Intervista

(Interview)

[1987]

Though many other Fellini films have been chalked up to autobiography (8 1/2, I Vitelloni), it was odd to me to see a film so perfectly Fellini in it's aesthetics and characteristics (shots, angles, sound effects, actors, etc) that truly was about Fellini himself as a director, showing him directing the film we were watching, which is quite unlike Fellini:A Director's Notebook, which was directed by someone else and showed Fellini directing OTHER films. One Felliniesque quality that this film lacked was length. It was only an hour and 45 minutes long.
Similar to Fellini's Roma, this film toggled back and forth between a documentary about Fellini's views/ideas/directing and an actual plotline, part of which revolved around the making of the film itself. Very difficult to accurately explain, but an interesting concept nonetheless.
I liked the backstory of the Japanese film crew making a documentary about him, which was incorporated into a documentary/story about himself. It added gave an outsider's perspective to an insider's film.
In this movie, Fellini is making a movie about himself as a young journalist, the first time he came to the Cinecitta to interview an actress. He later became a huge part of the Cinecitta, as most of his films, excluding the earlier ones, were filmed there.

Another twist was that Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg played themselves, as real actors, but carried the persona of parts they have previously played in Fellini's films.

During the part in Anita Ekberg's village, an image of the fountain scene from La Dolce Vita is shown on paper and then disappears.

This film had a convoluted plotline and documentary aspect, showing Fellini as himself during different points in his life (including the present) from both his perspective and others. It would fit under many different labels... autobiography, biography, documentary, drama, fantasy, etc.
An interesting end to a class on his works, and a up-to-date(at that point) sum of Fellini's works on the whole.


favorite quote;

"A theif who looks like a theif is being honest."

City of Women

[1980]

A clever portrayal of feminism vs. the unsuspecting male, this film made it hard to decipher which side was being made to look foolish; if even one or the other was.

I thought City of Women to be very comparable to 8 1/2, in the respect that Fellini portrays his own sense of a woman who is 'enlightened' and 'independent'. Like Luisa in 8 1/2, the woman on the train was harsher looking, dressed in a business suit, and condescending of Snaporaz's typical male advances.
I found that this film was also relative to 8 1/2 because of the ambiuity of dream sequences and 'real' happenings. A quote from Fellini himself reinforces this train of thought.

“Though I have always been interested in dreams, of all my films only City of Women was almost entirely a dream. Everything in the picture has a hidden subjective meaning, as in a dream, except the beginning and end, in which Snaporaz is awake in the railway coach. It’s the nightmare aspect of Guido’s dream in 8 ½.”

Of course the theme of ambiguous dream/reality sequences can correspond to a good majority of the films we have seen thus far.

In relation to Casanova, Fellini incorporated many types of women - mothers, daughters, harlots, purists - and their interaction with one man, like a sort of fantasy gone wrong.
Though it can be construed as a poor characterization of so-called feminists, the film seemed to me to prove more of an appreciation of all types of women.
In fact, it was Snaporaz who looked a-fool the whole time; though I did feel bad for him - he didn't seem to have bad intentions, but rather to really misconceive women in general. He wasn't trying to lump them all together, to treat them as something less, but was forced into this thought process by tradition, hegemony, and perhaps by his former interactions with other women who augmented his actions/ideas.

“Through the ages, from the beginning of time, I’m certain man has covered woman’s face with masks. They are, however, his masks, not hers. They are the masks of the viewer, not of the woman, and what they hide is not what they seem to cover. The masks come from the man’s own subconscious and they represent that unknown part of himself.”
-Fellini

I loved the scene with the "typical housewife" running around doing charictaristically domestic things. Hilarious.
I also liked the crazy girls in the cars who all looked completely coked out. The music in this scene really caught me by surprise - it was dark, 80's synth stuff (Luis Balcorav? - i couldn't find it anywhere). Totally unexpected from Fellini's classic Nino Rota soundtracks.
The orgasms art gallery was quite funny, too, but very creepy. I also found the scene where Elena looks weird and tries to have sex with him in that room with the giant window & storms outside to be very very unsettling.


In the end, I believe this film was interesting, and a fair mix between autobiographical fantasies of women, and feminine respect through male progression.

Casanova

A "casanova" is defined as a promiscuous man, as well as a man of adventure. Quite fitting, I'd say, as this Casanova is both adventurous and promiscuous enough to fixedly pursue a mechanical doll.

