Federico Fellini retrospective

[Johann]

September 1st, 2005. Pacific Cinematheque. 23 films.

A complete retrospective of the Maestro, including documentaries and the Vancouver premiere of his final film with Roberto Benigni.

There is a God.

[arsaib4]

So, should we expect regular reports from Sir Johann?

[Johann]

That's the plan Sam.
The Good Life indeed..

[wpqx]

Well I just watched Casanova, it took me a long time. I had a DVD burn of it, but the disc stopped so it took several months to get a working replacement.

Well as it appeared at first, it is in fact self indulgent nonsense. All Fellini films were dubbed, because he shot them silent, but this film seems to be exceptionally bad at it. Even Donald Sutherland, who's native language is English doesn't match up at all with the words he's saying. I also found the casting of Sutherland to be horrible. He doesn't exactly represent the "world's greatest lover" as we should believe.

Perhaps this is the intention of the director, not the bad dubbing but the bad casting. Fellini's Casanova is a bumbling insecure man. He may be at his best when "performing" but his desire for sex is pathetic. You may consider him an addict for it. He begs and takes it with anyone, even a mechanical doll. He is needy, and is not an independant spirit. There is no charisma like that of Don Giovanni, instead he is pompous ass who is all show.

The film does have Fellini's typical feel of a circus. Characters always seem to be in the throws of narcotics and a raging perpetual New Years Party. Can't say I'd recommend the film, Fellini has done much better. After Amarcord it seemed like he just wanted to get back to making absurd nlonsense, which this most certainly is. If anyone else has seen the film, by all means comment on it, but I'd say i's pretty inadequate in the world of Fellini.

[Johann]

Casanova is playing (which I've never seen) as well as City of Women, a film that has few peers.

All of his masterpieces (most on Criterion DVD) thrown up on the big screen will be almost too much to take.

Because it's out of print you'll have to look at your local public or University library for a book called Fellini Faces. It's the best book I've "read" on Fellini. It's still after still of the odd faces of characters in Fellini films.

Another book film buffs should buy is Art By Film Directors. HC, it's loaded with stunning artwork by major directors (Kubrick, Greenaway, Kurosawa, Parker, Gilliam, etc.)
Each page could be mounted and framed.

[Johann]

Eight and a Half


A definitive masterpiece in every sense of the word.

Guido the film director is bombarded with distractions with regards to his next film, the follow-up to the one that made him the famous auteur he is.

Fellini made this in response to his acclaim for La Dolce Vita.

The silence that descended on the sold-out cinematheque crowd when the lights dimmed was of such muted power that you wouldn't believe it unless you were in attendance.

Everyone was here to see the Maestro's masterpiece the way it was meant to be seen and nobody had better mess with that.

It was sublime.

Nobody russled a bag, no one dared even eat a piece of popcorn.
This was a holy film, shown in our temple: the pacific cinematheque.

The women in this film are of a beauty and spirit that I can't decribe.

They're Fellini women, they wiggle their hips, they flash big bright white smiles and flirt and sashay, they be cute, they pout, they emote. The glory of female beauty is everywhere.

But Guido holds his own in the charm department, as well as the physical beauty department. I'm man enough to say that Marcello Mastroianni is one of the handsomest leading men is film history.

Seriously, the dude is good-looking.

He's better looking than Steve McQueen. Or Rock Hudson.
He might not be better looking than James Dean, but the man is almost too sexy. Men should be jealous of how handsome MM is.

But that's Fellini: he surrounded himself with beautiful people, even beautiful UGLY people!

Saraghina?

She's repulsive yet attractive at the same time.

The scenes of her dancing for young Guido and his pals with their magic capes were cinema nirvana. Powerful images of Saraghina, the monster-woman, living like an animal, an untamed she-devil, madly dancing for her boys.

This film is black and white contrast of the highest calibre.
Fellini uses mist and the nighttime and the outdoors to such eye-grabbing effect that I don't know how I can get across how much it adds to the experience.

This film has been called Fellini's masterpiece before, and a lot of people don't get it.

The one thing that struck me the most after I walked home was how the big-screen experience amplified the completeness of the movie, how perfectly whole this film is, how perfectly Federico channelled his creative frustrations.

Isn't this the greatest film ever made on the process of filmmaking?

[Johann]

The Clowns


Made for Italian TV, this rarely seen film is Fellini's ode to clowns.

Federico himself is in the film, and he does the voiceover.
It operates on three levels, with Fellini diving into his memories of the circus as a youth, exposing the absurdity of the clown documentary, and finally deliering us that brilliant Fellini Fanstasy. The clown funeral must be seen- it's as opulent and "Fellini" as you can imagine. The "widow" crying behind the procession cracked me up.

