120-532: Federico Fellini Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI ( Italian: [fedeˈriːko felˈliːni] ; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. He is known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. His films have ranked highly in critical polls such as that of Cahiers du Cinéma and Sight & Sound , which lists his 1963 film 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 as
240-405: A docufiction both for cinema and television, based on his childhood memories of the circus and a "coherent theory of clowning." As he saw it, the clown "was always the caricature of a well-established, ordered, peaceful society. But today all is temporary, disordered, grotesque. Who can still laugh at clowns?... All the world plays a clown now." In March 1971, Fellini began production on Roma ,
360-410: A surrealistic feminist convention. He winds up in a conference about polyandry , where his presence is rejected. A frightened Snàporaz retreats to the hotel lobby, but the exit is blocked; instead, he seeks refuge inside an elevator with a girl, Donatella, who offers her assistance. Donatella leads Snàporaz into a gymnasium and forces him to don roller skates . He is yet again cornered and berated by
480-581: A traveling salesman and wholesale vendor . Fellini had two siblings, Riccardo (1921–1991), a documentary director for RAI Television, and Maria Maddalena (m. Fabbri; 1929–2002). In 1924, Fellini started primary school in an institute run by the nuns of San Vincenzo in Rimini, attending the Carlo Tonini public school two years later. An attentive student, he spent his leisure time drawing, staging puppet shows and reading Il corriere dei piccoli ,
600-433: A "public sinner", for La Dolce Vita , Fellini responded with The Temptations of Doctor Antonio , a segment in the omnibus Boccaccio '70 . His second colour film, it was the sole project green-lighted at Federiz. Infused with the surrealistic satire that characterized the young Fellini's work at Marc'Aurelio , the film ridiculed a crusader against vice, interpreted by Peppino De Filippo , who goes insane trying to censor
720-579: A 74-page booklet in ten chapters describing the absurd adventures of Pasqualino, an alter ego. Writing for radio while attempting to avoid the draft, Fellini met his future wife Giulietta Masina in a studio office at the Italian public radio broadcaster EIAR in the autumn of 1942. Well-paid as the voice of Pallina in Fellini's radio serial, Cico and Pallina , Masina was also well known for her musical-comedy broadcasts which cheered an audience depressed by
840-613: A baker apprenticed to the Pantanella pasta factory. His mother, Ida Barbiani (1896–1984), came from a bourgeois Catholic family of Roman merchants . Despite her family's vehement disapproval, she had eloped with Urbano in 1917 to live at his parents' home in Gambettola. A civil marriage followed in 1918 with the religious ceremony held at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome a year later. The couple settled in Rimini where Urbano became
960-410: A billboard of Anita Ekberg espousing the virtues of milk. In an October 1960 letter to his colleague Brunello Rondi, Fellini first outlined his film ideas about a man suffering creative block: "Well then – a guy (a writer? any kind of professional man? a theatrical producer?) has to interrupt the usual rhythm of his life for two weeks because of a not-too-serious disease. It's a warning bell: something
1080-408: A case to be made for the possibility that he lets it go on a bit too long, but I'd be hard put to think of a single frame that could have been left out." Dale Stevens of The Cincinnati Post wrote that "Fellini is a great stylist. But with his style comes content. And 'City of Women' has plenty of important ideas offered for individual interpretation. It’s quite a marvelous movie." Diane Haithman of
1200-595: A comedy writer on Mario Mattoli 's Il pirata sono io ( The Pirate's Dream ). Progressing rapidly to numerous collaborations on films at Cinecittà , his circle of professional acquaintances widened to include novelist Vitaliano Brancati and scriptwriter Piero Tellini. In the wake of Mussolini's declaration of war against France and Britain on 10 June 1940, Fellini discovered Kafka 's The Metamorphosis , Gogol , John Steinbeck and William Faulkner along with French films by Marcel Carné , René Clair , and Julien Duvivier . In 1941 he published Il mio amico Pasqualino ,
1320-592: A decidedly original mixture of nostalgia, poignancy, and joy that is unmistakably Fellini's own." Nancy Scott had a similar opinion, writing in the San Francisco Examiner that Fellini "plays ringmaster to his own psyche like the greatest showman on earth, and that's fun while it lasts. Afterwards, it's no more interesting than any ordinary fellow's obsession." Bruce Bailey of the Montreal Gazette commented that "though this may all sound
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#17327724782291440-457: A deep analysis of the nature of women... It is a game with occasional gaps and, more often, inventions that rejuvenate an all too familiar, all too hackneyed subject. A surprising serenity predominates... It is a film with a tragic vein that in the end proves to be light-hearted and occasionally amusing". La Notte magazine's Giorgio Carbone felt the maestro had "finally reached a splendid maturity that permits him to lavish his treasures upon us for
1560-429: A group of angry women who circle around him in roller skates and practice testicle-kicking with a dummy. Dazed, Snàporaz makes his exit down a flight of stairs, falling down and hurting himself, and into the domain of a burly woman tending to the hotel's furnace. The woman offers him a ride to the train station on her motorcycle, but she stops by a farm and lures Snàporaz into a nursery, where she tries to rape him. The rape
1680-569: A happy tune." Joann Rhetts of The Charlotte Observer called the film "a grotesque dream banquet from which participants will awake hungry." Robert W. Butler of The Kansas City Star said that the film "has so many conflicting elements—from the aging satyr whose living room is shared by a collection of phallic statuary and a shrine to his mother to the tribunal of women who convict Snaporaz of misunderstanding females—that you can draw any conclusion. Aggressively bouncing breasts issue silent challenges to mousy men incapable of action. Nobody comes out
1800-685: A lake and stories by Wanda, a shantytown prostitute Fellini met on the set of Il Bidone . Pier Paolo Pasolini was hired to translate Flaiano and Pinelli's dialogue into Roman dialect and to supervise researches in the vice-afflicted suburbs of Rome. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 30th Academy Awards and brought Masina the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her performance. With Pinelli, he developed Journey with Anita for Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck . An "invention born out of intimate truth",
