Fellini Sneak Peek

Fellini

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Fellini Author and editor

Sam StourdzĂŠ Editors for EYE Marente Bloemheuvel Jaap Guldemond

EYE, Amsterdam Amsterdam University Press

Contents Preface 4 The Parade of Images 8

Popular Culture Caricatures, juvenilia 20 The photo-novel 22 Mandrake the Magician 26 The voyage of Mastorna 28 Parades 30 Dinners 32 The circus 36 Grotesques 44 Casting sessions 46 50 The Rugantino Paparazzi 54 Look-alikes 60 The Temptations of Doctor Antonio 64 Mock advertisements 66

Fellini at Work The scriptwriters The costumes Behind the camera Directing actors Studio 5 The helicopter

70 72 76 80 84 88

The City of Women Fellini, Catholic filmmaker?

92 Female obsessions 96 Anita Ekberg 102` Anna Magnani 106 All about posters 108 Prostitutes 110 Casanova 114 Fellini and his double 116 The myth of the fountain 120 Masina and Fellini 126

Biographical Imagination Visions 130 The Book of Dreams 138 Fellini superstar 144 Appendix Notes 152 Selected bibliography 152 Chronology 153 Filmography 154 Illustration credits 157 Acknowledgements 158

Federico Fellini, 1950s.

of mass media in general: television, newspapers, magazines and advertising.

The age of imagery, in fact. From the 1950s on, audiences, especially in Italy, quickly fell under the spell of the mass media, enthusiastically embracing the images that were appearing everywhere. Fellini – who was of course the inventor of the term “paparazzi” (in La Dolce Vita) – was quick to predict the influence that the media would exert on human behaviour, and referred to it in his films (such as the enormous billboard featuring Anita Ekberg, which comes to life in the anthology film Boccaccio ’70).

Preface EYE is proud and excited to announce a major exhibition, a publication and a substantial supporting programme that will be presented this summer, dedicated to the oeuvre of one of the most defining masters of post-war Italian cinema: Federico Fellini. His rich and incisive film oeuvre, which has been collected, preserved and screened by EYE for many years, now will be brought out under the spotlight on the broader stage of our new museum.

The publication includes four main chapters. Popular Culture concentrates on Fellini’s many sources of inspiration within the day-to-day popular culture of the time. This includes not only the steadily more prevalent mass media, but also such manifestations as the circus, rock music, cartoons and Catholic or political parades. Fellini at Work shows us the director on the film set, instructing his actors, working together with costume designers, behind the camera, and so on.

The City of Women concerns Fellini’s most important subject and obsession: Woman, in all her many guises. Finally, Biographical Imagination presents Fellini in the guise of various doppelgangers, each reflecting a different aspect of his personality. Particular attention is given to his ‘Book of Dreams’ in which he recorded his dreams in words and drawings.

The career of Federico Fellini (1920-1993) lasted for forty years and made him perhaps the most illustrious of all the filmmakers to have come out of Italy. Those forty years saw the appearance of titles that have carved out a permanent niche in the memory of generations of film lovers. The bellowing strongman in La Strada (1954); the anguished society reporter in La Dolce Vita (1960); the tyrannical director with the whip in 8½ (1963) or the woman who lovingly clutches the young boy from the village to her ample bosom: these characters have become the archetypes who inhabit that universe that we have come to call “Felliniesque.”

A universe in which Fellini’s alter ego appears – often portrayed by Marcello Mastroianni – in different guises as a participant in an continuous parade of grotesque human failures.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the many people who have worked on this wide-ranging project. First of all, we should mention Sam Stourdzé who compiled the (travelling) exhibition and the publication as well as writing the texts for the publication. NBC Photographie and CaroleTroufleau Sandrin were involved in the production. The collaboration with Sam Stourdzé was especially inspiring, and we thank him for his enthusiasm and dedication and for his interesting concept and approach.

Additionally, the cooperation and support of the Fondation Fellini pour le Cinéma (Sion, Switzerland), the Fondazione Fellini (Rimini, Italy) and the Cineteca di Bologna are essential to the success of this and any presentation about Fellini.

