere on the side, far from
main street, the centre, the principal current, the
market-place-fairground with which contemporary art
tempts us and which it values so highly. In La Strada
Fellini guides us to the side-lines in order to show us
that ultimately something actually does exist. This is
why it is difficult to keep silent about yet another im­
age portrayed by the poet and accompanying us from
the very beginning. In it we are capable of capturing
the essence of that particular predilection of the au­
thor of La Strada and, finally, the very essence of the
portrayal of the world contained therein.
(...) Strange, though, alas, the streets of Grief-City,
where, in the artificiality of a drowned-out false
stillness, the statue cast from the mould of emptiness
bravely
swaggers: the gilded noise, the flawed memorial.
O, how an Angel would utterly trample their market
of solace,
bounded by the Church, bought ready for use:
untouched, disenchanted and shut like the post-office
on Sunday.
Beyond though, the outskirts are always alive with the
fair.
Swings of freedom! Divers and jugglers of zeal!
253

And the figures at the shooting range of easy luck,
targets that shake tinnily whenever some better marks­
man
hits one. From applause at his luck
he staggers on further: as booths for every taste
are wooing him, drumming, and bawling. Here’s some­
thing
special, only for adults, to view: how money is got,
anatomy,
not just to amuse: the private parts of money,
all of it, the whole thing, the act, - to instruct and
make
potent.......O, but just beyond
behind the last hoarding, plastered with adverts for
‘Deathless’,
that bitter beer that tastes sweet to its drinkers,
as long as they chew fresh distractions along with
it......
just at the back of the hoardings, just behind them, it’s
real.
Children are playing, lovers are holding each other —to
the side,
sombrely, in the sparse grass, and dogs are following
their nature. (...)28
The protagonists of Fellini’s film include grass, rain,
snow, the landscape seen along the way, side roads,
the people we pass while travelling. Gelsomina is often
accompanied by children, who from a distance look
at her with curiosity; at one point, a child even shows
her a gate through which she can enter a garden. It
is not true that La Strada depicts only a cruel world.
When Zampano abandons Gelsomina for the night
and goes off with a prostitute, someone brings her a
bowl of soup while she is waiting in the street, and a
little girl approaches her. In La Strada we are led to the
side where in the sparse grass dogs run freely, where at
night a horse passes us in the street and in the morn­
ing we are awakened and frightened by the sound of a
braying donkey. When Gelsomina finally leaves Zam­
pano and examines an ant, three musicians, “angels”,
as if straight out of landscapes with Tobias, walk by
on their way to a festivity held in town; she will fol­
low them. A t a wedding children beckon to show her
a concealed secret and lead her to Osvaldo, a child
suffering from hydrocephalia, so that she would make
him laugh. Having performed her dance, Gelsomina
tilts her clown’s hat for him.
A nun asks Gelsomina whether she would like to
stay at a convent. The same happens when Zampano
lands in jail and the circus people propose that she go
with them. A girl embraces her, saying that they could
live together. “The Fool” drives her to the jail, takes
off his blessed medallion and hangs it on her neck.
In La Strada, that cruel reality on the side roads of
the world, people passed on the way are interested in

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

each other and sometimes even demonstrate tender­
ness, even if only expressed in the specifically Italian
gesture of waving a hand while saying farewell when,
contrary to the parting, they seem to be halting the
moment of departure, as if wishing to keep the world
still for as long as possible. La Strada is a record of the
cruelty of the world but also of its gentleness. (And
this is possibly the reason why the film causes so much
pain). Here, on the sidelines, we witness how the by­
passed people, the itinerary artists: Zampano, “The
Fool”, and Gelsomina (as in Death Experience) play Life
rapturously, not thinking of any applause.
It is here that there will emerge the strange Orphic
motif, which will knock Zampano off his feet. Who can
forget the scene in which Zampano, older, with grey­
ing hair and traces of exhaustion after a rough night,
leaves the circus wagon for a morning-afternoon walk
and strolls along a wide street of some port town, pass­
ing other pedestrians. A car drives by, someone rides
a bicycle. Zampano stops, orders ice cream, asks for an
additional lemon flavoured portion, walks on ... and
then, across the distant sounds of ships and the street
Gelsomina’s song reaches him. A woman sings it while
hanging laundry, white bed sheets, on the other side
of a nearby fence. Next to her, three children, holding
hands, play, dance, spin on a shabby lawn. Zampano
finds out about Gelsomina’s death:
254

Oh, a girl who was here a long time ago used to sing
it... . she seemed crazy ... My father found her one evening
on the beach... she was sick, poor thing. She had a fever.
We brought her inside the house... When she was a little
better, she used to sit outside ghee in the sun ... and play
her trumpet.
What a strange scene: Eurydice sings. And what
a strange Orpheus: he did not search for her and she
found him!
*

Who is Gelsomina?
We waited long to pose this question. She resem­
bles the entire film and incessantly evades our grasp.
We are in the same situation as in the case of a road
movie. We would like to describe and interpret it, but
meanwhile it turns out that new images continue ap­
pearing - In a hundred places there is still a beginning29:
And we: onlookers, always, everywhere,
always looking into, never out of, everything.
It fills us. We arrange it. It collapses.
We arrange it again, and collapse ourselves.30
Nevertheless, let us try and say: Gelsomina. Thanks
to her presence in this film-world we see something
more: that, which in her naivete or innocence she
does not notices, which she barely and ineptly sup-

