Why in the name of all that is holy do people like Federico Fellini?

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Eight and a half? Shite and a half, more like! Whats the deal? I think Fellini is absolute arse and any Italian will laugh in your face when you mention him. So Fellini fans, whats so great bout Fellini then?

Michael Bourke, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

It is that feeling of genreal decadence.

anthony, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I liked "La Dolce Vita".

Sean, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

satyricon!!

geeta, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I have only seen "La Aventura" (is that one ov his? I think so....) which was, er ok-ish I suppose

http://www.cinenganos.com/img/insides/aventura.jpg

RoWR though, eh, what?

Norman Phay, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

rowr => pasolini to thread!!

geeta, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Monica Vitti is roWR, unfortunately the film was directed by Antonioni.

Sean, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Fellini is in general not so good. I will stick up for 8 1/2 because it is one of those rare films that benefits from its maker's flaws. It's a self-absorbed film about self-absorbtion. So naturally its one of my favorite ever.

Ryan, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Thank you Sean. I googled "aventura" & "fellini" & got hits, thus confirming my shite memory. I have therefore never seen any Fellini movies. Hopeless.

Norman Phay, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

It's a self-absorbed film about self-absorbtion

Ah, but now don't you see that I'm filming you filming me filming you filming ME!!!

Joe, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Most Italian-Americans I know have never even seen a Fellini film.

Ally, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Most of what I saw was turbulent with feminism, psychoanalysis, stuff about the social construct of identity etc. wich is good.
I like the richness of cultural references. I like movies that can take some time to decypher, to understand what they are proposing on humans and their biznesses.
Because some stuff is subtle (not like my english, forgive me now and for ever).
For a more pleasant appreciation of art (movie, programming etc), one needs to invest time and energy in it's study (I should follow my own advice and dig some english grammar presto, héhé).

The Hegemon, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

What's so great about Fellini? Marcello Mastroianni and Giulietta Masina. Tony Quinn busting out of chains. Nino Rota scores. Clowns. Sea Monsters. A statue of Jesus suspended over the Roman skyline on a helicopter.

bryan, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

the scene at the end of nights of cabiria where masina is walking down the street while the kids are playing music and she gradually cheers up. that scene kills me.

dave k, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

The baroque extravagance of it all. His construction -- at Cinecitta -- of a parallel world where people are more carnal and carnivalesque than they dare to be, well, anywhere else. The extraordinary visual richness. The great use of (great) music. 'Satyricon' is my favourite.

Momus, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Satyricon is pretty damn great, I should see it again. It's been...what...a decade? I just love when they start almost spitting words at each other at the banquet...and somehow the apartment arguing scene was terribly amusing too, I think I was getting my fill of roommates at that point.

Ned Raggett, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

nine years pass...

Watched E La Nave Va (And the Ship Goes On) last night for the first time in a zillion years and it was like receiving a postcard sent many years ago.
My dad took me to see it when I was 13 yr old and it was such an experience, it truly turned my little world upside down. I had never seen something like that and still it was strangely familiar.
With hindsight, maybe it is a good demonstration that Fellini was the best inquirer of what I'll call (for lack of better terms) our collective subconscious and the last bard of a dying world (in this sense, Pasolini was his only true fellow traveler).

I still found the film very good (there's an excellent Freddie Jones): it is an eerie, mysterious evocation of the last days of Europe and (together with Prova d'Orchestra) possibly his most overtly political movie.

Marco Damiani, Tuesday, 5 July 2011 16:37 (twelve years ago) link

three months pass...

Most Italian-Americans I know have never even seen a Fellini film.

― Ally, Wednesday, May 29, 2002 8:00 PM (9 years ago) Bookmark

this made me larf for some reason.

also, i think Fellini is overrated. even his good films are a slog to sit through.

soul ma cosa nostra (Eisbaer), Sunday, 23 October 2011 16:54 (twelve years ago) link

I'll cosign that.

Great Fushigi Master (Viceroy), Sunday, 23 October 2011 17:07 (twelve years ago) link

Ally ws saying effectively he is not that rated so how an he be overrated?

They're often longer than they should be and individual scenes are play out for too long but somehow, more often than not, there is some pay off -- like in that party toward the end of La Dolce Vita. The gradual lenghtening of made it way worse than just a bad party, more gruelling, the wider point could only have been made if it was hammered in like that.

xyzzzz__, Sunday, 23 October 2011 20:14 (twelve years ago) link

one year passes...

Amarcord - the fellini movie for people who don't like fellini?

nostormo, Monday, 6 May 2013 20:46 (ten years ago) link

five years pass...