1920-484: A little too didactic, this two hour and 15 minute movie manages to hold our attention because it's still a fine example of Fellini's imaginative knack at work." Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times called the film "fine, mature Fellini with a few reprises from the past but memorable and inspired new ones as well. Nowhere is there a sense of a tired film maker retreading his images yet again. The viewpoint
2040-470: A living. The crisis came to a head in April when, sitting in his Cinecittà office, he began a letter to Rizzoli confessing he had "lost his film" and had to abandon the project. Interrupted by the chief machinist requesting he celebrate the launch of 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 , Fellini put aside the letter and went on the set. Raising a toast to the crew, he "felt overwhelmed by shame… I was in a no exit situation. I
2160-667: A machine-gun, bursting the balloon and sending Snàporaz plummeting. Snàporaz wakes up on the very same train from the beginning of the film, indicating the entire story has been a mere nightmare. Just as he comes to this conclusion, he realizes his glasses are broken (as in his dream) and that the wagon is filled by the women that crowded his dream. The train races into a tunnel as the film ends. City of Women opened in eighty Italian theaters in March 1980 and received generally favorable reviews bordering "on respect rather than praise". Corriere della Sera critic Giovanni Grazzini interpreted
2280-404: A man who voyages through male and female spaces toward a confrontation with his own attitudes toward women and his wife. Snàporaz wakes up during a train ride and has a brief fling with a woman in the bathroom, but it's cut short when the train suddenly stops and the woman gets off. Snàporaz follows her into the woods, through a wilderness and into a Grand Hotel overrun with women in attendance for
2400-409: A mental institution for women, the project was abandoned when financial backers considered the subject had no potential. While preparing Nights of Cabiria in spring 1956, Fellini learned of his father's death by cardiac arrest at the age of sixty-two. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starring Giulietta Masina, the film took its inspiration from news reports of a woman's severed head retrieved in
2520-460: A mental institution, the character is a combination of La Strada ' s Gelsomina, Pinocchio , and Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi . Fellini improvised as he filmed, using as a guide a rough treatment written with Pinelli. Despite its modest critical and commercial success in Italy, and its warm reception by French critics, it failed to interest North American distributors. Order of Merit of
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#17327724782292640-446: A new Fellini, no longer just a screenwriter, working and sketching at his desk, but a filmmaker out in the field". The apolitical Fellini was finally freed of the draft when an Allied air raid over Bologna destroyed his medical records. Fellini and Giulietta hid in her aunt's apartment until Mussolini's fall on 25 July 1943. After dating for nine months, the couple were married on 30 October 1943. Several months later, Masina fell down
2760-601: A period of six months between January and June 1973, Fellini shot the Oscar -winning Amarcord . Loosely based on the director's 1968 autobiographical essay My Rimini , the film depicts the adolescent Titta and his friends working out their sexual frustrations against the religious and Fascist backdrop of a provincial town in Italy during the 1930s. Produced by Franco Cristaldi , the seriocomic movie became Fellini's second biggest commercial success after La Dolce Vita . Circular in form, Amarcord avoids plot and linear narrative in
2880-412: A record of his dreams. What Fellini formerly accepted as "his extrasensory perceptions" were now interpreted as psychic manifestations of the unconscious. Bernhard's focus on Jungian depth psychology proved to be the single greatest influence on Fellini's mature style and marked the turning point in his work from neorealism to filmmaking that was "primarily oneiric". As a consequence, Jung's seminal ideas on
3000-408: A script completed in 1952 with Pinelli and Flaiano. It starred his wife Giulietta Masina , Anthony Quinn , and Richard Basehart . During the last three weeks of shooting, Fellini experienced the first signs of severe clinical depression. Aided by his wife, he undertook a brief period of therapy with Freudian psychoanalyst Emilio Servadio. Fellini cast American actor Broderick Crawford to interpret
3120-526: A script conference with Rossellini on Europa '51 , Fellini began production on The White Sheik in September 1951, his first solo-directed feature. Starring Alberto Sordi in the title role, the film is a revised version of a treatment first written by Michelangelo Antonioni in 1949 and based on the fotoromanzi , the photographed cartoon strip romances popular in Italy at the time. Producer Carlo Ponti commissioned Fellini and Tullio Pinelli to write
3240-489: A seemingly random collection of episodes informed by the director's memories and impressions of Rome. The "diverse sequences," writes Fellini scholar Peter Bondanella , "are held together only by the fact that they all ultimately originate from the director's fertile imagination." The film's opening scene anticipates Amarcord while its most surreal sequence involves an ecclesiastical fashion show in which nuns and priests roller skate past shipwrecks of cobwebbed skeletons. Over
3360-407: A toboggan, revisiting his childhood crushes (a sitter, a nurse, a prostitute) along the way. Caged at the end of the slide, he is transported before a strange court and judged for his masculinity. Dismissed and set free, he climbs into a towering boxing ring before a female crowd. At the top of the ring, he boards a hot air balloon in the form of Donatella. Donatella herself fires at him from below with
3480-755: A total of four in the category of Best Foreign Language Film (the most for any director in the history of the award). He received an honorary award for Lifetime Achievement at the 65th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. Fellini also won the Palme d'Or for La Dolce Vita in 1960, two times the Moscow International Film Festival in 1963 and 1987, and the Career Golden Lion at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival in 1985. In Sight & Sound ' s 2002 list of
3600-432: A way similar to The Clowns and Roma . The director's overriding concern with developing a poetic form of cinema was first outlined in a 1965 interview he gave to The New Yorker journalist Lillian Ross : "I am trying to free my work from certain constrictions – a story with a beginning, a development, an ending. It should be more like a poem with metre and cadence." Organized by his publisher Diogenes Verlag in 1982,