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

poses, and which for us is obvious and at a glance
visible (after the incident with the prostitute she tim­
idly asks Zampano: S o you’re the kind of man who runs
around with women?). On the other hand, thanks to
her sensitivity and astonishment at the world, and see­
ing how she commiserates with the world, imitates
a tree while actually becoming a tree, talks with fire,
and feels the rain, we are able to perceive something
that we would otherwise never notice or touch. Gel­
somina is an extraordinary artist because she does not
belong to either world. She is neither part of the world
of “normal artists” nor of the world of “normal people”
and undermines all our expectations; one can really
say that she is not of this world.
As a rule, Gelsomina is presented as a personifica­
tion of Goodness in a battle waged against Evil (Zam­
pano). Meanwhile, she remains as if beyond Good
and Evil. In the film she is described in various ways:
It’s not my fault, poor thing, that you’re not like the other
girls. And just as in the film, when it seems that we
are close, that we have named and understood some­
thing, it appears that we comprehend nothing. She
endlessly astonishes us and topples our habits and the
stereotypes and formulas in which we would like to
enclose her and the film. She is capable of startling
Zampano, who, we are entitled to presume, has seen
a lot. When it is necessary to drive on in a hurry she
plants tomatoes on the side of the road. Tomatoes!
Even Zampano’s face shows astonishment and lights
up in a smile. I am not certain whether “Good” is the
best way to describe her.
She is Difficult and Demanding. A t times, she can
even irritate, e.g. when she is late and, gazing into the
distance, does not play the trumpet at the suitable mo­
ment she manages to annoy even Il Matto, an artist
with the wings of an angel. On the other hand, once
she does play she immediately delights him. When she
performs for a nun we cannot say more than the listen­
er, who exclaimed: How well you play! (Once again,
she will amaze and evoke, even on Zampano’s face, a
look of surprise with an admixture of anxiety and fear).
We feel that in her presence we should be particularly
careful. Her very presence, that of a person who can­
not even make soup but plays the trumpet, shows how
our customs and attributes, deeds, thoughts and emo­
tions hang both on us and the characters in the world
around her in the manner of actors’ costumes, and
how great is the number of the roles that we perform
(take the splendid scene with a widow at a wedding,
who is responsible for the whole household /l always
eat on my feet/). In her presence we realise just how
careful the vocabulary of our learned interpretations
should be while tackling the task of capturing her es­
sence, apparently already close to the target but in ef­
fect forcing her (and the message of La Strada) into
unambiguity and ready made formulas. One of the in­
25 5

terpreters wrote that Gelsomina is what the Gospel de­
scribes as a “simpleton”. The French use the term: simple
d’esprit, signifying a special sort of simplicity, close to sui
generis “Matto’ism” due to its distance from the world and
a tendency to remain within inner mimicry.
Owing to a meaning created by permanent mimed
features depicting not so much emotions as psychic traits,
Gelsomina becomes the opposite of Evil. A s befits a certain
philosophy of the world she is defenceless and not always
self-aware Goodness, forever weaker than evil because she
does not have at her disposal the latter’s Energy and F o c u s .
Refusing to accept, Gelsomina actually does so because she
conceives protest as some sort of evil.
Gelsomina is a child albeit a make-believe one. She does
not possess a realistic mind but her defenceless sensitivity is
impeccable (she will succumb to true psychosis, some sort of
a defence variant, only after Zampano kills the Fool). We
realise that only Gelsomina knows something about sensitiv­
ity. The ensuing image of the world contains its fundamental
evil, and the spectacle enacted by theatrum mundi always
ends with the victory of evil. Goodness plays the passive
role, as in the Evangelical: non resistere malo, and there is
a slight chance that in spite of everything evil could become
“infected” with goodness. The beast-Zampano sobs all alone
on a beach, but we may doubt whether he will join goodness;
it is much more likely that evil will devour also itself, in other
words, that which was still human in Zampano, who will
perform an act of self-annihilation. The death of the Fool
is supposed to accentuate the distinctness of the film’s main
couple since ll Matto emphasizes the helplessness of Good­
ness and just like Gelsomina suffers defeat. 31
An outright Manichaean vision. A harsh verdict.
But La Strada is not like that.
Where is Gelsomina in all this? Where is her Face?
Where has she - almost a girl - vanished? ? We were
so close, it seemed that we understand something, and
now it turns out that we comprehend nothing. The
problem with Gelsomina consists of the fact that the
moment we call her “Good”, “Simpleton” or “the sim­
pleton type” we set into motion a whole sequence of
concepts into which we would like to force her. True,