Before making his actual debut as a director, Fellini mainly concentrated on drawing and writing screenplays. He left his birthplace Rimini when he was nineteen years old in order to “conquer Rome.” For a period, he drew cartoons for satirical magazines, moving on to co-write numerous screenplays during the 1940s. He was confidant and assistant to Roberto Rossellini during the making of Roma, città aperta (1945), before making his debut as a director in 1950 with Luci del varietà. His international reputation was established when he received an Oscar for La Strada (1954). When he was forty years old, La Dolce Vita (1960) put Fellini at the centre of great controversy. This “decadent” and ­“blasphemous” film shocked the Catholic Church, which until then had supported him, even embracing him as a Catholic filmmaker. However, Fellini’s free spirit continued to guide his career, independently of trends and conventions. 8½ (1963) proved to be yet another watershed, when he decided to ignore all the rules of storytelling and to jettison any form of logical narrative. His exploration of the creative process and his reflections on cinema encouraged him to leave the beaten track of reality and to explore the world of the imagination. Childhood memories, dreams and the subconscious mind took on an increasingly important role in his work. His films always had a strong autobiographical element, but now Fellini no longer had any qualms about playing himself in his films (Blocknotes di un regista, I Clowns, Roma, Intervista).

This book and the exhibition aim to reveal the universe of the filmmaker and the sources of his rich imagination, and to highlight the essential power of his work.

The story of Fellini’s themes and obsessions is, twenty years after his death, told by movie stills, set photos and his drawings, as well as by archive material and posters. The fantasy world of Cinecittà, the studio where Fellini made so many of his films, is revealed through previously unseen behind-the-scenes pictures that were taken by photographers such as Gideon Bachmann, Deborah Beer, Pierluigi Praturlon and Paul Ronald. This publication, which was conceived as a visual laboratory, shows how Fellini created a mythical image of himself and of Italian life in his films and in other media, and how he constantly reinterpreted his early years, his dreams and the images and stories conjured up by his subconscious.

We have chosen not to follow a chronological sequence, but to present Fellini’s take on the twentieth century – the age of cinema, of course, but also that

Design Studio Claus Wiersma conceived the design for the exhibition, which is both complex and crystal clear. The graphic design of the book and the exhibition was in the capable hands of the designers at Joseph Plateau. They have produced a beautiful publication with a contemporary twist.

And last but not least, our thanks go out to all the employees at EYE who have worked on the book, the exhibition and the accompanying programme with tremendous dedication and an infectious degree of commitment. I am convinced that, just as Fellini’s oeuvre has inspired us and many other generations of film lovers, this book and the exhibition will inspire a new audience and allow it to be captivated and absorbed by the work of this unrivalled maestro of the cinema.

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Buon divertimento!

Sandra den Hamer Directeur EYE Juni 2013

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From left to right: Fellini, his assistant Moraldo Rossi, the photographers Pierluigi Praturlon and Tazio Secchiaroli, the agent Ezio Vitale and the photographer Sandro Vespasiani, October 1958.

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After leaving his home province of Romagna to try his luck in Rome, Federico Fellini earned a living as a caricaturist for satirical newspapers.

Employed successively by 420, Marc’­ Aurelio and Travaso, he worked in a vein of schoolboy humour exploiting the war of the sexes and the comic effects of repetition. Caricature is an art of distortion which only needs a few lines to capture a situation, a pose or a subject. With his pencil, the young Fellini deftly conjured up a world that was like a great parade, full of strange faces and generously endowed female creatures, a formula which he would keep using through­out his long career.

At the same time, he was starting to write screenplays, working along­ side Roberto Rossellini (Rome, Open City, 1945, Paisà, 1946, Europa ’51, 1952), but also Pietro Germi (In the Name of the Law, 1948), Luigi Comen­cini (Behind Closed Shutters, 1950) and Giorgio Pastina (Came­ riera bella presenza offresi, 1951).

In 1950, he co-wrote his first film, Variety Lights, with Alberto Lattuada.

Not that Fellini ever gave up drawing.

As a filmmaker, he always carried some pencils in his pocket and expressed himself in images as much as he did in language, using sketches to convey the situations he wanted to shoot to his actors and crew and, starting in the 1960s, transcribing his own dreams.

Caricatures, juvenilia Italian poster for Roberto Rossellini’s L’Amore, screenplay co-written by Fellini, 1948.

Federico Fellini, The two comrades, Il Travaso, 27 April 1947: “— Comrade, I just fell from the fourth floor!

— But Comrade, it’s not mentioned in L’Unità!

— Comrade, then it’s not true. We’ll meet in the cinema. Long live Togliatti!”

Fellini and a friend, Christmas 1944.

Federico Fellini, Il Travaso, 4 May 1947 “— Anything else, sir?

— Another glass of water, please.”

Federico Fellini, 1940.

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The rise of the illustrated press spawned a new genre: the cinenovel, the ancestor of the photo-novel. This form enjoyed its greatest popularity in post-war Italy, where millions of copies were sold every week. The first version of The White Sheik (1952), the archetypical photo-novel, was written by Michelangelo Antonioni who sent a manuscript of some twenty pages entitled Cara Ivan to the producer Carlo Ponti, who in turn gave Fellini and Tullio Pinelli – who later became one of Fellini’s regular scriptwriters – the task to write the screenplay. But Antonioni withdrew

from the project, so Fellini was chosen to make the film, his debut as a director.