I've never watched Satyricon. Wish me luck!

morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 1 June 2018 15:37 (five years ago) link

that's the only Fellini i've seen in a theater. really loved it!

i've seen quite a few of his: 8 1/2, Amarcord, City of Women, La Doce Vita. my favorite was "Juliet of the Spirits" just jaw droppingly beautiful

Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 1 June 2018 15:45 (five years ago) link

Fellini is visually flamboyant. His style appeals to some more than others.

A is for (Aimless), Friday, 1 June 2018 16:56 (five years ago) link

I thought La Strada was ok, didn't much like 8 1/2 of Satyricon

Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Friday, 1 June 2018 16:59 (five years ago) link

Our religion teacher showed us Satyricon as an example for a pre-Christian society. Certainly made an impression.

oder doch?, Saturday, 2 June 2018 14:01 (five years ago) link

got halfway or so through dolce vita last month

vapid shite

laurel or hardyhearin (darraghmac), Saturday, 2 June 2018 15:49 (five years ago) link

Wish Sorrentino would do more straight up homages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr1JTZ6Mki4

Bad wig continuity (Sanpaku), Monday, 4 June 2018 00:42 (five years ago) link

I've warmed to Fellini over the years. I really love La Dolce Vita, its fantastic.

Dark Mavis (Michael B), Monday, 4 June 2018 16:30 (five years ago) link

eight months pass...

Amarcord - the fellini movie for people who don't like fellini?

― nostormo, Monday, May 6, 2013 4:46 PM (five years ago)

Not even

flappy bird, Tuesday, 5 February 2019 06:16 (five years ago) link

three weeks pass...

“An image is so inexplicable and irreproducible that all the heart can do is ache with gratitude..” Ebert, talking about the snow scene with the peacock.

piscesx, Thursday, 28 February 2019 07:28 (five years ago) link

I caught the last hour and forty minutes of 8 1/2 on TCM the other night. Last time I saw it was about 20 years ago. It holds up.

o. nate, Thursday, 28 February 2019 16:36 (five years ago) link

Fellini haters are up there for me with folks who hate animals and music. Can't trust 'em.

Carly Jae Vespen (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, 28 February 2019 17:50 (five years ago) link

I'm not a hater but he just doesn't do it for me. I'd like to see La Dolce Vita in a big theater, and I would watch 8 1/2 again at home. But all the others I've seen - La Strada, Amarcord, Satyricon, Roma - left me totally cold. I Vitelloni was decent.

flappy bird, Thursday, 28 February 2019 18:53 (five years ago) link

Roma works very well in a theatre.

It sucks that Nights of Cabiria is still OOP stateside. Seems like a whole generation is missing out on it.

a large tuna called “Justice” (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 28 February 2019 19:27 (five years ago) link

the video store here has Nights of Cabiria, I'm going there today and will check it out if it's not rented atm.

flappy bird, Thursday, 28 February 2019 19:37 (five years ago) link

Seeing the film of the bastardized Broadway musical version (Sweet Charity) just reminded me of how great Nights of Cabiria was.

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 February 2019 20:36 (five years ago) link

Probably his best. Just about the only one I want to see again anyway.

zama roma ding dong (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 February 2019 20:39 (five years ago) link

I don’t hate Fellini. I just like a few hundred directors better.

zama roma ding dong (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 February 2019 20:40 (five years ago) link

I don't hate him but La Strada is one of the "arthouse classics" I loathe the most

bhad bundy (Simon H.), Thursday, 28 February 2019 20:51 (five years ago) link

Giulietta didn't melt ya heart in that one, eh?

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 February 2019 20:58 (five years ago) link

I don't hate him but La Strada is one of the "arthouse classics" I loathe the most


ha a good friend of mine said the exact same thing, he loves 8 1/2 and loathes La Strada. I don’t remember why though. It just kinda passed by me.

flappy bird, Thursday, 28 February 2019 21:51 (five years ago) link

I Vitelloni, y'all

Let's have sensible centrist armageddon (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 28 February 2019 21:55 (five years ago) link

stylistically La Strada certainly doesn't fit with a lot else in his oeuvre. It seems in part an effort to channel Chaplin.

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 February 2019 21:56 (five years ago) link

The real outlier is Il bidone--it's practically a Film Noir!

a large tuna called “Justice” (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 28 February 2019 22:00 (five years ago) link

eight months pass...

hadn't ever seen his first film Variety Lights (co-directed with Alberto Lattuada) before, it was interesting

Dan S, Friday, 1 November 2019 00:21 (four years ago) link

has elements that he made into a signature: the toughness, the focus on memorable faces, the tawdry-world loneliness

Dan S, Friday, 1 November 2019 00:44 (four years ago) link

two weeks pass...