3720-451: Is about a libertine, it's anything but licentious. Mr Fellini's licentiousness suggests a profound longing for some kind of protective discipline, if not complete chastity. As such discipline would destroy Snàporaz, it would make impossible the conception and production of a film as wonderfully uninhibited as City of Women ." John Gould Boyum of The Wall Street Journal observed that "the film's entire thrust has little or nothing to do with
Federico Fellini - Misplaced Pages Continue
3840-461: Is blocking up his system." Unclear about the script, its title, and his protagonist's profession, he scouted locations throughout Italy "looking for the film", in the hope of resolving his confusion. Flaiano suggested La bella confusione (literally The Beautiful Confusion ) as the movie's title. Under pressure from his producers, Fellini finally settled on 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 , a self-referential title referring principally (but not exclusively) to
3960-431: Is captivating, even dazzling at times, it is far too long for comfort. Several of the scenes, particularly those which take place at the playboy's party, drag on interminably." Jacqi Tully of The Arizona Daily Star wrote that the film "begins to drone once Snaporaz reaches Zuberkock's house. We've seen Fellini grapple with the male ego before, but he did it better in '8½,' and we've seen him go dreamy and surreal on us to
4080-466: Is consistently good as well, as thematically on target, why change?" Betsy Light of The Indianapolis Star wrote that "for those who know and like Fellini's work, 'City of Women,' should prove an entertaining frolic in fantasy. And for those unacquainted with his magical worlds, this film could prove a titillating introduction." Joe Pollack of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote that "Fellini overdoes much of
4200-443: Is cut short by the woman's mother, who steps in to chastise her daughter. Snàporaz escapes and follows a lonely woman through the countryside. He joins her and her girlfriends in a car ride on the promise of being delivered to the station, but the ride goes on well into the night, the women smoking marijuana and listening to Italo disco . A frustrated Snàporaz ditches the women only to be harassed by others. He finally finds shelter at
4320-592: Is far too long, and it never recaptures the exuberant silliness of the early scenes at the convention. But as a fantasy it is often beautiful and sets the imagination going, and as a confession it should give you a charitable fellow-feeling, a warm glow or superiority, or an occasional therapeutic flush of anger." Released by New Yorker Films in the United States on 8 April 1981, the film garnered generally favorable reviews but little box-office success. Daniel Talbot of New Yorker Films offered an explanation for
4440-669: Is not a successful movie and certainly not up to Fellini's best work. It's worth seeing because it's a bedazzling collection of images, because at times it's a graceful and fluid celebration of pure filmmaking skill, and because Fellini can certainly make a bad film but cannot quite make a boring one. Donna Chernin of The Plain Dealer wrote that " Fellini takes us on a visually arresting ride that teems with symbolism and colorful characters but which finally proves an unsatisfying trip. One leaves 'City of Women' wishing that its creator had dared to explore some new territories." Patrick Taggart of
4560-420: Is not memory that dominates my films. To say that my films are autobiographical is an overly facile liquidation, a hasty classification. It seems to me that I have invented almost everything: childhood, character, nostalgias, dreams, memories, for the pleasure of being able to recount them. In 1937, Fellini opened Febo, a portrait shop in Rimini, with the painter Demos Bonini. His first humorous article appeared in
4680-480: Is not only affectionate (which can have overtones of condescension), but generous. Fellini views neither with alarm nor judgment, but with wide-eyed fascination the women he has been quoted as saying, 'represent myth, mystery, diversity, fascination, the thirst for knowledge and the search for one's own identity.'" Micheline Keating of the Tucson Citizen said that "you can almost hear [Fellini's] laughter all
4800-495: Is the story, which snakes through Fellini's thicket with more hairpin turns than a European car rally." Lou Cedrone of the Baltimore Evening Sun called the film "noisy and witless. It looks like the work of a dirty old man, a nocturnal eruption if you will, and because it is not cheap, because it won't begin to win back the money invested in it, Fellini may have made his last major film. A pity. 'City of Women,' at
4920-477: The Austin American-Statesman wrote that "one assumes Fellini gets great personal satisfaction out of these flights of imaginative fancy. The audience, by contrast, feels a little like a victim of a ceremonial stoning. After the first hour, I could not force my eyes to follow the subtitles any more. It wasn't a matter of keeping the eyes open—there is plenty of entertaining imagery—the problem
Federico Fellini - Misplaced Pages Continue
5040-753: The Avanguardista , the compulsory Fascist youth group for males. He visited Rome with his parents for the first time in 1933, the year of the maiden voyage of the transatlantic ocean liner SS Rex (which is shown in Amarcord ). The sea creature found on the beach at the end of La Dolce Vita (1960) has its basis in a giant fish marooned on a Rimini beach during a storm in 1934. Although Fellini adapted key events from his childhood and adolescence in films such as I Vitelloni (1953), 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 (1963), and Amarcord (1973), he insisted that such autobiographical memories were inventions: It
5160-605: The Detroit Free Press called the film "a funny, nostalgic dirge for the death of middle-aged machismo at the hands of the New Woman." Perry Stewart of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote that "the fact that City of Women is 'standard Fellini' accounts for much of its appeal. Perhaps he needs to be chided for lack of invention, but that's a stone I can't hurl. When the same old bizarre imagery
5280-501: The Philadelphia Daily News called the film "hilariously awful, an incomprehensible pop-art bore. Above and beyond the fact that Fellini is rehashing his same old thoughts here and trying to foist them on us as some great vision of feminism, the film is also sloppily made and badly acted. Still, there's no doubt in my mind that this will be an art-house hit. Fellini has so successfully bamboozled pseudo-intellectuals in
5400-569: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said the film was "so imaginative, so much in a class by itself that it redefines, like all Fellini films, the boundaries of cinema. It's sophisticated, delightful, occasionally trying and not for everybody. For Fellini, it's another shining accomplishment." Michael Maza of The Arizona Republic called the film "a fascinating survey of the modern sexual landscape." Joanna Connors of The Minneapolis Star wrote that "Fellini has little new to say about
