To mark 20 years of the death of Italy’s most famous film director Federico Fellini, herewith the 10 films by the ‘Maestro’ you absolutely have to see. It’s hard to fully grasp that Italy (and the world) has been without Fellini for a full two decades. Passing away in 1993, the famed auteur’s presence is so keenly felt in every aspect of Italian life and art that it’s almost as if he never went away. - WikiLo sceicco bianco (The White Sheik) 1952
Fellini’s directorial debut is a comedic farce starring Alberto Sordi, Leopoldo Trieste, Brunella Bovo, and Giulietta Masina. It was written by Fellini and Michelangelo Antonini among others and follows a prudish young clerk (Trieste) who takes his virginal young wife (Bovo) on honeymoon to Rome for an audience with the Pope. His wife is obsessed with a photostrip comic called ‘The White Shiek’ and she slips away from her husband to try and meet the star of the series. Her husband is distraught and tries to cover for her with his straight-laced relatives; meanwhile, his wife finds herself 20 km outside Rome in a boat with the ‘Sheik’. Fellini’s background as a gag writer made him the obvious choice to direct, and the film rolls along apace splatter gun timing. Lacking a authoritative voice, Fellini was to progress to develop a clear directorial vocabulary and tone, but his gift for the unexpected and farcical is very much on show even here. A rough diamond.
I Vitelloni 1953
Written by Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, and Tullio Pinelli, it is a comedy drama about a group of Italian men who settle into the comfortable familiarity of life in the small town they were born in. Of the group of friends, only one has the courage enough to avoid the honey trap of the usual Italian temptations, and leave the town for a better, more challenging existence elsewhere. ‘I Vitelloni is considered one of the most important films in Italian cinema and indeed the world inspiring modern classics such as Scorsese’s ‘Mean Streets’ and Barry Levinson’s ‘Diner’. It was Stanley Kubrick’s favourite film. (Dutch: de Nietsnutten)La Strada 1954
Anthony Quinn stars as the brutish strong man who takes a naive young woman (Giulietta Masina), who he buys from her mother and takes on the road. They encounter an old foe played by Richard Basehart who ultimately proves to be the couple’s destruction. ‘La Strada’ is considered one of the most influential films ever made. Upon its release Fellini was criticised by certain aspects of the neorealist movement but ultimately his willingness to push the constitutional requirements of the movement from harsh reality and a realistic political landscape and a doctrine of ideology into the realms of fantasy and poetry was a lead that others followed. Winner of the academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Le notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria) 1957 It was Giulietta Masina’s performance in ‘La Strada’ that led Fellini to pen the script specifically for her. He also had to convince the producers that she was ready for her first leading role. Masina plays a prostitute who roams the city of Rome, servicing clients and generally looking for true love and a way to better her life. She is continuously kicked down by life but again and again drags herself up and carries on. It was notoriously difficult to finance the project because of the controversial subject matter but the film is now considered a masterpiece, plotting the sub layers of social dysfunction that bubble to surface and manifest in a dark and inhuman behaviour on the streets of Rome. A hint of the visual freedom of La Dolce Vita, but it maintains its gritty fixation with harsh realities.
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’ has its place in the pantheon of iconic world cinema assured forever more. It’s the story of a passive journalist’s week in Rome as he wanders around looking for happiness and love, both of which elude him. Fellini eschewed traditional narrative for an episodal structure each exploring important themes and each heavy oneiric metaphor.
8½ (1963)
Starring Marcello Mastoianni as Guido Anselmi, 8 ½ is considered by some to be Fellini’s greatest film. The director himself declared that it was ‘honest to the point of indecency’, there’s very much of himself in it. Starring Marcello Mastoianni as Guido Anselmi, the title refers to his 8 ½ films as director and in many ways it’s an unburdening of the inner turmoil the director felt, both in the face of the creative challenge of realising a feature film in a dysfunctional industry and at his inadequacies as a human being and husband. Entertaining, unexpected, blindingly brilliant, and frustratingly despondent. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.Giulietta degli spiriti (Juliet of the Spirits) 1965
Fellini’s first feature in colour it stars Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Mario Pisu, Valentina Cortese and Valeska Gert. The film is about a middle-aged woman who, not having the strength to leave her philandering husband, withdraws into a world of mysticism, visions and memories, exploring her subconscious. The economist and film critic Murray Rothbard described it as “what may well be the Worst Movie of All Time, the absurdist-nihilist Fellini monstrosity, Juliet of the Spirits”, saying that it reeked of “pretension and deliberate boredom”.
Satyricon 1969
Now considerd on of his best works, the initial reception was rather cool. Called indulgent and too experimental. That criticism could be understood only in that Felini’s imaging of a decadent Rome in the final days of the Empire was ahead of its time. Satyricon is tame by today’s standards, but it still retains its freshness, despite the world catching up. Recently restored by Dolce and Gabbana, the masterpiece is safe for other generations to enjoy Fellini in full artistic flight.Roma 1972
Peter Gonzales plays a young Fellini as the film charts the young director’s move from his native Rimini to Rome. There is no obvious plot development other that the character development of Rome herself. A group of young men rage against the city that is a notoriously cruel, immoral and vicious mistress, but nonetheless one that shaped his outlook on art and life.
Amarcord 1973
A year in the life of a small town in Emilia-Romania, the famed director’s homeland, Amarcord reflects Fellini’s feelings and memories of what growing up was like. Retracing his formative steps after triumphing in Rome and abroad it was the director’s deeply personal search to rediscover his roots and his true identity. Without the dazzling technical prowess of some of his other works ‘Amarcord’ nonetheless displays Fellini’s genius at its most subtle and ethereal. The title itself ‘Amarcord’ is a Romagnol neologism for ‘I Remember’, and justly sets the scene for a canvas on which Fellini paints at the same time brutally honest yet lovingly tender portrait of a small town that is a capsule of his childhood memories and a microcosm for all of Italy.