I Vitelloni and Il Bidone have similar themes

Dan S, Monday, 18 November 2019 00:10 (four years ago) link

seeing these two films it is clear he is really good at orchestrating and choreographing extended, chaotic, crowded party sequences - the carnival scene in I Vitelloni and the con man's New Year's Eve party in Il Bidone

Dan S, Monday, 18 November 2019 00:11 (four years ago) link

both are about men who are living an idle life, in one case corralled by family and in the other tending towards crime

Dan S, Monday, 18 November 2019 00:35 (four years ago) link

in both films the loneliness of outsiders feels like the heart of it

Dan S, Monday, 18 November 2019 00:52 (four years ago) link

My students will write about Amarcord next weekend.

TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 18 November 2019 02:02 (four years ago) link

I dismissed it as too sentimental when I saw it in college but think I will appreciate it much more when I watch it this time around

Dan S, Monday, 18 November 2019 23:28 (four years ago) link

it was my second Fellini film after Satyricon, which I was really impressed by at the time. I wonder how I will feel about that film now

Dan S, Tuesday, 19 November 2019 00:12 (four years ago) link

I've warmed to Fellini over the years. I really love La Dolce Vita, its fantastic.

― Dark Mavis (Michael B), Monday, June 4, 2018 9:30 AM (one year ago)

I have too. La Dolce Vita is spectacular

Dan S, Wednesday, 20 November 2019 23:59 (four years ago) link

I wonder if the seven episodes in this film were partly a reference to this being his seventh feature film, like 8 1/2

I like that all of the episodes are centered around amazing night-time set pieces

Dan S, Thursday, 21 November 2019 00:17 (four years ago) link

seeing it again I have a better understanding of the Robert Richardson's term “aesthetic of disparity”, between what life was or could be and what it actually is

Dan S, Thursday, 21 November 2019 01:01 (four years ago) link

also of Ebert's changing view of the film over the years:

"Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw "La Dolce Vita" in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom "the sweet life" represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello's world; Chicago's North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello's age. When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal"

Dan S, Thursday, 21 November 2019 01:04 (four years ago) link

don’t think if I’ve ever seen Nico as an actress outside of this film

Dan S, Thursday, 21 November 2019 01:21 (four years ago) link

*don't know

Dan S, Thursday, 21 November 2019 01:26 (four years ago) link

of all of the ‘greatest films of all time’, 8 1/2 is the one I have the hardest time relating to, or even understanding

Dan S, Tuesday, 26 November 2019 02:39 (four years ago) link

it seems like a whole movie made up of beautifully-filmed interstitial sequences and hectoring party scenes

Dan S, Tuesday, 26 November 2019 02:56 (four years ago) link

Juliet of the Spirits is beautiful as his first film in color, but it doesn’t quite have the magic of 8 1/2

Dan S, Sunday, 8 December 2019 01:25 (four years ago) link

I have rewatched most of his films now. Need to see Nights of Cabiria and Satyricon again.

I admire 8 1/2 and especially La Dolce Vita, but I think that La Strada is the Fellini film I love the most. It is neorealism that has been transcended to include expressionist dreams and fantasies (although not the explicit ones of later films, and better for it).

Dan S, Sunday, 8 December 2019 01:31 (four years ago) link

I think it is fascinating and really moving. Anthony Quinn as Zampano gives one of the greatest ever performances, which doesn’t seem to have been acknowledged at the time

Dan S, Sunday, 8 December 2019 01:36 (four years ago) link

having not seen any of these in more than 20 years, La Strada is the one that has stuck with me because of Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn's absolutely amazing performances.

akm, Sunday, 8 December 2019 17:04 (four years ago) link

I like Fellini’s description of Satyricon as “science fiction of the past”. There’s not much of a story but it is such a surreal, grotesque spectacle and is so out of time that it remains interesting

Dan S, Wednesday, 18 December 2019 01:22 (four years ago) link

with Roma I can really see how Fellini's chaotic party sequences and crowd scenes evolved into spectacle

Dan S, Saturday, 28 December 2019 01:38 (four years ago) link

I loved the motorcycles tearing through Rome at the end

Dan S, Saturday, 28 December 2019 01:43 (four years ago) link

2020 is his centennial year, so there'll be a lot of re-evaluation.

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 28 December 2019 02:14 (four years ago) link

8 1/2 - WHY does everyone love this movie

flappy bird, Saturday, 28 December 2019 15:36 (four years ago) link

I don't.

TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 28 December 2019 15:45 (four years ago) link

filmmakers and people who wish they were

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 28 December 2019 19:02 (four years ago) link

watched Amarcord this week. It’s interesting to see a film a second time 30+ years later and to compare the impressions it made then vs now

Dan S, Friday, 10 January 2020 01:45 (four years ago) link

Happy 100 to Il Maestro. The haters and naysayers can continue hatin'.

SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Monday, 20 January 2020 13:24 (four years ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.