5520-511: The Marx Brothers , and Roberto Rossellini . Exploiting La Dolce Vita ' s success, financier Angelo Rizzoli set up Federiz in 1960, an independent film company, for Fellini and production manager Clemente Fracassi to discover and produce new talent. Despite the best intentions, their overcautious editorial and business skills forced the company to close down soon after cancelling Pasolini's project, Accattone (1961). Condemned as
5640-470: The Sapienza University of Rome to please his parents. Biographer Hollis Alpert reports that "there is no record of his ever having attended a class". Installed in a family pensione , he met another lifelong friend, the painter Rinaldo Geleng. Desperately poor, they unsuccessfully joined forces to draw sketches of restaurant and café patrons. Fellini eventually found work as a cub reporter on
5760-454: The anima and the animus , the role of archetypes and the collective unconscious directly influenced such films as 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969), Casanova (1976), and City of Women (1980). Other key influences on his work include Luis Buñuel , Charlie Chaplin , Sergei Eisenstein , Buster Keaton , Laurel and Hardy ,
5880-416: The anthology film L'Amore (1948), co-writing the screenplay and in one segment titled, "The Miracle", acting opposite Anna Magnani . To play the role of a vagabond rogue mistaken by Magnani for a saint, Fellini had to bleach his black hair blond. In 1950 Fellini co-produced and co-directed with Alberto Lattuada Variety Lights ( Luci del varietà ), his first feature film. A backstage comedy set among
6000-452: The "Postcards to Our Readers" section of Milan's Domenica del Corriere . Deciding on a career as a caricaturist and gag writer, Fellini travelled to Florence in 1938, where he published his first cartoon in the weekly 420 . According to a biographer, Fellini found school "exasperating" and, in one year, had 67 absences. Failing his military culture exam, he graduated from high school in 1939. In September 1939, he enrolled in law school at
6120-401: The 10th-greatest film. Fellini's best-known films include I vitelloni (1953), La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960), 8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972), Amarcord (1973), and Fellini's Casanova (1976). Fellini was nominated for 17 Academy Awards over the course of his career, winning
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#17327724782296240-581: The Board of Roman Parish Priests and the Genealogical Board of Italian Nobility attacked the film. In one documented instance involving favourable reviews written by the Jesuits of San Fedele, defending La Dolce Vita had severe consequences. In competition at Cannes alongside Antonioni's L'Avventura , the film won the Palme d'Or awarded by presiding juror Georges Simenon . The Belgian writer
6360-634: The Cannes Festival of 1980, is typical of his later work in that the illustration is often superb but the ideas infantile." Neil Sinyard of The Sunday Telegraph wrote that "rather than follow through hints about his fear of certain aspects of today's women and today's youth, Fellini eventually takes refuge in subjective reverie. Modernity is displaced 'by memory, and what promised to rise to incisive feminism has to make way for elegant frivolousness." Philip French of The Observer called it "an endless series of glittering, often vulgar, set-pieces ai
6480-591: The Charles, is grotesque, a film, which, at 134 minutes, seems endless. The maestro has gone back to his "8 1/2" and come up with zero." Tom McElfresh of The Cincinnati Enquirer described the film as having "events and elements that warrant all the usual Fellini review words again: Macabre, penetrating, illusive, antic, astounding, perverse, playful, acerbic . . . Almost." Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte News wrote that "one thing can be said with certainty about this confusing compendium of images: it ain't whistling
6600-679: The Clown and the movies. Guido Brignone 's Maciste all'inferno (1925, Maciste in Hell ), the first film he saw, would mark him in ways linked to Dante and the cinema throughout his entire career. Enrolled at the Ginnasio Giulio Cesare in 1929, he made friends with Luigi Titta Benzi, later a prominent Rimini lawyer (and the model for young Titta in Amarcord (1973)). In Mussolini 's Italy, Fellini and Riccardo became members of
6720-605: The Desert , 1942), directed by Osvaldo Valenti and Gino Talamo. Fellini welcomed the assignment as it allowed him "to secure another extension on his draft order". Responsible for emergency re-writing, he also directed the film's first scenes. When Tripoli fell under siege by British forces, he and his colleagues made a narrow escape by boarding a German military plane flying to Sicily . His African adventure, later published in Marc'Aurelio as "The First Flight", marked "the emergence of
6840-784: The Italian Republic The Order of Merit of the Italian Republic ( Italian : Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana ) is the most senior Italian order of merit . It was established in 1951 by the second President of the Italian Republic , Luigi Einaudi . The highest-ranking honour of the Republic, it is awarded for "merit acquired by the nation" in the fields of literature, the arts, economy, public service, and social, philanthropic and humanitarian activities and for long and conspicuous service in civilian and military careers. The post-nominal letters for
6960-483: The King's Men (1949). The film shoot was wrought with difficulties stemming from Crawford's alcoholism. Savaged by critics at the 16th Venice International Film Festival , the film did miserably at the box office and did not receive international distribution until 1964. During the autumn, Fellini researched and developed a treatment based on a film adaptation of Mario Tobino 's novel, The Free Women of Magliano . Set in
7080-476: The Spirits (1965), depicting Giulietta Masina as Juliet, a housewife who rightly suspects her husband's infidelity and succumbs to the voices of spirits summoned during a séance at her home. Her sexually voracious next door neighbor Suzy ( Sandra Milo ) introduces Juliet to a world of uninhibited sensuality, but Juliet is haunted by childhood memories of her Catholic guilt and a teenaged friend who committed suicide. Complex and filled with psychological symbolism,
7200-487: The actress in a Rome night club provided further inspiration for Fellini and his screenwriters. Changing the title of the screenplay to La Dolce Vita , Fellini soon clashed with his producer on casting: The director insisted on the relatively unknown Mastroianni while De Laurentiis wanted Paul Newman as a hedge on his investment. Reaching an impasse, De Laurentiis sold the rights to publishing mogul Angelo Rizzoli . Shooting began on 16 March 1959 with Anita Ekberg climbing