The White Sheik relates the adventures of Wanda and Ivan, a young couple up from the provinces who are honeymooning in Rome. Taking advantage of her husband’s lack of attention, Wanda escapes from their packed programme and puts her time in the capital to good use by paying a visit to the White Sheik, the hero of her favourite photo-novel. During this unhoped-for encounter she learns all about the excesses of the world of entertainment. This film explores some

great Fellini themes such as popular culture, as shaped by the illustrated press and show business, religion and its ceremonies, and provincials in Rome.

The photo-novel Brunella Bovo, The White Sheik, 1952.

Ernesto Almirante in the role of film director, The White Sheik.

Alberto Sordi, The White Sheik, 1952.

Alberto Sordi and Brunella Bovo, The White Sheik, 1952.

Italian poster for The White Sheik, 1952.

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Cover of the photo-novel based on La Strada, 1954.

Inside spread and cover (p. 25) of the photo-novel based on Variety Lights, 1950.

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Fellini had a lifelong passion for comic strips, in which narrative is condensed into a handful of frames. Reminis­ cences of those popular superheroes, notably of the character Mandrake, found their way into his films.

Created in 1934 by Lee Falk, Mandrake, the music-hall magician, embodies another recurring Fellini­es­ que theme: popular entertainment.

Fellini made numerous attempts to adapt Mandrake’s incredible adven­ tures, but to no avail. In fact, it was the print press that gave him the chance to carry through his project.

As guest editor of the December 1972 issue of Vogue, Fellini, in collaboration with the photographers Franco Pinna and Tazio Secchiaroli, came up with a photo-novel in which Marcello Mas­tro­ ianni played the role of Mandrake.

The ageing Mastroianni also made an appearance as Mandrake in The Interview (1987), a film constructed in the form of a mock documentary, but this time for the purposes of advertising. Here, Fellini was not only having a go at his star’s image; he was also questioning the value of cinema when measured by the criteria of television.

Mandrake the Magician

Federico Fellini as guest editor of a special issue of Vogue, photo-novel of the adventures of Mandrake, December 1972.

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Marcello Mastroianni as Mandrake in the photo-novel in Vogue, 1972.

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Whenever he was asked about his next film, Fellini would reply: “Mastorna.”

In fact, he never managed to make his film about this character who dis­ covers the afterlife. The doomed film was postponed several times, before it was permanently shelved.

Dino de Laurentiis, though, had agreed to produce the film. At great cost, Fellini had sets built of the cathedral of Cologne and of a lifesize aeroplane at Dinocittà (the producer’s studio). He eventually managed to shoot the first scenes but then became seriously ill and the project was put on hold.

In the early 1990s the journalist Vicenzo Mollica suggested that he revive the project. The two friends shared a passion for comics: instead of a film, Mastorna would be a comic book! Mollica asked Milo Manara to get involved. This was the start of a strange exchange between Mollica, Fellini and Manara. Fellini drew a version of the story in the form of a storyboard and gave it to Mollica, who owned one of the first fax machines and forwarded the panels to Manara in Northern Italy. In 1992, this process eventually led to the publication of Il viaggio di G. Mastorna, detto Fernet in the maga­zine Ciak. Credited to both Fellini and Manara, this was one of Fellini’s last works.

The voyage of Mastorna Marcello Mastroianni during a screen test for Il viaggio di G. Mastorna, 1966.

Milo Manara, sketch for Il viaggio di G. Mastorna, 1992.

Federico Fellini and Milo Manara, Il viaggio di G. Mastorna, CIAK Racconta, 1992.

Marcello Mastroianni during a screen test for Il viaggio di G. Mastorna, 1966.

Federico Fellini and Milo Manara, Il viaggio di G. Mastorna, CIAK Racconta, 1992.

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Federico Fellini, sketch for Il viaggio di G. Mastorna, 1962.

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Whether as political symbol, attribute of popular culture or object of mockery, parades are found in every form in Fellini’s work, from fascist pageants to processions of streetwalkers or clowns.

“We were born with three images: the king, Il Duce and the pope,” he used to say.1 In his films we can still sense the ridiculous pomposity of those fascist parades marching through the scene at a running pace, as well as a mixture of fascination and derision with regard to the Church. “I love the choreography of the Catholic Church.

I love its unchanging, hyp­notic repre­ sen­tations, its sumptuous theatre, its lugubrious dirges, the catechism, the election of the new pontiff, and the grandiose mortuary procedure. The merits of the Church are those of any mental construction which helps protect us against the engulfing magma of the unconscious.”2

Ecclesiastical parade, Fellini’s Roma, 1972.