Something to be noted is that the prefix "Fellini's" was added to the title of Satyricon, Roma, and this film, Casanova. I believe that this denotes his adaptation of an idea (in this case the life of Casanova, a Venetian writer, alchemist, and womanizer); films that are completely unobjective. I wonder if Fellini actually read Casanova's memoirs (Histoire de Ma Vie), or if he simply heard about them and created them in his mind. Probably.
I saw a large likeness between Satyricon and Casanova. Both films were aesthetically similar, as well as lude and confusing.

Early on, this film took my memory directly to Satyricon;
The woman listens to the inside of a conch shell, traditionally known to sound like an ocean, and smiles as if she's being told a dirty secret.
The sounds in the room are loud and people's voices overlap. we don't know what they're saying. It reminds me so much of Satyricon's scene at the home of the wealthy and crazy actor.


Fellini's repetition of symbolic side-notes that introduce particular scenes are certainly characteristic (ie: Guido's touching of the nose and pushing up glasses to introduce dream sequences in 8 1/2). However, the mechanical bird to announce sexual encounters is definitely my farorite thus far.

The music in this film was also very different than it has been in the past. It seemed sadder (aside from La Strada), as well as more related to the actual sound effect noises of the scene.

Overall, it didn't accomplish as much in my mind as other Fellini films. I still prefer his earlier films, and I still find the color overwhelming. However, when his work is taken as a whole, Casanova fits in perfectly to this particular era.

Roma

[1972]


This film was like a documentary of Fellini's thoughts on Rome. I thought it was beautifully shot, and found it much more pleasing to watch than Satyricon.
Fellini seemed to be showing the sides of Rome he wished to portray; the Italian sense of family in earlier decades, and his opinion of the fall in quality of more present Roman lifestyle.
I loved the giant house towards the beginning- all of the children and residents were fantastic, including the Little Granny, and all of the action was entertaining. That whole scene made me think that there was going to a plot revolving around the main young man, but alas, what else should I have expected from Fellini than a film full of beautiful images portraying his thoughts.
Some of my favorite shots were the chinaman standing in the bright sunlight, the shot with rain splotches covering the camera lens, the dog's shadow against the wall..
The tracking and panning of different places around present-day rome was typical Fellini.
Back to the shot with all the rain, as well as the car wreck and fire...there were what felt like 5 or so minutes of loud, straight noise. It was obnoxious, but it was a decent representation of Fellini's feeling that Rome is becoming increasingly louder, faster, crazier, different.
The scene with the "hole" in the dirt wall that opened into a room with painting that became destroyed by the sunlight was to me metaphorical of Rome changing and old valor being destroyed.

Fellini Satyricon

[1969]

Though I did find this film Shakespearian in likeness, both poetic and historical, I can't say I cared much for the imagery displayed on a whole. Making a film based upon an ancient half-told story with missing links is a novel thing, and admirable. It reminds me a little of our own Mastorna project, hah.
This film was odd and entertaining, but quite hard to follow. As for the main characters- I liked Encolpius a lot, but Ascyltus was really creepy. The poet, Eumolpus, was easily likeable - kind and fullof knowledge. One quote of his that struck me was,

"Poverty is always a sister to genius."

which for me draws upon poets and writers like Bukowski and Kerouac, who lived and wrote as if the only way to succeed and gain knowledge was to live a dirty, poor, crazy life.

Vernaccio's (the rich actor's name?) words / actions were at times pretty absurd and scary. When they first enter his place, we keep seeing these Alcorine of the Alps masks...(a reference that you cannot understand unless you know Alcorine of the Alps, but is accurate, trust me.)
He then puts some weird pill in his mouth and proceeds to fart and blow up his fake tail. Then, he cuts off a man's arm and says, "And with this I punish my erring arm." and wipes the blood on his face..
He also says things like

"This boy is a wife."

and

"You're just a fart in the water."

Quite odd.

I liked the sort of parable-like story that ended with

"Better to hang a dead husband than to lose a living lover."

It was clever, and it reminded me of Fellini's interest in Carl Jung and the collective unconsciousness.



Anyway, I enjoyed the idea of this film, and it's fragmented quotes of genius more than the film itself.
I tried to find a point behind the impotence of Encolpius other than humor, but I just don't think I understood.
The scene where the house crumbles in prevention of Encolpuis' suicide to me was a portrayal of a crumbled history surrounding Petronius' original account. Everything was very sexual and spread out and sort of dismembered, which in a way reflects both the story's origin of imperial times, as well as the time of its remaking in the late sixties.
It was like a completely Pagan reflection of love and ideals ; an orgy in ancient Rome, which, aside from a ridiculously strung out plotline and a disappointment in aesthetics, was brilliant.

Oh, and also. Funny that a film that is so unconventional in sexual references of many orientations...should be filmed in 1969.