7320-542: The ambiguity of certain characters - an excellent example is the soubrette played by the charming Donatella Damiani - provides a touch of grace and bitchiness; or when the film becomes almost a musical; or when paradox becomes surrealist, such as the party and the hurricane at the villa of Katzone who's in despair because his favourite dog has died". "Fellini appears as the Madame Bovary of his adolescence", wrote Claudio G. Fava for Corriere Mercantile . "He revels in
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#17327724782297440-453: The attempt to create a kind of astonished confession of amused impotence when faced with the new woman of today, together with a feeling of nostalgia for the old woman of the past... Despite Fellini's extraordinary virtuosity, the film rarely achieves harmony of inspiration, of order, of strip-cartoon fantasy, or of irony." Francesco Bolzoni of L'Avvenire insisted that Fellini was "only playing games. But then we would hardly expect from Fellini
7560-471: The censors banned it. At an exclusive Milan screening on 5 February 1960, one outraged patron spat on Fellini while others hurled insults. Denounced in parliament by right-wing conservatives, undersecretary Domenico Magrì of the Christian Democrats demanded tolerance for the film's controversial themes. The Vatican 's official press organ, L'Osservatore Romano , lobbied for censorship while
7680-499: The cheap studio labour available in Rome provided the backdrop for photojournalists to steal shots of celebrities on the via Veneto. The scandal provoked by Turkish dancer Haish Nana's improvised striptease at a nightclub captured Fellini's imagination: he decided to end his latest script-in-progress, Moraldo in the City , with an all-night "orgy" at a seaside villa. Pierluigi Praturlon 's photos of Anita Ekberg after an evening spent with
7800-437: The conclusion of Fellini's 138-minute collage of dreams and sexual fantasies, Marcello Mastroianni imagines himself suspended in the basket of a giant balloon that is shaped like a voluptuous woman. Much of what precedes this rather whimsical ending has the substance of hot air, and that is a keen disappointment, since City of Women begins with every sign of having something to say about the impact of feminism on relations between
7920-451: The dailies Il Piccolo and Il Popolo di Roma , but quit after a short stint, bored by the local court news assignments. Four months after publishing his first article in Marc'Aurelio , the highly influential biweekly humour magazine, he joined the editorial board, achieving success with a regular column titled But Are You Listening? . Described as "the determining moment in Fellini's life",
8040-489: The earth, but in 'City of Women' his head is in the topical clouds. He's looking at feminism and the new woman, but making a movie on that subject isn't his strong suit. It's repetitive, used-up in spots. Fellini can overstate an image because he can do that magnificently, but he cannot overstate ideas. At that, he wilts." Ed Blank of The Pittsburgh Press said the film was "like an extension of '8½', but bereft of inspiration and perilously close to self-parody." Joe Baltake of
8160-415: The enjoyment he feels at working with an experienced crew, side by side with faithful technicians who simulate trains on the move or the sea washing the shores of the inevitable Romagnol beaches as though they were working of the set of George Méliès . But then, again and again, Fellini has shown us that he is the greatest and most ingenious of Méliès's heirs. Only the magic does not always work, especially in
8280-475: The feasibility of a film. After first meeting Castaneda in Rome in October 1984, Fellini drafted a treatment with Pinelli titled Viaggio a Tulun . Producer Alberto Grimaldi , prepared to buy film rights to all of Castaneda's work, then paid for pre-production research taking Fellini and his entourage from Rome to Los Angeles and the jungles of Mexico in October 1985. When Castaneda inexplicably disappeared and
8400-425: The film "a repetitive, overlong essay on the predicament of modern man confronted by the women's movement. Five years ago, this film might have been fresh; today, it's more like an endless doodle by a master filmmaker." He added: The principal point the film makes is obvious: Men think of women as madonnas and whores; women prefer to think of themselves as individuals. Inasmuch as you probably knew that walking into
8520-467: The film as "a catalogue of emotions, sometimes grotesque, sometimes farcical, which provides a few caustic jibes against the destruction of femininity by aggressive feminism... From a stylistic point of view, it's less homogeneous than usual but other parts of the film are delightful. For instance, when fantasy is used to create types of people rather than caricatures. In this sense Fellini, having abandoned his gallery of monsters, becomes more prosaic. Or when
8640-592: The film is overlong, even for a Fellini aficionado, it is spell-binding, a dazzling visual display that is part burlesque, part satire, part Folies-Bergère, and all cinema. As Snàporaz is haunted by the phantoms of all the women he has known, or wanted to know, from childhood on, Mr Fellini in City of Women is obsessed by his own feelings toward women, by his need for them, his treatment (mostly poor) of them, his continued fascination by them and his awareness that (thank heavens) they'll always be different... Though City of Women
8760-594: The film is set to a jaunty score by Nino Rota . To help promote Satyricon in the United States, Fellini flew to Los Angeles in January 1970 for interviews with Dick Cavett and David Frost . He also met with film director Paul Mazursky who wanted to cast him in a starring role alongside Donald Sutherland in his new film, Alex in Wonderland . In February, Fellini scouted locations in Paris for The Clowns ,
8880-620: The films in competition was Orson Welles 's Othello ) and then retracted. Screened at the 13th Venice International Film Festival , it was razzed by critics in "the atmosphere of a soccer match". One reviewer declared that Fellini had "not the slightest aptitude for cinema direction". In 1953, I Vitelloni found favour with the critics and public. Winning the Silver Lion Award in Venice, it secured Fellini his first international distributor. Fellini directed La Strada based on
9000-694: The first major exhibition of 63 drawings by Fellini was held in Paris , Brussels , and the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York . A gifted caricaturist, he found much of the inspiration for his sketches from his own dreams while the films-in-progress both originated from and stimulated drawings for characters, decor, costumes and set designs. Under the title, I disegni di Fellini (Fellini's Designs), he published 350 drawings executed in pencil, watercolours, and felt pens. On 6 September 1985 Fellini