Excellent film, with genuine emotion and visual splendor.

Fellini points out the irrationality of the clown, the "mocker and the mocked", and how clowns have impacted his world.
The real, authentic Italian clowns from Italy's old circuses and vaudeville acts relaying their memories is great. Fellini records these dying artists (and art) with the proper respect, admiration and cinematic coda.
"Mr. Fellini..."

This is one of those "MetaCinema" films that Peter Bondanella talks about in his excellent Federico-approved book The Cinema of Federico Fellini

[Johann]

Satyricon



The art-house crowd has been carping about this one since 1969.


It seems like a manifesto on decadence, with every orgiastic excess you can think of.

Fellini was making a film that damned the soulless sixties, a decade he saw as one that was turning turtle into a bottomless pit of avarice.

At the same time (1968) Stanley Kubrick said
Man has heralded the death of his Gods, he is cut adrift, in a rudderless boat, on an uncharted sea, and in order to stay sane, one must have something he cares about deeply: Something bigger than himself.

I think Fellini knew this and he responded with his film adaptation of Petronius' novel Satyricon.
(That's also why I think Fellini loved 2001: A Space Odyssey. That philosophical response to modern society's perpetual vacuuity- very Nietzsche).

I love Satyricon, I've seen it countless times and it's the kind of film that most people would shut off after approx. 15 mins.

It's a sprawling phantasmagoria that is sexually charged but not wholly pornographic or explicit. In 1968 it was probably scandalous but time shows it's no more offensive than Peter Brooks' Marat/Sade.

Visually it's a dream: colors and operatic camerawork stand out, actors are gorgeous- Fellini gorgeous- and I think we are getting the cinematic equivalent of one of Fellini's actual dreams.

[Johann]

Juliet of the Spirits



A masterpiece that could only have followed 8 1/2.

Fellini's first color feature film makes full use of it.
Gorgeous colors, all used to reveal certain emotions saturate the whole film.

Guiletta Masina reminds us in the first ten minutes of Gelsomina from La Strada, smirking and eyeballing as she did in that oscar-winning foreign film.

Her eyes are dopey, hyponotic. I could stare at Guiletta forever.

She has what Clive Barker calls "fantastique visions", hallucinatory vignettes or surreal episodic dreams, which she doesn't know what to do with until later in the film. She must leave her husband.

Once you are under it's spell, this film becomes magical.

This film is distant from the neo-realism films Fellini made in the 50's. He really went into his own fantastical mind with this one even if he was making a social/society commentary again.


Peter Greenaway says he has massive respect and admiration for Fellini for this film, and it is an absolute influence on his Drowning By Numbers.

I'm buying the Criterion DVD.

[Johann]

Roma



I saw this film years ago on vhs and I just couldn't get into it.
I still can't get into it but after last night's screening I understand it.

It's Fellini's Rome, his memories and extravagant surreal visions of the events that played out in pre-WWII as well as present-day musings (1972). He appears several times throughout (as a film director of course).

School, the cinemas (King Kong and Garbo!), Tits, (Tits like watermelons!), sexual innuendos everywhere, dark nights, filmmaking- filmmaking as war! filmmaking in the rain! filmmaking as social commentary!, eating at big sit-down dinners, drinking Chianti, political commentary: Fascist bourgeois: YOUR TIME HAS COME TO GO!, it's all Fellini can do not to film everything he sets his eyes on.

The film moves from image to image, to new immersions in Romes' particular people and places.

We got the Fuch sisters, we got Angel Butts, we got roller-skating priests and bouncy nuns, we got altars, hippies and Gore Vidal.

(Gore makes a cameo near the end, talking about Rome as a city of illusions)

It ends with a dizzying series of moving camera shots of the city and a horde of bikers riding off into the unknown night, which according to Fellini, seems to be the death of this historic city.

[Johann]

Casanova


Whoa baby, what a film.

My first ever look at "Il Casanova di Fellini" was the event I was waiting for.
The big screen, a surprisingly small cinematheque crowd, and anticipation that was rewarded with absolute cinema nirvana.

It's pure Italian poetry.


Donald Sutherland plays the libertine Giacomo Casanova. A man whose reputation slowly builds until he practically self-destructs, having the best sex-scene I've ever seen: with an actual automaton.

This is the film Donald Sutherland should be remembered for.

Not M*A*S*H, not The Dirty Dozen, not Ordinary People, not Bethune or even JFK.

He's operating on another plane, and if you thought he had no acting skill see this and you'll never think it again.

The man is a Canadian legend, and how he hooked up with the Maestro is beyond me but these two artists compliment each other just as much as Fed and Marcello.