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

Gelsomina is “foolishness in the eyes of the world”, but
this is no reason to immediately put her into a straight
jacket of formulas safe both for us and our interpreta­
tions. W hat does it mean that Gelsomina is helpless
Goodness, not quite self-aware? In the film she dem­
onstrates self-awareness, and a rather painful one at
that, when she answers Il Matto’s question whether
she will leave with the circus or go off with Zampano:
It doesn’t make any difference what I do. I’m just no good
to anyone. I am tired of living.
What does it mean: refusing to accept, Gelsomina
actually does so because she conceives protest as some
sort of evil? After all, she runs away from Zampano,
and then after the murder of “The Fool” confesses to
him: I wanted to run away. He told me to stay with you.
Perhaps Gelsomina does not have a realistic mind (al­
though here too we could ask: does this signify match­
ing our habits and corresponding to our criteria?), but
she does think very concretely, even if "unrealisti­
cally”. When Il Matto speaks to her, indicating with
his glance a pebble: Take ... this stone, for example, Gel­
somina asks: Which one?. Any one, "The Fool” answers,
picking it up from the ground and handing it to her.
Quite possibly, this is known as the genuine vari­
ant of psychosis - the psychosis of defence. In La Strada, however, which is a great drama about suffering
and in which we find ourselves in the very centre of
the question: why does the world suffer? and which
resounds with the echo of voices saying: Where is thy
brother Abel? - Am I my brother’s keeper?, the fact that
Gelsomina keeps on repeating: The Fool is hurt, thus
protecting herself against saying: “he is dead”, does
not alter the essence of things, i.e. that evil is called
by its true name: You killed him. Gelsomina will say
this as only she can: with determination but gently,
as if an Angel was speaking. Would it help to treat
her as a “medical case” and describe her as ‘’ill” ?
Would that bring us a single step closer? The light
and darkness in La Strada created too much of an
uneven pattern to explain Gelsomina easily by means
of Manichaean dualism. La Strada conceals so many
mysteries. We could say, if that were not to once again
trap us in a stereotype, that La Strada has a certain
symptomatic Franciscan trait - after all, this is the
“poor theatre” albeit envisaged as great drama, the
suffering of the Cosmos. This is the trace followed by
Il Matto when he puts Gelsomina to a test in order to
find out what she can do and causes her to cry: Why
was I put here on this Earth? —Zampano wouldn’t keep
you if you weren’t useful to him (...) Now, why didn’t
he let you go? Unless, of course... Maybe he loves you?
(...) He’s like a dog .He looks at a man and even when
he wants to talk, he barks (...) Still, if you don’t stay with
him, who will?...
The commentator says that there is a slight chance
that in spite of everything evil could become “infected” with
256

goodness (?!) But here evil is in love with goodness! Is
Zampano supposed to be her “wolf of Gubbio”?
We have already strayed off the main track and
lost enough time in the ”Good-Evil” trap. Time to turn
back. La Strada and Gelsomina constantly astonish us.
Was our earlier reflection that she remains outside the
range of our conceits of “good” and “evil” not more
significant? Was it not better to say at the very onset
that Gelsomina is not any sort of “type” and is thor­
oughly untypical? We have already seen how every­
one wanted her to stay with him/her. Everyone wished
to have her at his/her side, to keep her. Gelsomina is
unique. She is as eternal as grass.
La Strada, “cinema mundi”, “film-world” , a film
about people on the move, migrating birds and artists
appears to say to us: despite its toil, misery and shat­
tered dreams this is a beautiful world.
Who is Gelsomina?
.
We are standing upon the threshold of a greater,
strange mystery involving God and man, the world.
Eurydice sings behind the curious Orphic motif emerg­
ing at the edge of the road. He did not seek her, and
she found him! We hear an even more powerful voice:
I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of
them that sought me not (Isaiah 65,1)32.
*

In the very centre of La Strada there appears a sym­
bol, a living, temporary revelation of the unexamined.
It makes an appearance in its entire directness,
simplicity, complexity and depth. A pebble. Il Matto
picks it up from the ground and hands it to Gelsomina.
- ... If you don’t stay with him, who will? You may not
believe it, but everything in this world has a purpose. Even
this pebble... Even you have a purpose, even you with that
artichoke head of yours.
Gelsomina takes the pebble and gazes at it. Then
she repeats this gesture, saying: ... If I don’t stay with
him who will stay... . When she stood in the shade, the
stone was grey; now, the second time round, when she
stands on another spot, in a stream of light, it becomes
white.
I am in the fortunate situation of being able to show
the direct impact and experience of the symbol, that
what the pebble tells us. I have in front of me a de­
scription of an unintended experiment, a lesson born
under the impact of an impulse, the mood of a moment, as
its author wrote. This is a lesson taught by children.
Before reaching for a more profound backdrop of the
symbolic meanings of the pebble listen to the children
and their teacher. Ewa Korulska wrote:
When lessons were held in the countryside I spent
some time with the children by the sea. Enjoying the warm
weather we went to the beach, taking a textbook entitled:
To lubie! I wanted to read together with the fourth-form
pupils The Decalogue of St. Francis, which harmonised

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

with the sound of the waves. The children sat around me
on the sand and played with pebbles. When I proposed:
perhaps we should listen to the stones for a while? Maybe
they too have something to say? they obediently closed their
eyes (You too, Miss! Why are you peeping?) and a moment
later started describing what they heard the pebbles say. I
tried to take notes, barely keeping up with the children.
[Here are fragments of the statements, including
monologues of the pebbles written by the children
(the names of the authors are in parentheses)]:
The sand is speaking to me. Once I was young and
strong, but now am old. I was capable of overcoming a lot,
a king, the toughest of all. Now I am sand, blown by the
wind and devoured by the sea. I am helpless. A stone lives
in the same manner as man does and reminds us about the
existence of old age ...
... The stone says: I am lonely. I can be divided into
grains of sand; the stone feels. It tells the story of the sea,
keeps mum, but speaks and should be heard. It tells its
story: it asks: “Don’t break me! Throw me on the surface
of the seawater; I feel good here; it is beautiful and I have
my friends”, but also: “I’m unhappy here and would like
someone to take me home because the sea is so cold...”.
...Everyone thinks that I am “ordinary” and ugly. But
when I lie in the Sun then immediately the part of me that
is covered with fool’s gold starts to glisten. I am hard and
rather sharp. This is not to say that I am evil. Now, I shall
tell you the story of the sea. Once upon a time, Mr Glacier
went for a walk. I don’t know what he was doing here, but
he carried some rocks. Finally, he brought me and said:
- Now I shall die and you, dear stones, will live on here.
Every stone has it rights. Suddenly, he began to melt and I
think he wanted to drown me. Then I was cast off onto the
shore, and became cold and wet. I underwent my baptism
257

