Federico Fellini (1920-1993)
‘I am cinema.’
Italian Cinema
• Italy as one of the greatest cinematic nations
• In history, production started in 1903
• In the number of the films made: 6th in the
world (1 India, 2 USA, 3 Japan, 4 China, 5
France, 6 Italy, 7 Spain, 8 UK, 9 Germany)
• In the variety of auteurs
• In the number of stars
• In national esteem
History
• Quo Vadis (1912) – the
first blockbuster film in
history of cinema with
5,000 extras, lavish 3
dimensional sets, 2
years production time,
running time 2 hours.
• Epic about the time of
the emperor Nero and
the prosecution of
Christians.
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History
• Cabiria (1914) – epic
and blockbuster film set
at the time of the 2nd
Punic War, including
scenes such as the
eruption of Mt. Etna,
the Alpine crossing of
Hannibal, the sea
battles at Syracuse,
Scipio’s advance in N.
Africa
Federico Fellini
Michelangelo Antonioni
Roerto Rossellini
Vittorio De Sica
Ettore Scola
Sergio Leone
Dario Argento
Pier Paolo Pasollini
Bernardo Bertolucci
Franco Zeffirelli
Mario Bava
Mario Monicelli
Ermanno Olmi
Lina Wertmuller
Francesco Rosi
Luchino Visconti
Paolo and Vittorio
Taviani
Nanni Moretti
Roma Citta Aperta (1945) by Roberto Rossellini
Lives of Romans fighting against the Nazi
occupation
Pina shot by an invisible bullet
Bicycle Thieves (1948) by Vittorio De Sica – about
a poor father searching for his stolen bike
without which he would lose his job.
Thief
Salvatore Giuliano (1962) by Francesco Rosi – a
biographical film about a enigmatic Sicilian
bandit, Salvatore Giuliano
Il Gattopardo (1963) by Luchino Visconti – about
a Sicilian aristocrat, whose fortune is about to
decline with the arrival of modernity.
Italian Trailer
Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (Gospel According to St.
Matthew: 1964) – retels the story of Jesus Christ
from Nativity to Resurrection Baptism
The Battles of Algiers (1966) by Gillo Pontecorvo –
about fighting for independence in Algieria
Female bomber
Il Conformista (The Conformist: 1970) by Bernardo
Bertolucci – about a man helping fascists to
assassinate his former professor.
Dance scene
Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) by Ermano Olmi about
Lombard peasant families in cascina (farmhouse) in
the 19th century
eviction
Kaos (1984) by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani – a
omnibus film of four episodes and an epilogue
based on Pirandello’s stories
exile
Federico Fellini
• One of the most
celebrated and
distinctive filmmakers
not only in Italy but in
the world.
• Without much formal
training in filmmaking,
he started making films
with distinctive visual
styles
• Dreamlike or
hullucinatory imagery
imposed on ordinary
everyday situation
• Personal expression
• People at their most
bizarre
• Artistic fantasy
Life
• Born in the seaside town of Rimini, moved to
Rome at 19. Enrolled in a law school but
quickly abandoned it. Neither attended a film
school nor frequented cinema and cine club.
Supported himself by contributing cartoons and
gags to Marc’ Aurelio
• Fellini worked as a
scriptwriter for a radio
programme starring
Giulietta Masina, who
became his wife in
1943 and starred in his
post-war films. They
were married for 50
years.
• Rossellini engaged Fellini as
one of a team of writers for
Roma, Citta Apertá (1945):
the seminal film of
Neorealismo. First Oscar
nomination
• One of the most successful
scriptwriter during the
neorealist period
• Rosselini’s Paisá, Germi’s Il
Camino della speranza,
Lattuada’s Senza pieta,
Comentini’s Persiane Chiuse
His Work
• Fellini’s directorial debut was Luce dei varieta
(Variety Lights: 1951) , a collaboration with
Lattuada
• Lo Scheicco bianco (White Sheik: 1951) and I
Vitelloni (1953) first masterpiece and
commercially successful
• Semi-autobiographical and sarcastic observation
of four ‘mama’s boys’ living in a provincial town.
• All four want to quit the seaside town where
they were born and living and their lives there.
Only Morald managed to leave it for Rome.
Fellini’s Major Works
• A trilogy dealing with
the fate of the innocent
in a cruel world without
salvation.
• La Strada (1954) –
Anthony Quinn as a
cruel circus strongman
and Masina as a pathetic
waif who loves him. The
film was shot on location
and the desolate
landscape symbolizes
the inhumanity in the
relationship.
“forcing of the
photographic image in a
direction that carries it
from an image of
caricature toward that of
the visionary.”
Italo Calvino
•Fellini’s indebtedness to
the Italian mass culture in
creating cinematic images.
•Caricature and circus
• Stars Masina as a
simple and optimistic
Roman prostitute, who
because of her blind
trust in everybody and
gullibility is deceived by
many men and
customers
• Holy innocent in a
cruel and merciless
world
• La Dolce Vita (1960)
• The 60s sexual liberation
started with the release of
Dolce Vita (sweet life)
• The first collaboration
with Marcello Mastroianni (Fellini’s alter ego)
• Handsome, promiscuous,
carefree journalist enjoys
a decadent life in Rome.
• La Dolce Vita as an icon of the 1960s
• Erotic images and sexual suggestiveness which
had not existed in cinema anywhere
• Stand for the 1960s permissiveness and sexual
liberation
• Nadia stripping herself
to celebrate her
divorce
• Cause célèbré
• Scandalized the
conservative and the
old and upset the
church
• The film was criticized
by the Vatican newspaper and banned in
Spain
• Imitated, influenced
and parodied a
number of times
• La Dolce Vita as a social phenomenon
• A indictment of the popular media (the word
paparazzi was made into the English vocaburary)
• Decadent intellectuals and aristocrats which hang
around Via Veneto
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Surreal, dreamlike and hallucinatory images
Fellinesque
Total lack of conventional narratives and plots
Episodic storytelling: avant-garde art cinema
• 8 ½ (Eight and a half: 1963) – arguably the
greatest film that Fellini created
• The best European film ever made (1987 panel of
scholars
• The fourth greatest film (Sight and Sound 2012)
• About a plight of a famous film director (based
on Fellini and played by Mastroianni) in his
creative crisis
• High modernist aesthetics, perfect combination
of realism and symbolism
Fellini as a Byname for European Art Film
• After the phenomenal
successes of La Dolce
Vita and 8 ½, it became
an event that Fellini
made a new film.
• Break with conventional
filmmaking techniques,
his films were made of
freely structured tales
in which reality and
dream mingle.
• Amarcordo (1973) – nostalgic reminiscences of
Fellini’s adolescence in Rimini during the fascist
period.
• Satire on Italy’s lapse of conscience: fascism and the
Catholic Church ‘imprisoned Italians in a perpetual
adolescence.’ (Fellini)