Day: June 4, 2001

I long ago reconciled myself to the fact that very few people seem to see the world as I do. What continues to puzzle me, however, are people who hold what appear to be deeply held convictions but turn around and advocate ideas that are completely inconsistent with those convictions.

A good example of this was evident in major media coverage of the visit George W. Bush made to California recently. There is much discussion these days about whether the U.S. energy policy should emphasize conservation, as well as talk about whether or not federal price controls are needed on energy prices. I think both ideas are bad ones, but what is really frustrating is to see people who advocate both conservation and price controls since they are completely incompatible.

If people are serious about conserving energy, then artificially lowing the cost of energy would seem on its face to be the worst possible proposal anyone could float. After all, much of the problems the United States faces today is largely a result of how cheap energy was in the past. People are complaining about how high gasoline prices and gasoline refinery profits are today, forgetting that just two years ago gasoline prices were lower than at any point in American history, which in part helped drive the SUV boom (though obviously other factors were very important as well).

I’m definitely in favor of cheap energy (personally, oil wells are much more aesthetically pleasing than most Alaskan wildlife) but artificially lowering the price of energy is a genuinely wasteful policy that will deter otherwise economically beneficial activity.

The actor Anthony Quinn died over the weekend. He was 86. All of the obituaries I’ve read online typically mention Quinn’s famous roles in Zorba the Greek and Lawrence of Arabia. Both of those are good films, but they don’t come close to touching the genius of Quinn’s best film: the Federico Fellini masterpiece La Strada.

Co-starring Giulietta Masina (who at the time was married to Fellini), La Strada follows Quinn’s character Zampano, a traveling circus performer, and Masina’s Gelsomina, who is given over to Zampano because her mother cannot afford to feed her. The movie simply follows their rather despairing adventures without judging the characters or using them as mere foils for some deeper political or social commentary. The film’s ending is rather depressing, and yet the film as a whole contains a very hopeful message about the potential of human action.

I first saw La Strada as part of a class on existentialism, and the film definitely captures what might be called the hopeful side of existentialists thought (and as many reviewers have noted, with a very religious twist since the movie is largely a commentary on the human potential for redemption and salvation).

I consider myself a movie fanatic. I have seen thousands of films. But I have never seen one that affected and inspired me as much as La Strada (including films that were far superior to it in any number of ways).