and lay o n the shore, thinking: - I’m s o small and the world
is so huge. (Magda Kaczyńska, aged 10)
... I wonder where my home is. Perhaps I come from
the sea? No, probably not. I must have fallen from the sky
or emerged from the ground. I would like to return home,
to my birthplace. (Bartek Kraciuk, aged 10)
...I am a stone! Catch me! Take me, please! Perhaps
physically I am silent but I speak! Although silent, I speak...
I ask that someone touch my ego. I am not a mere stone but
a pebble with an ego of my own... I resemble people! You
don’t believe me? When young and strong I overcame all
obstacles, broke the waves and vanquished the wind. But
there comes a time when I lose my personality and change
into sand. Everyone ignores me, tramples over me as if I
were nobody. But I am still a stone! (Kamila Raczyńska,
aged 10)
... I am a pebble and would like to be with you and
no one else. I want to be warm and to sleep at night in a
house and not here, on the beach. I took a liking to you the
very first time I saw you. You are my only friend. (Maciek
Dolindowski, aged 10)
... Polished by water, each pebble is different. Its inte­
rior contains rain and rainbows, mountains and birds —or
perhaps not? (...) Maybe a desert, total emptiness, some­
one’s dreams immersed in the rain ... (Ula Brykczyńska,
aged 13)
... If it could speak, it might tell me that once it was a
Volcano, a Cave or perhaps even a Pyramid, the realm of
Poseidon. No one knows (Agnieszka Janiszewska, aged
13)33.
Among the great variety of Biblical meanings as­
sociated with stones the New Testament mentions ba­
sically two: precious stones (Greek: lithos timios) and
the mysterious white stone (Greek: psephos leuke) in the
Revelation of St. John: To whom that overcometh I will

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

give the hidden manna and I will give him a white counter;
and in the counter a new name is written, which no man
knoweth but he that receiveth it (Revelation, 2, 17).
The white pebble could be identified with assorted
objects used in antiquity: an entry voucher or a tablet
issued by a court of law testifying about the payment of
a debt34. A t that time, a white pebble was a good sign:
in court procedure it denoted acquittal of the accused,
in wrestling it was awarded to the winner, and in elec­
tions to an office it marked the desirable candidate.
Joyful days and festivities were also designated with
white pebbles35.
The colour white is a symbol of good fortune (Pliny
the Younger: an auspicious day is marked with a white
pebble) or triumph36.
I cite only certain essential tracks among the great
variety of meanings associated with the symbolic of the
stone, and choose in particular those in which we may
discern a more profound meaning and a more complex
background for the symbol appearing in La Strada.
A stone is usually distinguished amidst natural objects
by its rough, hard, and permanent material and often its
mysterious shape indicating the existence of supernatural
might; this awareness filled primeval man with religious
fear. A stone, and in particular a majestic rock, revealed
some sort of higher existence free from all change and of­
fered a premonition of an absolute being superior to frail

human existence. The pious fear of primeval man, there­
fore, referred not to the stone as such as to the reality con­
cealed beyond this material phenomenon, to that which is
"different" and belongs to a higher world.37
A stone reveals the presence of God; it is theophany, a place for a possible bond between the earth
and heaven, the homestead of God and the gate of
Heaven, in the manner of Bethel where Jacob fell
asleep to experience the presence of God: And when
Jacob awaked out of sleep, he said: Indeed the Lord is
in this place, and I knew it not. And trembling he said:
How terrible is this place! This is no other but the house
of God, and the gate of heaven. And Jacob, arising in
the morning, took the stone which he had laid under his
head, and set it up for a title, pouring oil upon the top of
it. And he called the name of the city Bethel (Genesis
28, 16-19)38.
In Biblical tradition, the Stone-Rock-Bedrock be­
longs to the range of the symbols of God, a fortress that
cannot be captured, a refuge for His people, bedrock
that enables man to feel safe. Moses chiselled God’s
commandments on stone tablets: And when Moses had
lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod,
there came forth water in great abundance ... (Numbers
20, 11; also: Exodus 17, 6; Psalm 114, 8).
A certain Jewish legend has it that this rock accom­
panied the people throughout the entire wandering in the

