And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground There are certain people of whom it is difficult to say anything which will at once throw them into relief—in other words, describe them graphically in their typical characteristics. These are they who are generally known as “commonplace people,” and this class comprises, of course, the immense majority of mankind. Authors, as a rule, attempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than real life itself. For instance, when the whole essence of an ordinary person’s nature lies in his perpetual and unchangeable commonplaceness; and when in spite of all his endeavours to do something out of the common, this person ends, eventually, by remaining in his unbroken line of routine—. I think such an individual really does become a type o...
FILM DIRECTORS - Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini would seem to need little by way of introduction. He may be the best known of the postwar Italian directors. He is also among the most noted filmmakers in the history of the medium. In 1980, Harry Reasoner claimed on CBS's Sixty Minutes that Fellini was "maybe the premier filmmaker of the age"--a pronouncement which may seem a bit exaggerated from the perspective of the 1990s but which also suggests the role Fellini played in international cinema from 1954 (La Strada) to at least 1973 (Amarcord). He was awarded five Oscars, and though he suffered decline in the public eye through the 1980s and early 1990s, his final Oscar was the 1993 lifetime achievement award of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He received a similar award from Cannes as early as 1974, as well as the outstanding cinematic achievement award of the Film Society of Lincoln Center (New York City) in 1985.
Perhaps more important, Fellini's work continues to be a significant influence on the contemporary filmmaking scene. In a 1992 Sight and Sound survey, while neither he nor any of his films made it into the top ten of critics' favourite movies and directors, he ranked first among international directors surveyed. As Geoffrey Nowell-Smith put it in a subsequent issue of Sight and Sound: "The word is out. Federico Fellini is the directors' director par excellence...."
POSTWAR INDIVIDUALISM, AMERICAN INFLUENCE, AND NEOREALISM
POSTWAR INDIVIDUALISM, AMERICAN INFLUENCE, AND NEOREALISM
While neorealism may have been Fellini's postwar cinematic context, individualism was the prevailing ideological current as he emerged as a scriptwriter and director. Individualism, of course, has a long history in Western culture. However, in the last 200 years, it has become synonymous with American ideology--and Fellini was heavily influenced in his youth by the American popular-culture promise of individual freedom . . . .
Within the larger context of Western and American ideology, Fellini fashioned his own brand of individualism as an anti-authoritarian response to his Fascist and Catholic upbringing. . . .
Though Fellini abhorred Catholic dogmatism, this did not prevent him from fusing individualism in his early work with a secularized form of Christian humanism: a belief in the "salvation" of the individual via psychological individuation. The road to salvation was not the Way of the Cross, but the evolution of consciousness from the unconscious and the integration of all the fragmented and repressed aspects of the individual psyche.
“I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art.Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t.If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.”
Federico Fellini
“I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art.Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t.If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.”
Making a Film
Essential Films
LA Strada (1954)
La strada (1954), the film Fellini called “the complete catalogue of my entire mythological world,” is a starring vehicle for wife Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina, a clownish waif who communicates best with nature and children. Sold by her mother to Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), a travelling circus strongman, she accompanies his act on trumpet. They are joined by the Fool (Richard Basehart), who walks a tightrope high over provincial squares. When brutish Zampanò accidentally kills the Fool, Gelsomina goes mad and eventually dies. News of her death wrings tears from Zampanò at film’s end. The first entry in what Bondanella deems the “trilogy of salvation or grace,” these figures derive meaning from their emotional impact and symbolic significance, not their material circumstances. Gelsomina and Zampanò play out the grim relations between the sexes, a vagabond version of “Beauty and the Beast,” and the roles of “savior” and “convert.” So much so that Fellini was savaged by the Left for betraying his neorealist origins.
LA STRADA (YOUTUBE)
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Before high school I’d never asked myself what I’d do with my life; I couldn’t envision my future. I used to think of a profession as something unavoidable, like Sunday mass. I never said, “When I grow up I’ll…!” It didn’t seem like I’d ever grow up, and deep down I was right.
From the day I was born to the first time I set foot in Cinecittà , it seems as if my life was lived by somebody else; by someone who, only in brief moments and when I least expected it, suddenly decided to allow me to participate in a few fragments of his memory. Therefore I must admit that my films composed of memories tell completely invented tales. In the end, what difference does it make?
Essential Films
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Il Bidone (1955)
Le Notti di Cabiria (1957)
The imagery of water is a prevalent theme in Fellini's films. It is the symbol of catharsis (as in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blue) and eternity. (In Fellini's La Strada, Zampano returns to the tranquil cadence of the sea after a heartbreaking revelation.) InNights of Cabiria, the film begins and ends with water. It is an imagery that illustrates that life, itself, is cyclical - eternal - as the human condition. Water is also a symbol of purification. Cabiria's soul remains untainted, despite her sordid profession (a theme that echoes the works of such writers as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gustav Flaubert, and Jean-Paul Sartre, among others). It is a humanist idea that people are innately good, but forced by their circumstances into acts of desperation (a familiar neorealist theme). The result is a powerful metaphor: a fusion of hope and misery, perseverance and suffering, a synthesis not unlike life itself.