Casanova's sexual prowess is world-renowned.
This film is an adaptation of his memoirs and the movie has it all.

Nudity, sex-scenes from Mars (watch how Sutherland actually "makes love": you'll laugh your head off).
He seems like he's running a marathon, sweating, panting, on all fours rocking back and forth like a demon posessed. Eyes rolling into his head, he conquers woman after woman, leaving them breathless and limp.

He's even challenged to a fuck-off with another "Romeo" who screws like a benny addict. An energetic audience cheers them on as they mount their "canvases".

Casanova's opponent collapses on his fuckee, and she rolls him over, humping for her life. But the contest is to see how long each man can last. Casanova is hoisted up on the shoulders of the spectators, triumphant in the art of love.

This film does indeed rival Satyricon for sheer spectacle.
I would say it's even more opulent and garish.
The costumes won an Oscar, and no doubt: these costumes are better than the ones Kubrick used in Barry Lyndon- no joke.
Casanova's outfits are jaw-dropping (except maybe his bedroom attire).

The film is a Fellini fantasy (based on truth) on a monumental scale. Casanova's actual life couldn't be as sumptuous as Fellini's cinematic vision.

Criterion might want to consider this film for a DVD release- it's a masterpiece. I'd never seen it before last night. I didn't really look too hard for it on video but it's a rare find.

I was in complete awe of this film and I'm so glad I got to see it the way it should be seen. Praise the cinema Gods..
Even in this complete retro it will only play once. (last night)


The ending is poetry.
It's the way a film should end.

[Johann]

Orchestra Rehearsal


Outstanding made-for-TV film in which chaos reigns supreme.

Fellini and his film crew invade the lives of orchestra musicians who are about to do a rehearsal.
The responses to this cinematic intrusion are often hilarious.


Each musician expounds on his/her instruments' role within the grand scheme of things.

The violinists defend their instrument against accusations of being a "female" instrument, the percussionists explain how they are unlike any other animal in the orchestra, the oboe guy is disturbing, etc.

The centre of the film (aside from the apocalyptic event that precipitates the best performance the musicians do) is the relationship the players have with their German conductor.

Mr. Conductor is abrasive, controlling and "to-the-point".
He makes everybody start and restart, complaining about Fellini's film crew (They are allowing you to film but I don't approve).

He's a dick.

The film is all Fellini. Nobody but him could've made a film like this.

The absolute madness of the ending is the element that cements this as a Federico Fellini classic.
(The film's alternate title is The Decline and Fall of the West in C# Major)

This is also Nino Rota's final score for the Maestro.

RIP Nino. Angels play trombones.
I'm sure you heard them when Godino came calling.

[Johann]

A Matrimonial Agency


This film was a dreamy slice of the Maestro circa 1953.

It's a rarely seen short film (20 mins.), part of Cesare Zavattini's Love in the City, an omnimbus on that very thing.


A reporter goes to a marriage agency, to see what their deal is.
He wonders how he's gonna justify his visit, because he has no interest in marriage.

He tells the clerk that he's here for his friend, a guy who turns into a werewolf.

The clerk doesn't even bat an eye. He must fill out his wishes for a life partner. She'll call him when she finds a match for his buddy who barks at the moon.

She calls him back instantly.

He goes back to the agency, and asks: Did you tell her?
The clerk says no- he can explain it to her when he meets her today.

They drive in a classic 50's car to the countryside, where they discuss the future with Mr. Werewolf.

Is your friend kind? she asks.

He says his friend has a specific condition and he lives on a large property in the country.
She says she could learn to love him if he's rich, and that she could roam all over his property doing whatever is required.

The reporter can't believe that she is actually considering living with a werewolf. She doesn't even question it!
She's from a large family (7 sisters and 2 brothers) and she went to the marriage agency to find a husband who will support her for the rest of her life.

The reporter says "This is not right fot you".
He drives back to the city and drops her off in the middle of a traffic circle, where the film ends, with us staring at her from behind.

This film could have been much longer.
An assured early film from Fellini.

[Johann]

The Temptations of Dr. Antonio


Glorious Fellini- another of his I'd never seen.
This short film (1 hour) is his first in color.


Dr. Antonio is a guy who is outraged at the erection (no pun intended) of a sexy billboard in the city.


It's gigantic, and it's gorgeous: it's of Anita Ekberg (the Swedish bombshell from La Dolce Vita), and she's advertising milk.

Big breasts, kids singing DRINK MILK!, Antonio pulling his hair out over the "pornography"- it's a great film.

Antonio runs around like a chicken with his head cut off, nearly having a coronary over Ekberg's visage: "Children walk around here! Such filth!" A worker who's helping put up the billboard says "how can you call that filth?"

Then Ekberg starts invading his subconscious.