9120-516: The first time a rank higher than Knight. The minimum age requirement is normally 35. The Knight Grand Cross with Collar is awarded only to heads of state . City of Women City of Women ( Italian : La città delle donne ) is a 1980 Italian fantasy comedy-drama film co-written (with Bernardino Zapponi and Brunello Rondi ) and directed by Federico Fellini . Amid Fellini's characteristic combination of dreamlike, outrageous, and artistic imagery, Marcello Mastroianni plays Snàporaz,
9240-426: The first time he visited Cinecittà in 1939 with present-day footage of himself at work on a screen adaptation of Franz Kafka 's Amerika . A meditation on the nature of memory and film production, it won the special 40th Anniversary Prize at Cannes and the 15th Moscow International Film Festival Golden Prize. In Brussels later that year, a panel of thirty professionals from eighteen European countries named Fellini
9360-643: The greatest directors of all time, Fellini was ranked 2nd in the directors' poll and 7th in the critics' poll. Fellini was born on 20 January 1920, to middle-class parents in Rimini , then a small town on the Adriatic Sea . On 25 January, at the San Nicolò church he was baptized Federico Domenico Marcello Fellini. His father, Urbano Fellini (1894–1956), born to a family of Romagnol peasants and small landholders from Gambettola , moved to Rome in 1915 as
9480-445: The imminent demolition of his house. They also inform him that they have shot his most beloved dog, Italo, which a grieving Katzone buries. Meanwhile, Snàporaz dances to a song by Fred Astaire with a scantily clad Donatella and a friend of hers, but he fails to sleep with either of them, instead getting stuck in bed with his ex-wife. Hearing strange noises, he crawls under the bed, entering another dream-like world in which he slides down
9600-535: The liberty of the citizens) encircling the head of Italia turrita on the reverse. The six degrees with corresponding ribbons are as follows (with numbers to 2 June 2020): The order is bestowed by decree of the President of the Italian Republic , as head of the orders of knighthood, on the recommendation of the President of the Council of Ministers . Except in exceptional circumstances, no one can be awarded for
9720-522: The maestro's cinema. Nominated for four Oscars, 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 won awards for best foreign language film and best costume design in black-and-white. In California for the ceremony, Fellini toured Disneyland with Walt Disney the day after. Increasingly attracted to parapsychology , Fellini met the Turin antiquarian Gustavo Rol in 1963. Rol, a former banker, introduced him to the world of Spiritism and séances . In 1964, Fellini took LSD under
9840-609: The magazine gave him steady employment between 1939 and 1942, when he interacted with writers, gagmen, and scriptwriters. These encounters eventually led to opportunities in show business and cinema. Among his collaborators on the magazine's editorial board were the future director Ettore Scola , Marxist theorist and scriptwriter Cesare Zavattini , and Bernardino Zapponi , a future Fellini screenwriter. Conducting interviews for CineMagazzino also proved congenial: when asked to interview Aldo Fabrizi , Italy's most popular variety performer, he established such immediate personal rapport with
9960-456: The man that they collaborated professionally. Specializing in humorous monologues, Fabrizi commissioned material from his young protégé. Retained on business in Rimini, Urbano sent his wife and family to Rome in 1940 to share an apartment with his son. Fellini and Ruggero Maccari, also on the staff of Marc'Aurelio , began writing radio sketches and gags for films. Not yet twenty and with Fabrizi's help, Fellini obtained his first screen credit as
10080-407: The mansion of Dr. Xavier Katzone, who shoots at his persecutors. Dr. Katzone promises to deliver Snàporaz to the train station in the morning and invites him to stay for a party. Snàporaz walks around Katzone's extravagant home, which is filled with sexual imagery and phallic sculptures . He is also fascinated by a collection of photographs on the manor walls commemorating Katzone's sexual conquests;
10200-541: The number of films he had directed up to that time. Giving the order to start production in spring 1962, Fellini signed deals with his producer Rizzoli, fixed dates, had sets constructed, cast Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée , and Sandra Milo in lead roles, and did screen tests at the Scalera Studios in Rome. He hired cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo , among key personnel. But apart from naming his hero Guido Anselmi, he still couldn't decide what his character did for
10320-711: The order are OMRI . The order effectively replaced national orders such as the Civil Order of Savoy (1831), the Order of the Crown of Italy (1868), the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (1572) and the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (1362). Investiture takes place twice a year – on 2 June, the anniversary of the foundation of the Republic , and on 27 December, the anniversary of
10440-595: The past 10 years that many of them are convinced that a film's importance is directly related to its incoherence. I've a hunch that 'City of Women' will be mistaken for something serious and will be promptly overintellectualized. Instead, it should be simply dismissed as desperate filmmaking by a tired filmmaker. If I hadn't known beforehand that this was made by Fellini, I'd have taken it for a Fellini spoof from Andy Warhol's film factory. It plays like Fellini imitating Bob Fosse imitating Lina Wertmuller imitating Fellini." Desmond Ryan of The Philadelphia Inquirer said that "at
10560-601: The photos light up and whisper arousing dialogue. Taking pride in his many inventions, Katzone celebrates his 10,000th conquest with an eccentric party that involves the blowing out of 10,000 candles and a performance by his wife, in which she sucks coins and pearls into her vagina by means of telekinesis . During the party, Snàporaz comes across his ex-wife, Elena, who has a drunken argument with him, and meets Donatella again. The police (composed solely of women dressed in Nazi attire) arrive, interrupting Katzone mid-song and announcing
10680-497: The point of ridiculous self-absorption. The didacticism that was in 'Orchestra Rehearsal,' another recent Fellini movie that didn't work, is here, too. Message, message, find the message. The brilliant Fellini is the director who has looked into the past in fresh ways, as with 'I Vitelloni' and 'The Clowns,' and 'Amarcord,' who worked with what he knows best his homeland of Italy and the people there, as with 'La Strada,' and 'Roma' and 'Nights of Cabiria.' Fellini needs to have his hands in