258

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

desert. Some believed that it was not a rock but a tiny peb­
ble carried by Miriam, the sister of Moses.39
Christ is the cornerstone, the stone, which the build­
ers rejected (Psalm 118, 22; Mathew 21, 42-44).
The Christ-rock-resurrection perspective is to be found
in commentaries to the Canticle of Canticles, and their
essential concept appears already in the writings of St.
Ambrose: “My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow
places of the wall, shew me thy face. Let thy voice sound
in my ears (...)(2, 14)”. The cracks in the stone and the
fissures in the chasm are the holy wounds of the Resur­
rected. They are the refuge and permanent abode of the
Beloved40.
[Certain images in this dramaturgy and in that of
La Strada appear to consistently refer to this back­
ground: Gelsomina gazing at a pebble white from
the glare of light must be awakened, as if from deep
slumber, by the whistling “Fool” so that she would re­
turn to reality; he even says to her: Gelsomina, wake
up. The last time we saw her she was falling asleep
in a spot of sunlight in some roadside stone ruin full
of crevices and holes; she had been abandoned, left
there by Zampano. The woman singing Gelsomina’s
song hangs white bed sheets to dry, and for a moment
during her conversation with Zampano a sheet covers
her, so that we see only her trembling shadow on the
fabric.
It is not our intention to prove or point out any­
thing. We have arrived at this stage guided by images
and an ensuing unclear affiliation that cannot be ex­
plained “to the very end”: the mystery of the symbol’s
essence. It is not true that we embellish our experiences
with symbols; actually, it is they that cooperate with our
experiences via processes of affiliation, which we under­
stand only partially.41
We do not wish to demonstrate anything or in­
dicate anything apart from the fact that the simple
Anthropology contained in this existential, realistic,
visionary and metaphysical film: even you serve some
purpose, recorded in the “parable about the pebble”,
has solid foundations grounded in the shared experi­
ence of human depiction.
Perhaps this is a beginning that conceals the secret
of our delight in the incessant procession of human
fauna composed of all those failed actors, singers and
dancers, strange characters with whom Fellini filled his
films. And the fact that in a thus founded perception
the Artist permits us to reach, together with him, the
most inner, invisible dimensions of our humanity.
On the other hand, we are aware that our help­
lessness as regards our possibilities, problems, and dif­
ficulties with comprehending Gelsomina’s experience,
with describing it and thus capturing her character
that keeps slipping out of our hands in the manner
of a pebble, and, at the same time, the penetration of
the world of La Strada, which we described as closed
259

and perfect, appears to be even deeper since our un­
derstanding and interpretations always remain frag­
mentary and we share experiences with others. This
is a mixture of the voices of children from the Great
Theatre of the World, the children attending a lesson
on a beach, and the voice of a supra-human power, as
in that fragment of a poem by Wisława Szymborska,
which we originally wanted to describe as a conversa­
tion between Gelsomina and Zampanó:
Conversation with a Stone
I knock at the stone’s front door
“It’s only me, let me come in”
(...)
I’m not unhappy.
I’m not homeless
My world is worth returning to.
I’ll enter and exit empty-handed,
And my proof I was there
will be only words,
which no one will believe."
You shall not enter. . .
You lack the sense of taking part.
No other sense can make up for your missing sense of
taking part.
Even sight heightened to become all-seeing
will do you no good without a sense of taking part.
You shall notenter,you haveonly asenseofwhat that sense
should be,
only its seed, imagination.42
*

Nothing is known and everything is imagined...
*

In this manner we come to the last scene in La
Strada.
Zampanó has found about Gelsomina’s death. The
“animal”, the “beast” is now truly free and should re­
joice. Finally free; is he the winner in this wrestling
match? The sole witness of his crime is dead. After all,
he did not want it to happen. Is the white bed sheet
a lucky sign? It resembles a white pebble, a token for
entering a new life, for freeing himself from an accusa­
tion and from someone (from Gelsomina?). Why is he
unhappy? Why has he gone pale? May we assume that
he will devour himself and perform an act of self-anni­
hilation? He is an ordinary rascal, a Judas. He left her.
So simple. What about that other rock, Simon Peter,
who also refused to confess and betrayed? No, do not
blaspheme! When did I see such an image, just like
the one on the beach, that upward gaze? Just a minute,
yes, it was The Penitent St. Peter by Ludovico Carraci
of Bologna (1555-1619). No, he’s sitting differently.
Yes, but that look! Do you remember Gelsomina’s last
words: We need a little more wood here. The fire is dying
out. He also ran away from the fire, afraid that they
would recognise him... . You haven’t understood a

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

thing in this film. He simply left and was unable to do
anything more for her. After all, he wanted to drive
her back home. He could have driven her. She did
not want to go. What would she do there? He loved
her and left her happy in that spot of sunlight. What
more could he do? He set her free. Such a horrible
place. She fell asleep. No angel. Simply fear.
Remember, he said that no one even thought
about them. Yes, an empty heaven? Existentialism?
The same as on that beach in the last scene. You must
be joking. He did not mean that, simply that no one
saw them or caught them. And she went on and on,
repeating the same thing: The F o o I is hurt. What more
could he do? He set her free so that she could forget.
Anyway, this is terrible. No one would want to be in
his place. But finally he found her. He wasn’t looking
for her. It was she who found him!
*

The last scene. We are at the seashore, the very
edge of images. We can see only the beach, the shore,
the sea: waves, low and high tide. Instead of an image
of a child wanting to empty the sea, there is an old
man collapsing on the sand, supporting himself with
his hand: a three-legged animal. The prodigal son on
a beach? Waves - low and high tide. No one else. The
sea. The man looks up, towards the sky. He becomes
overcome with terror, bends his head and sobs. Low
tide - high tide. Next to him - waves. The sea. The
eternal rhythm of the world?
O good God, what happens in a man to make him re­
joice more at the salvation of a soul that has been despaired
of and then delivered from greater danger than over one
who has never lost hope, or never been in such imminent
danger? For thou also, O most merciful Father, “dost
rejoice more over one that repents than over ninety and
nine just persons that need no repentance. And we listen
with much delight whenever we hear how the lost sheep is
brought home again on the shepherd’s shoulders while the
angels rejoice; or when the piece of money is restored to its
place in the treasury and the neighbours rejoice with the
woman who found it. And the joy of the solemn festival
of thy house constrains us to tears when it is read in thy
house: about the younger son who “was dead and is alive
again, was lost and is found.” For it is thou who rejoices
both in us and in thy angels, who are holy through holy
love. For thou art ever the same because thou knowest un­
changeably all things which remain neither the same nor
forever.
What, then, happens in the soul when it takes more
delight at finding or having restored to it the things it loves
than if it had always possessed them? Indeed, many other
things bear witness that this is s o -- all things are full of
witnesses, crying out, “S o it is". (...)
But it is also apparent in pleasures that are permitted
and lawful: (...) in him who was dead and lived again,
26 1