A giant glass of milk appears next to the Dr.
The billboard starts winking at him.
Her smile coaxes him, she flips her hair like those bad actresses in shampoo commercials, she laughs as she seduces him with her totally disarming beauty.

It's a play on the sexual taboos of the early sixties, Fellini's way of pointing out that real beauty is not obscene.

It should be celebrated.

[Johann]

Toby Dammit


It's too bad they didn't also screen Louis Malle's and Roger Vadim's episodes of Histoires Extrordinaires (Spirits of the Dead), but this is a series on Fellini, so we get his 40-minute adaptation of E.A. Poe's "Never Bet The Devil Your Head"



Terence Stamp is Toby, a famous British actor who flies to Rome
to play Jesus.

In a spaghetti western.

He's tormented, he's in a Dante-like Hell, a Purgatorio of sorts.
He's high as a kite, he's treated with kid gloves.
The ending with the little girl and the ball and the bridge and the sweet car and the severed head is as creepy & haunting as any horror film. It's a mysterious, esoteric film that will be totally lost on regular movie-goers.

It's Fellini in his prime (Satyricon was next for him) and the deep, dark foreign extravagance is something that will never leave you if you're willing to submit to it.


This program of shorts was accompanied by "the rarest of rare Fellini's"- 5 ads he did for Italian TV:

Campari Soda
Barilla Pasta (a rigatoni commercial)
Banca di Roma (3 ads for the bank- very funny)

[Johann]

City of Women


*WARNING*: the content of this review may offend some readers







Fellini's masterpiece may be my favorite of his.
It's his cinematic response to feminism, and (as a man) I can say he's right on the money. I was in the throes of cinema nirvana last night.

Before I headed to the theatre I was chillaxin at the New Amsterdam cafe, talking to a couple from Germany.

The woman just happened to be a Fellini fan- her favorite film of his is The Voice of the Moon (playing here sunday with Intervista). They had to leave for the airport later in the evening, and because the gestapo will take your herbs and THC delivery devices from you they gave me a beautiful purple pipe and half an ounce of devasting green. Labelled "critical mass", this was bud from Jupiter. My buddy Brent also has blitzkrieging buds known as critical mass as well, but this stuff was different- the THC seemed to be as concentrated as kif.

If you ever decide to vacation in Vancouver search for herbal tea named "Thunderfuck" or "Juicy Fruit". "White Widow" or the common "HashPLant" will also put a dragon in your dreams, but the formers will blow you away.

Amsterdam boasts the best herb on Mother Earth but I would challenge that. You will find herbs here that will blast you to the moon corky.

So anyway long story short I arrived at City of Women with altered consciousness.

Marcello is Snaporaz, some guy who enters the Twilight Zone of Titties, the Fellini Fuck Fantasy, the City of Women.

He meets Dr. Zupercock.

Zupercock has conquered some 10,000 women and his mansion is decorated with everything relating to him. His ego is bigger than his Zupercock, to say the least.

We have Fellini skewering the notion that he is solely a misogynistic Italian filmmaker.

Well, he doesn't skewer it actually. He actually confirms it.

See the scene where a guy goes to a brothel later in the film and an eyeglasses-wearing buxom beauty takes him "upstairs".

The woman is completely nude, her big round ass is photographed from "behind" and it fills the whole screen!
Fellini holds on her hairy asscrack. He is avoiding nothing here- he's a filmmaker who is pulling no punches in his misogyny.

He's saying I like big butts and I cannot lie.
It's a monumentally erotic moment, and the ladies in the audience were audibly vocal... I'm 100% sure there was blushing, looking away and shocked little brains.

Wow. Sexuality tackled with plain "here it is" simplicity.
Fellini made his blue movie. It's soft porn, plain and simple.
He may have lost some fans with this one but I don't care- it's genius thru and thru.

I wish I could make a movie like this.

There are great lengthy scenes with "young modern women" in 3 vehicles who pursue Snaporaz on dark roads that seems to be a direct homage to Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, the scenes where Alex is speeding thru the night with his droogs in the Durango '95.

Also it seems that Rob Marshall has seen this movie.
Bob Fosse may have written Chicago before Fellini's movie, but I suspect that the scenes of Roxie and Velma as a duo act were lifted from City of Women. Two nearly naked women dance just like Renee and Catherine did. (With Marcello tho).

Hilarious and glorious from begin to fin.

[wpqx]

Wow I didn't expect this to get your vote, I've seen universally bad reviews of City of Women. I honestly have stayed away from it, so I will probably check it out, but if it sucks I'm coming for you.

[Johann]

If you say it sucks it's because you don't understand Fellini.

Come for me all you want.
I got bandoliers and pins prepped to pull.