10800-419: The popular children's magazine that reproduced traditional American cartoons by Winsor McCay , George McManus and Frederick Burr Opper . (Opper's Happy Hooligan would provide the visual inspiration for Gelsomina in Fellini's 1954 film La Strada ; McCay's Little Nemo would directly influence his 1980 film City of Women .) In 1926, he discovered the world of Grand Guignol , the circus with Pierino
10920-647: The pre-production of Nostalghia , noted in his diary that City of Women was a fiasco: "At the Cannes Festival the papers said that Fellini's last film was a total disaster, and that he himself had ceased to exist. It's terrible, but it's true, his film is worthless." Derek Malcolm of The Guardian said the film was "full of Fellinian stereotypes, even if they do mouth words at times that come straight from feminist mouths." Patrick Gibbs of The Daily Telegraph wrote that "the once exciting Italian director, Federico Fellini, has long been in deep decline, at least to my taste; and his latest film City of Women,, shown at
11040-597: The project fell through, Fellini's mystico-shamanic adventures were scripted with Pinelli and serialized in Corriere della Sera in May 1986. A barely veiled satirical interpretation of Castaneda's work, Viaggio a Tulun was published in 1989 as a graphic novel with artwork by Milo Manara and as Trip to Tulum in America in 1990. For Intervista , produced by Ibrahim Moussa and RAI Television, Fellini intercut memories of
11160-570: The promulgation of the Italian Constitution . However, those awards on Presidential motu proprio , related to termination of service or granted to foreigners, may be made at any time. The badge, modified in 2001, bears the inscription Al Merito della Repubblica encircling the national coat of arms on the obverse and the Latin Patriæ Unitati (for the union of the country) and Civium Libertati (for
11280-701: The public's lack of interest: "Here, it played in less than fifty theatres, and of those, six provided 75 percent of the earnings. I don't know what Gaumont or Fellini could have expected with that kind of personal film. He had lost most of his audience here by then. Which isn't to say that I don't think him one of the great filmmakers of the world." Kathleen Carroll of the New York Daily News said that "compared with Fellini's '8½,' 'City of Women' seems terribly flat and lifeless." Marke Andrews of The Sun in Vancouver wrote that "while City of Women
11400-466: The role of an aging swindler in Il Bidone . Based partly on stories told to him by a petty thief during production of La Strada , Fellini developed the script into a con man's slow descent. To incarnate the role's "intense, tragic face", Fellini's first choice had been Humphrey Bogart , but after learning of the actor's lung cancer, chose Crawford after seeing his face on the theatrical poster of All
11520-430: The scene), there's suspense in the images and in the scenic inventions". Screened out of competition on 19 May 1980 at the 33rd Cannes Film Festival , the film was badly received by the majority of French critics, some of whom offered review titles such as "Zero for Fellini", "A Tiring Deception", "A Disaster", as well as "A Mountain of Tedious Pretension". Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky , in Rome that year for
11640-536: The script but Antonioni rejected the story they developed. With Ennio Flaiano , they re-worked the material into a light-hearted satire about newlywed couple Ivan and Wanda Cavalli ( Leopoldo Trieste , Brunella Bovo) in Rome to visit the Pope. Ivan's prissy mask of respectability is soon demolished by his wife's obsession with the White Sheik. Highlighting the music of Nino Rota , the film was selected at Cannes (among
11760-519: The script was based on Fellini's return to Rimini with a mistress to attend his father's funeral. Due to Loren's unavailability, the project was shelved and resurrected twenty-five years later as Lovers and Liars (1981), a comedy directed by Mario Monicelli with Goldie Hawn and Giancarlo Giannini . For Eduardo De Filippo , he co-wrote the script of Fortunella . The Hollywood on the Tiber phenomenon of 1958 in which American studios profited from
11880-504: The script. Aware of Fellini's reputation as Aldo Fabrizi's "creative muse", Rossellini also requested that he try to convince the actor to play the role of Father Giuseppe Morosini , the parish priest executed by the SS on 4 April 1944. In 1947, Fellini and Sergio Amidei received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of Rome, Open City . Working as both screenwriter and assistant director on Rossellini's Paisà ( Paisan ) in 1946, Fellini
12000-435: The seemingly chaotic, incessant improvisation on the set, Deena Boyer, the director's American press officer at the time, asked for a rationale. Fellini told her that he hoped to convey the three levels "on which our minds live: the past, the present, and the conditional — the realm of fantasy". After shooting wrapped on 14 October, Nino Rota composed various circus marches and fanfares that would later become signature tunes of
12120-489: The service of a characteristic piece of confessional analysis that for all its theatrical flair remains a pretty childish exercise." Susie Eisenhuth of The Sun-Herald wrote that "apart from the fact that feminists come in for a bit of a drubbing, the film, having dabbled with a more interesting approach to its subject, fall's back on a series of predictable set pieces based on well-charted male fantasies." Neil Jillett of The Age wrote that "at 139 minutes 'City of Women'
12240-547: The sexes." Candice Russell of the Fort Lauderdale News wrote that "you leave City of Women dazzled by what Fellini hath wrought visually, climaxed by the glittering roller coaster sequence that brings Snaporaz in touch with the sexuality of his boyhood. But the impression is muddled because you don't know exactly who or what he's lampooning, or even why." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune called
12360-401: The sexual carnival, but he portrays it with such wit and ferocity that 'City of Women,' though very long, rarely becomes tiresome." John V. Hurst of The Sacramento Bee said it was "unsettling, surreal, and typically Fellini in being replete with ephemeral, allegorical allusions that are placed alongside the starkly obvious." Will Jones of The Minneapolis Tribune wrote that "maybe there's
12480-411: The simple pleasure of doing so. Behind the festival of images and colours we can feel his delight in making this film, a delight which, from the very first scene, becomes ours too, and it's something we haven't felt in a long time... If the film lacks suspense in its story (we care little what happens to Snàporaz or Katzone because we know that sooner or later Rimini and those bosomy extras will appear on