who had been lost and was found. The greater joy is every­
where preceded by the greater pain. What does this mean,
O Lord my God, when thou art an everlasting joy to thy­
self, and some creatures about thee are ever rejoicing in
thee? What does it mean that this portion of creation thus
ebbs and flows, alternately in want and satiety ? I s this their
mode of being and is this all thou hast allotted to them:
that, from the highest heaven to the lowest earth, from the
beginning of the world to the end, from the angels to the
worm, from the first movement to the last, thou wast as­
signing to all their proper places and their proper seasons
-- to all the kinds of good things and to all thy just works?
Alas, how high thou art in the highest and how deep in the
deepest! Thou never departest from us, and yet only with
difficulty do we return to Thee!43
*

The camera soars and on the beach we notice the
figure of a man - Zampano, who sobbing bitterly fell
on the ground. Seen from a distance the figure slowly
grows motionless and in the darkness loses contours,
changing into a dimmer shape, which from afar resem­
bles a pebble lying on the sand at the edge of the sea.
*

The last scene of La Strada could be described as:
Ecce Imago. A scene in which we may feel, to cite the
poet44, air without object. A gust within God. A wind.
And Fellini shows this.
*

Federico knew well who he was and whence comes the
wind that blows s o that man may be born of the Spirit. Even
though sometimes people (and he too, at certain moments of
his life), just like those who heard Paul in Athens, seek the
Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him,
though He is not far from each one of us (Acts 17, 27).
He sincerely wished to rest his head on a stone as if on
a pillow and to see in his dream, just like Jacob, a ladder set
upon the earth, and the top of it reached heaven, the angels
ascending and descending on it (Genesis 28, 12).45
*

The history of the cinema follows its further course.
The floor becomes covered with newspapers, weeklies,
folders, advertisement leaflets, letters, and old mail. In
a moment there will appear a newspaper featuring a
photograph of Federico Fellini - a press farewell, news
about the director’s death. It will immediately van­
ish under a pile of other newspapers, folders, adver­
tisement leaflets...These are the first frames of Wim
Wender’s Lisbon Story, a tale of the titular town based
on amassed images and sounds. The film contains the
following image: an elegant older man stands in a re­
cording studio surrounded by super-sensitive micro­
phones and a team of sound engineers. He speaks in a

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

slightly husky voice, pauses, takes deep breaths and we
hear each gasp one when he speaks in the beautiful
language of his country, incomprehensible to us:
God exists. The universe was created by Him. But what
good would the universe be if men, if humankind disappeared?
The universe would be useless. Or is it possible that it has a
purpose of its own, even without the existence of Man?
We want to imitate God. That’s why there are art­
ists. Artists want to recreate the world, as if they were
little gods. They constantly rethink history, life, things that
happen in the world, things that we think happened, but
only because we believe. Because, after all, we believe in
memory. Because everything has already passed. But who
can be sure that what we thought happened really hap­
pened? Who should we ask? Therefore, this world, this
supposition, is an illusion.
The only real thing is memory. But memory is an in­
vention ... In the cinema, the camera can capture a mo­
ment. But that moment had already passed. What the
cinema does is draw a shadow of that moment. We are
no longer sure that the moment ever existed outside the
film. Or is the film proof that the moment existed? I don’t
know. I know less and less about that. We live, after all, in
permanent doubt.46
Saying these words, he turns around, glues on a
moustache and puts on Charlie Chaplin’s bowler hat,
leaves the studio, walks down a street imitating Char­
lie’s gait, and, finally, at the end of the street, turns,
performs a gleeful jump and disappears round the cor­
ner.47 After seeing the film and glancing at a newspa­
per we might find out that this elderly gentleman is
the famous director Manoel de Oliveira, a classic of
the Portuguese cinema.
Despite the ironic frame and declared doubts we
remain under the impression of his declaration. There
remains the feeling that ultimately something actually
does exist.
In this way, we have found ourselves along the
same path and at the same point of departure: Charlie
and Gelsomina.
Once again, we walk down the same road, at the
onset of the cinema.
Ultimately something actually does exist. The cinema
- despite its deceptive nature, toil, illusions, and shat­
tered dreams - is a beautiful world.
A beautiful world.
The Wenders film contains an unusual defini­
tion of the cinema, one that we would seek in vain in
learned dissertations and writings by experts (at least
I have not come across it). Wenders applies the ambi­
guity of the English word: "move”. He maintains that
the cinema is not so much “moving pictures”, i.e. pic­
tures that are “in motion” as pictures that are “mov­
ing”, “poignant”.
Carl Gustaw Jung declared that when a given im­
age is poignant we are dealing with an archetype. Here,
262