Spirits of the Dead

The Temptations of Doctor Antonio
(La tentazioni del dottor Antonio)

[1968]

I liked that this film played off of the inhibitions of tradition. Dr. Antonio was obviously afraid of his own sexual and "deviant" desires, and so acted heavily against anything that might spark those thoughts. I would think that the best way to fight something like that would be to benevolently ignore it. Antonio's strong reaction showed that he liked seeing women's body parts. He looked at pornographic things long and hard before tearing them to pieces - sometimes literally(ie: the magazine stand, the billboard, and having the woman removed at his luncheon).
Antonio to me was a sarcastic portrayal of hegemony, the idea that things are one way and can never be otherwise. To be so frightened and angered at seeing arousing things is not only unhealthy, but just creepy. Tradition stands one way and does nto like to be altered. But society grows and standards change. Human sexuality is a part of everyone, and cannot just be ignored. When Antonio ignored the truth - the fact that women DO in fact have "motherly attributes", he was only haunted by his desires.
Aesthetically speaking, the only scene I thought was incredibly shot was a fleeting moment where Antonio is walking up the stairs. Everything around him is white, but he and another man are wearing black suits and bowler-ish type hats. Everything is white, but the stairs create the feel of space and texture. It was really quite nice.

Toby Dammit

[1968]
I did not think that the quality of this film (nor The Temptations of Dr Antonio) was very Fellini-esque in its looks. There were many more striking scenes in this film, however, than in the first.
I loved the portrayal of the devil as a little girl. How ironic and unconventional! She was creepy and beautiful, and the silent white ball was amazing.
I also enjoyed the scene towards the very end, where Tony is sitting , unmoving, in his car on the bridge, and the dust is billowing around him.
The film was very odd, but I enjoyed the incorporation of dead spirits; something I have never seen before in a Fellini film (or at least not this directly).
Tony Dammit looked like a walking dead man the first time he entered the screen. I liked the scene where he first freaked out about the lights, followed by the shot of him sitting with his hands on his knees and rising upwards on the escalator, making him seem even more ghost-like.
I suppose I interpreted his ghostly appearance, his drunken havoc and his final death in the way that he had made a bet with the devil, and died for the want of only material things.

Juliet of the Spirits

[1965]

At first, the idea of a color Fellini film was completely agonizing. However, it really did grow on me. The colors were beautiful, even when monochromatic. The images were so sharp…it really looks like something that could have been made recently to look as if it were from his time.

One of my favorite scenes is where Suzy rises up into the trees in a tiny pulley-system holding what looks like the basket of a hot air balloon, and they rise up into an intricate-looking treehouse. That looked….so fun. I want one of those. And the way Suzy looks as Juliet sees first her feet, and then the rest of her body.

This particular scene is also where Juliet describes her dedication to Giorgio, tells that he was her first love. She has no idea that two men are following them, and her actions throughout this scene really show how naïve she is.

I really got the impression that Fellini was sort of…talking down Freud. Every time there was a scene with people telling Juliet that “everything is related to sex”, that her dreams and problems had something to do with her sexual relationship with her husband…she seemed so skeptical. There Freudian advisors were so madcap, that it seemed almost sarcastic. I suppose I wouldn’t have gotten this impression without our discussion last Thursday about Fellini’s Jungian research and beliefs. He seems to be saying with this film that not the idea of rationalizing dreams and thoughts is not necessarily the issue…the importance is to understand one’s collective consciousness, and human psyche in general. When Juliet finally just came to terms with what she had known all along, she was freed, and realized she was fine without Giorgio.

I thought it was interesting that Giorgio was also the name of the man who first betrayed Cabiria.

Was Juliet supposed to be the anima to Guido(of 8 ½)? I thought I remembered reading or hearing that.

Juliet’s character was perfect for Guilietta Masina…she seems always to be playing innocent and charismatic roles. She lives in wealth, yet everyone else in the film seems to be more glamorous, wear more makeup and nicer clothes. Juliet seems almost oblivious to this.

I liked the scene where Juliet is wearing a red dress, and lying in the middle of a huge white bed. It makes her seem much more deviant that she truly is. The camera scans very quickly over brightly colored curtains, a burning doll, and the over a statue in the yard, where Juliet is running in her red dress.

Oh, and I loved the twin girls. They’re always shown together, playing and looking cute and innocent.

In summary, I thought this was a beautiful film. Not at all easy to follow, but that’s always something I like about Fellini. The dreams were so odd and interesting. To be quite honest, I preferred the aesthetics of this film to its actual plot.

Seeing Fellini in color was better than I’d thought it would be. I can’t wait to see more.