12600-788: The stairs and suffered a miscarriage. She gave birth to a son, Pierfederico, on 22 March 1945, but the child died of encephalitis 11 days later on 2 April 1945. Masina and Fellini had no other children. The tragedy had enduring emotional and artistic repercussions. After the Allied liberation of Rome on 4 June 1944, Fellini and Enrico De Seta opened the Funny Face Shop where they survived the postwar recession drawing caricatures of American soldiers. He became involved with Italian Neorealism when Roberto Rossellini , at work on Stories of Yesteryear (later Rome, Open City ), met Fellini in his shop, and proposed he contribute gags and dialogue for
12720-407: The stairs to the cupola of Saint Peter's in a mammoth décor constructed at Cinecittà . The statue of Christ flown by helicopter over Rome to St. Peter's Square was inspired by an actual media event on 1 May 1956, which Fellini had witnessed. La Dolce Vita broke all box office records. Despite scalpers selling tickets at 1000 lire, crowds queued in line for hours to see an "immoral movie" before
12840-465: The striking of attitudes, the analyzing of ideas. What Fellini seems after here is the recording and communicating of a set of feelings: those complex, contradictory ones experienced by a middle-aged Italian male suddenly faced with a cataclysmic upheaval in social and sexual mores... We do not go to Fellini to immerse ourselves in story and character or to encounter ideas. What we want from the maestro and what he gives us are fabulous adventures in feeling -
12960-425: The subject; Fellini basically sees feminists as shrill harems of whip-wielding harridans, forever dangling the carrot of sex just out of reach of his suffering hero. Fellini has rarely been able to discover human beings hidden inside his female characters, and it's a little late for him to start blaming that on the women's liberation movement." He added: Is “City of Women” worth seeing? Yes, probably, even though it
13080-414: The supervision of Emilio Servadio, his psychoanalyst during the 1954 production of La Strada . For years reserved about what actually occurred that Sunday afternoon, he admitted in 1992 that ... objects and their functions no longer had any significance. All I perceived was perception itself, the hell of forms and figures devoid of human emotion and detached from the reality of my unreal environment. I
13200-600: The theater, one is left to simply admire and eventually despair of Fellini's signature imagery of grotesque beings and carnival-like commotion. We have seen this film before. To put it another way: Is Fellini really trying to stretch himself when he offers as his final image a light at the end of a tunnel? Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the film "does nothing original or very challenging with this material. Although it pretends to be Fellini's film about feminism, it reveals no great understanding of
13320-410: The war. Giulietta is practical, and likes the fact that she earns a handsome fee for her radio work, whereas theater never pays well. And of course the fame counts for something too. Radio is a booming business and comedy reviews have a broad and devoted public. In November 1942, Fellini was sent to Libya , occupied by Fascist Italy, to work on the screenplay of I cavalieri del deserto ( Knights of
13440-411: The way through this wonderfully witty and flamboyant film — laughter at the wayward oddballs who people his scenes, laughter at the inequities with which he hoodwinks and delights his viewers, even gentle laughter at himself for being such a provocative deluder." Bill Cosford of The Miami Herald called the film "a spectacular return to form by an immensely entertaining filmmaker." Marylynn Uricchio of
13560-473: The winner. Because Mr. Fellini isn’t offering any new observations, it falls to his unique visual style to make 'City of Women' diverting." To Casey St. Charnez of the Santa Fe New Mexican , the film "takes a simple proposition—what if women ruled society?—and turns it into two hours of eye-filling dreck." For Vincent Canby of The New York Times , however, the film was a success: "Though
13680-466: The world of small-time travelling performers, it featured Giulietta Masina and Lattuada's wife, Carla Del Poggio . Its release to poor reviews and limited distribution proved disastrous for all concerned. The production company went bankrupt, leaving both Fellini and Lattuada with debts to pay for over a decade. In February 1950, Paisà received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay by Rossellini, Sergio Amidei , and Fellini. After travelling to Paris for
13800-455: The world's best director and 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 the best European film of all time. In early 1989 Fellini began production on The Voice of the Moon , based on Ermanno Cavazzoni's novel, Il poema dei lunatici ( The Lunatics' Poem ). A small town was built at Empire Studios on the via Pontina outside Rome. Starring Roberto Benigni as Ivo Salvini, a madcap poetic figure newly released from
13920-474: Was a director who wanted to make a film he no longer remembers. And lo and behold, at that very moment everything fell into place. I got straight to the heart of the film. I would narrate everything that had been happening to me. I would make a film telling the story of a director who no longer knows what film he wanted to make". The self-mirroring structure makes the entire film inseparable from its reflecting construction. Shooting began on 9 May 1962. Perplexed by
14040-443: Was an instrument in a virtual world that constantly renewed its own meaningless image in a living world that was itself perceived outside of nature. And since the appearance of things was no longer definitive but limitless, this paradisiacal awareness freed me from the reality external to my self. The fire and the rose, as it were, became one. Fellini's hallucinatory insights were given full flower in his first colour feature Juliet of
14160-634: Was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 42nd Venice Film Festival. That same year, he became the first non-American to receive the Film Society of Lincoln Center 's annual award for cinematic achievement. Long fascinated by Carlos Castaneda 's The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge , Fellini accompanied the Peruvian author on a journey to the Yucatán to assess
14280-563: Was entrusted to film the Sicilian scenes in Maiori . In February 1948, he was introduced to Marcello Mastroianni , then a young theatre actor appearing in a play with Giulietta Masina. Establishing a close working relationship with Alberto Lattuada , Fellini co-wrote the director's Senza pietà ( Without Pity ) and Il mulino del Po ( The Mill on the Po ). Fellini also worked with Rossellini on
14400-413: Was promptly "hissed at" by the disapproving festival crowd. A major discovery for Fellini after his Italian neorealism period (1950–1959) was the work of Carl Jung . After meeting Jungian psychoanalyst Dr. Ernst Bernhard in early 1960, he read Jung's autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963) and experimented with LSD . Bernhard also recommended that Fellini consult the I Ching and keep
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