emotion is a symptom, a sign that thanks to the inter­
mediary of a given image, the arch-image, speaks to us.
Jung repeated and expanded a thesis by Gerhard
Hauptmann: Poetry evokes out of words the resonance of
the primordial word48 so that it embraces creativity as a
whole. Is it not worth recalling within the context of the
poignant and stirring images from La Strada and its au­
thor that the expression used most often about him and
his work is, despite numerous different interpretations
proposed by particular exegetes, the one about which
they all concur: Fellini is a poet. A poet of the cinema.
From this point of view, La Strada is a symbolic
film employing the meaning of the symbol and the
mythological image formulated by Jung. Since Jung’s
psychology and theory of the archetype have amassed
numerous prejudices let us hear what he had to say,
since, in my opinion, the following fragment about the
force of mythological images allows us to discover the
secret of the force of the images out which La Strada is
built and with which it speaks. It is the secret that we
encounter in Fellini’s entire oeuvre:
In each of these images there is a little piece of hu­
man psychology and human fate, a remnant of the joys
and sorrows that have been repeated countless times in our
ancestral history, and on the average follow ever the same
course. It is like a deeply graven riverbed in the psyche, in
which the waters of life, instead of flowing along as before
in a broad but shallow stream, suddenly swell into a mighty
river. This happens whenever that particular set of circum­
stances is encountered which over long periods of time has
helped to lay down the primordial image.
The moment when this mythological situation reap­
pears is always characterized by a peculiar emotional in­
tensity; it is as though chords in us were struck that had
never resounded before (...)
The impact of an archetype, whether it takes the form
of immediate experience or is expressed through the spo­
ken word, stirs us because it summons up a voice that is
stronger than our own. Whoever speaks in primordial im­
ages speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals and over­
powers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking
to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the
realm of the ever-enduring. He transmutes our personal
destiny into the destiny of mankind, and evokes in us all
those beneficent forces that ever and anon have enabled
humanity to find a refuge from every peril and to outlive
the longest night.
That is the secret of great art, and of its effect upon us. The
creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists
in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image, and in
elaborating and shaping this image into the finished work. By
giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the
present, and so makes it possible for us to find our way back
to the deepest springs of life. Therein lies the social significance
of art: it is constantly at work educating the spirit of the age,
conjuring up the forms in which the age is most lacking.49

Zbigniew Benedyktowicz • ROAD MOVIE - A POEM ABOUT THE PEBBLE

Asa - Nisi - Masa50.
Gelsomina - the lost and found drachma?
Endnotes
1

Cardinal A. Sivestrinis Sermon during the funeral service
for Federico Fellini (R o m e , S a n t a M a r ia d e g li A n g e li, 3
N o v e m b e r 1 9 9 3 ), tra n sl. Z d zislaw S ł u c h o c k a , [in: ] “
K w a r ta ln ik F ilm o w y ” ” , N o . 5 / 1 9 9 4 , p .1 2 0

2

I? K ra l,

Europejczyk Fellini (E u r o p e a n F ellin i) , tra n sl.

M a c ie j G o d z im irsk i , [in: ] „ F ilm Q u a r te r ly „, N o .
5 /1 9 9 4 p p . 1 4 2 -1 5 9 (orig. v e r s io n p r in te d „ L e M e s s e n g e r
E u r o p é e n „, P a ris 1 9 8 7 )
3

Ib id , p .1 4 7 .

4

A.

W ern er,

W tanecznym korowodzie,

„ K w a r t a ln ik

F ilm o w y ” ( „F ilm Q u a r t e r ly ” ), n o 5 /1 9 9 4 , s s .1 2 8 - 1 3 9 .
5

Ib id , p. 13 9 .

6

Rzemiosło interpretacji [in h is :], Milczenie
syren (D a s S c h w e ig e n d e S ir e n e n ) , W a rsz a w a tra n sl. J.

7

C f. sp e c ia l issu e o f "P o lsk a S z tu k a L u d o w a ” , n o . 3 / 1 9 8 8

H . Politzer,

H u m m e l, W a rsa w 1973
about

th e

sy m b o l,

c o n t a in in g

te x ts

by

Serg ei

S.

Symbol, p p . 1 4 9 -1 5 0 , Y uri L o tm a n , Symbol
w systemie kultury, p p . 1 5 1 -1 5 4 , a n d m y Symbol w etno­
grafii, p. 1 4 5 - 1 4 8 . D e c la r in g th a t th e sy m b o l n o t o n ly
A v ie r in tse v ,

”m e a n s ” b u t a ls o e x is ts in a d ia lo g u e .
8

A . S ilv e s tr in i , o p .c it. p .1 2 2

9

R .M . R ilk e , Czwarta Elegia Duinejska (a F o u rth D u in o
E le g y ), [in :], Poezje, transl.. M . Ja s tr u n , K rak ó w , 1 9 7 4 , p.
219.

10

C f. J. T rz n a d e l, Federico Fellini -

Giulietta Massina („La
strada" - „Ginger i Fred") [in :] „ K w a r ta ln ik F ilm o w y ” , n r
5 /1 9 9 4 , p p . 1 6 4 -1 6 8 , w h e re th e a u th o r a r g u e s th a t in
p la c e o f Z a m p a n o - G e ls o m in a , in “ G in g e r a n d F r e d ”
o n e c a n se e in o ld p a ir d o u b lin g o f th e G e lso m in a 's
typ e.

11

T

R u tk o w sk a ,

Wędrówki Felliniego, „K o n te k sty . P o lsk a

S z tu k a L u d o w a ” , n r 3 - 4 /1 9 9 2 , p.. 23 , se e p r e v io u s
p a g e s.
12
13

C f., J.T r z n a d e l, o p . cit.
C f. W. M ic h e r a h is stu d ie s o n

sy m b o l in film , W.