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Few films have indelibly defined society as caustically and honestly as Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita. Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a frustrated writer, is reduced to tabloid journalism in order to make ends meet. He spends every evening in Via Veneto - the venerable hotspot for people who want to be seen - vicariously awaiting the next scandal, party invitation, or sexual proposition. One evening is spent with an enigmatic woman named Maddalena (Anouk Aimee), whose dark sunglasses conceal a bruised eye. Her declared love for Marcello is merely whispered from a distance, deflected by the reverberating walls. Another evening is in Steiner's (Alain Cuny) penthouse, a wealthy intellectual.
Consumed by self-doubt and fleeting happiness, he is unable to enjoy his success. Still another evening is spent with a famous actress named Sylvia (Anita Ekberg). With the advent of dawn, she, too, returns to home to her boyfriend. Away from the nightlife of Via Veneto, he finds himself caught up in the carnival spectacle of a false sighting of the Virgin Mary (an episode that is also recounted in Nights of Cabiria). Soon the empty evenings seem to weave together into some decadent rhythm, punctuated only by the regret of the following morning.
Fellini visually conveys the cycle through stairs: the descent to a prostitute's flooded basement apartment, the climb to a church tower, the walk to a public fountain, the exploration of an unoccupied section of the princess dowager's estate. Thematically, the film begins and ends with the same incident: Marcello, unable to hear the cryptic message, returns to his latest distraction... perhaps still dreaming of attaining the elusive sweet life.
Consumed by self-doubt and fleeting happiness, he is unable to enjoy his success. Still another evening is spent with a famous actress named Sylvia (Anita Ekberg). With the advent of dawn, she, too, returns to home to her boyfriend. Away from the nightlife of Via Veneto, he finds himself caught up in the carnival spectacle of a false sighting of the Virgin Mary (an episode that is also recounted in Nights of Cabiria). Soon the empty evenings seem to weave together into some decadent rhythm, punctuated only by the regret of the following morning.
Fellini visually conveys the cycle through stairs: the descent to a prostitute's flooded basement apartment, the climb to a church tower, the walk to a public fountain, the exploration of an unoccupied section of the princess dowager's estate. Thematically, the film begins and ends with the same incident: Marcello, unable to hear the cryptic message, returns to his latest distraction... perhaps still dreaming of attaining the elusive sweet life.
Interview on 'La Dolce Vita' w/ Federico Fellini, Marcello Mastroianni & More! [audio]
8 1/2 (1963)
8 1/2 weaves fluidly through the visually intoxicating landscape of Federico Fellini's subconscious, seemingly to seek inspiration and validation for his life and work. In an opening scene that symbolizes much of Fellini's films, a suffocating man, trapped inside his car, inexplicably begins to float into the skies, only to be abruptly tugged back to the ground. But it is also an indelible image that shatters any preconceived illusion of "typical" elements in a Fellini film. The film, 8 1/2, literally marks Fellini's work on 8 1/2 feature films (the "1/2" derived from collaborative direction films), and proves to be a transitional film in his artistic career. In addition to being his final film shot in black and white, the subtle forms and religious iconography of his earlier neorealist films have been replaced by precisely composed, comic absurdity and exaggerated, hyperbolic imagery - of what was to become his signature, Felliniesque, style.
His alter-ego on this surreal, introspective journey is Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), a successful director of films "without hope" who takes a holiday at an exclusive health spa in order to overcome a creative dry spell. But Guido is not a suffering, tortured artist. He is narcissistic and self-indulgent, preferring to spend his time networking with wealthy resort patrons and arranging liaisons with his oversexed mistress, Carla (Sandra Milo) than in formulating ideas for his next film. In fact, Guido's words prove hypocritical and contrary to all his actions.
His creative retreat is spent surrounded by people who are most familiar with him: his mistress, his wife Luisa (Anouk Aimee), his producer (Guido Alberti), and several actors who want to appear in his film. He claims to be in the process of creating a simple film that "would bury all that was dead" between Luisa and him, but approves plans to construct an elaborate movie set for a science fiction film. He supplements his mineral water treatments with cigarettes and alcohol, leading a life of excess instead of undergoing physical (and psychological) cleansing and purification.
Unable to derive inspiration from his chaotic environment, he immerses himself in the distraction of childhood memories and indulgent fantasies: conversing with an emotionally inaccessible father; reciting the magic words to a hidden treasure; sneaking out of class to watch the carefree Saraghina (Eddra Gale) perform a sensual dance; attempting to tame the women in his life using circus props. In essence, Guido is searching for balance: between childhood traumas and idealism, the sensual and the intellectual, artistic integrity and commercial success. Inevitably, Guido is as much a reflection of Fellini as he is of ourselves: striving for greatness, only to achieve the ordinary and familiar... with episodes of momentary abstraction in between.
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Great Films : 8 1/2 (1963) >>>
Great Films : 8 1/2 (1963) >>>
AMARCORD (1973)