M ic h e r a , O wieloznaczności symbolu, „ R o c z n ik M u z e a ln y ”
t. IV, W ło c ła w e k 1 9 9 1 , ss. 2 6 5 - 2 7 3 . W h e r e A u th o r w ri­
tin g a b o u t th e e s s e n c e o f th e sy m b o l q u o te s im a g e o f
B la k e 's p o e try : To see a World in a Grain of Sand /And a
Heaven in a Wild Flower,/ Hold Infinity in the palm of your
hand /And Eternity in an hour.
14

S e e th e stud y, e s s a y o f A . W o jc ie c h o w sk i o n H a r le q u in
, itin e r a n t t h e a t e r c o m p a n ie s , c ir c u s p e r fo r m e rs , ju g ­

Wędrowne
ptaki (Z dziejów pewnej legendy) [in :] Sztuka na wysokości
oczu. Film i antropologia p o d re d . Z . B e n e d y k to w ic z a i T
g le rs, in a rt fr o m a n tiq u ity t o m o d e r n art:

R u tk o w sk ie j, W a rsz a w a 1 9 9 1 , p p . .3 3 -4 6
15

R .M . R ilk e , Piąta Elegia Duinejska (F ifth D u in o E le g y ),
o p .c it. 2 2 5

16

M . K o r n a to w sk a , Fellini, W a rsz a w a 1 9 8 9

17

G . V a n d e r L e e u w , Święta gra ( S a c e r L u d u s) [in h is:]

(Holly and Sacred Beauty. Religion and Art.), tr a n sl. Z.
B e n e d y k to w ic z I S . S ik o r a , „K o n te k sty . P o lsk a sz tu k a
L u d o w a ” , n o 3 - 4 /1 9 9 1 , p. 7.
18

M.

C e rv a n te s,

Don Kichote,

tr a n s l.

S.

C ie s ie ls k a -

B o r k o w sk a , K ra k ó w 1 9 4 9 , a fte r J. T rz n a d e l, o p . c it.
19

A . W o jc ie c h o w sk i, o p . c it, p. 4 3 .

20

C f. G . V a n d e r L eeu w , o p cit.

263

21 Ibidem, p. 7.
22 Cf. D. Czaja, Mozart i Salieri, „Kino” nr 11-12/1990, pp.
32-35.
23 See block of articles, interpretations on “Babette's
Feast” in this Anthology.
24 On this motive see Z. Benedyktowicz, Maria and
Martha ... in this Anthology.
25 On this motive in Amadeus by Milos Forman and on
this theme drew attention and developed his interpreta­
tion D. Czaja, in: Mozart i Salieri, op cit.
26 R. M. Rilke, Doświadczenie śmierci, (Death Experience),
op. cit., p. 105.
27 Calderón de la Barca, Wielki Teatr Świata. (The Great
Theatre of the World), fragment by soundtrack from the
movie Elisa, My life by Saura, transl. S. Ułłowicz
28 R. M. Rilke, Dziesiąta Elegia Duinejska, (Tenth Elegy),
op.cit., pp. 255-257.
29 R.M. Rilke, Sonety do Orfeusza, Sonet X. (Sonnets to
Orpheus , Sonnet X) , op. cit., p. 335.
30 R.M. Rilke, Ósma elegia, Elegie Duinejskie (Eighth Duino
Elegy), Ibidem, p. 247.
31 Cf. J. Trznadel,op. cit., pp. 165-166.
32 The first polish translation I put after Biblia Tysiąclecia,
the second version after Biblia Gdańska
33 E. Korulska, Dzieci pukają do drzwi kamienia, „Konteksty.
Polska Sztuka Ludowa”, nr 3-4/1995, pp. 217-219.
34 X. Leon-Dufour SJ, Słownik Nowego Testamentu, transl.,
Rev. K. Romaniuk, Poznań 1981, p. 330.
35 D. Forstner OSB, Świat symboliki chrześcijańskiej, transl.,
W. Zakrzewska, P. Pachciarek, R. Turzyński, Warszawa
1990, p. 128.
36 X. Leon-Dufour SJ, op. cit., p. 330.
37 D. Forstner OSB, op. cit., p. 125.
38 D. Forstner OSB,op. cit., p. 126.
39 Ibidem.
40 Ibidem p.130
41 R.R. Niebhur, “Harvard Divinity Bulletin”, OctoberNovember 1981, p. 3.
42 From the Volume Sól, 1962, [w:] W. Szymborska, Wybór
wierszy, Warszawa 1964, p. 110-111.
43 Św. Augustyn, Wyznania, (St. Augustine, Confessions)
transl.. Z. Kubiak, Warszawa 1982, p. 134-135
44 R.M. Rilke, Sonety do Orfeusza, C z ę ś ć pierwsza, Sonet III,
o p . cit., p. 269.
45 A. Silvestrini, op. cit., p. 122.
46 I've included the soundtrack and press material for the
film Lisbon Story by Wim Wenders
47 In a statement the director of the film (ibid., in press
releases ), we learn about how this piece of film was
created: “I would not allow myself to write the text for
Manoel de Oliveira. We talked only about the meaning
of the film and the context of the scene in which he had
to attend. He asked me for time to think and after a
while he said he was ready. We let the movement of the
camera. When we finished, he asked the crew to be
turned, stuck a mustache and improvised parody of
Charlie Chaplin.
48 C.G. Jung, O stosunku psychologii analitycznej do dzieła
poetyckiego, [in:], Archetypy i symlbole. Pisma wybrane,.
Transl., J. Prokopiuk, Warszawa 1976, p. 374.
49 Ibidem, p. 375-377.
50 Asa - Nisi - Masa it is an anagram of the word , „Anima”,
appearing in („8 and G ” ) Eight and a Half by F. Fellini
(A [sa] Ni [si] Ma [sa] )