Fascist parade, The White Sheik, 1952.

Parade of bikers, Fellini’s Roma, 1972.

Parades Procession of prostitutes in a brothel, Fellini’s Roma, 1972.

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When Fellini moved to Rome at the age of nineteen he lived in a family boarding house on Via Albalonga. In the evening he used to dine in a small trattoria, where he would observe the gargantuan eaters of spaghetti that are part of Italian folklore. When the weather improved, restaurant tables spilled out across the pavement and into the road, becoming a colourful meeting place. The director recreated this typically Roman ambience in the dinner scene of Fellini’s Roma (1972).

“Everything here belongs to the belly, becomes belly. […] A spectacle to be devoured with the eyes, but also the menace of all those eyes, mouths, faces and overflowing bodies, eager to swallow.”3

Diners

Dinner scene, Fellini’s Roma, 1972.

Dinner scene, La Domenica del Corriere, 29 May 1965.

Dinner scene, Fellini’s Roma, 1972.

Fellini on the set of La Dolce Vita, 1959.

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Federico Fellini on the cover of Télérama on the occasion of the release of Fellini’s Roma, 4 June 1972.

Dinner scene in Cinecittà’s Studio 5, Fellini’s Roma, 1972.

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Fellini’s mythology often invoked the theatre of illusion. Beauty contests, dance halls and carnivals, those temples to the cult of appearance, provided regular inspiration. Circus and music hall also appear through­ out his work, from Variety Lights (1950) to I Clowns (1970). According to the legend, the young Fellini was so fascinated by travelling performers that he ran away to follow a circus caravan. “Immediately when I saw it I felt traumatized, and at the same time totally committed to that noise and music, to those monstrous apparit­ions, to those death-defying acts. I saw the big top as a miracle factory where things were done that were impossible for most men. This kind of show, based on wonder and fantasy, on pranks and nonsense, and on the lack of any coldly intellectual meaning, is just the thing for me.”4

Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina, La Strada, 1954.

The circus

Federico Fellini and a clown, La Dolce Vita, 1960.

Richard Basehart as the tightrope walker, La Strada, 1954.

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Clowns, 8½, 1963.

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Richard Basehart, La Strada, 1954.

Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn, La Strada, 1954.

Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina, La Strada, 1954.

Poster for La Strada, 1954.

Anthony Quinn, La Strada, 1954.

Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn, La Strada, 1954.

Anthony Quinn, La Strada, 1954.

Poster for Silnice (La Strada), 1954, design Enrico Deseta.

Giulietta Masina, La Strada, 1954.

Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn, La Strada, 1954.

Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn, La Strada, 1954.

Richard Basehart and Giulietta Masina, La Strada, 1954.

Richard Basehart, La Strada, 1954.

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Anthony Quinn, La Strada, 1954.

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Alberto Sordi, I Vitelloni, 1953.

The end of carnival, I Vitelloni, 1953.

Carnival, I Vitelloni, 1953.

Marcello Mastroianni, City of Women, 1980.

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But who are these weirdoes, these living caricatures who amble through Fellini’s films? They are the heirs to a long tradition of grotesques, figures out of commedia dell’arte, the attributes of the spectacle. They make up the world according to Fellini, halfway between carnival and squalor. Together, they form the great parade of “Circus Fellini.”

Grotesques Ginger and Fred, 1986.

Max Born, Satyricon, 1969.

Mario Romagnoli, Satyricon, 1969.

Ginger and Fred, 1986.

Satyricon, 1969.

Satyricon, 1969.

Ginger and Fred, 1986.

The large sugar dress, photo for the special Fellini issue of Vogue, 1972.

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from left to right Federico Fellini, drawing, no date.

Federico Fellini, drawing, 1972.

Federico Fellini, drawing, November 1974.

Federico Fellini, drawing, July 1974.

Federico Fellini, drawing, July 1974.

Federico Fellini, drawing, no date.

Federico Fellini, drawing, February 1972.

Federico Fellini, drawing of Clemente Fracassi, 26 October 1974.

Satyricon, 1969.

Ginger and Fred, 1986.

Federico Fellini, collage and drawing over photograph.

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Fellini employed the same method before each new shoot: “I send a small advertisement to the news­papers which says more or less: ‘Federico Fellini is ready to meet all those people who wish to see him.’ The following days I meet hundreds of people. Every idiot in Rome turns up to see me, including the police. It’s a kind of surreal mad­ house, it creates a very stimulating atmosphere. I look at all of them attentively. I steal something of each visitor’s personality. […] I may see a thousand in order to pick two, but I assimilate them all. It’s as if they were saying to me, ‘Take a good look at us, each of us is a bit of the mosaic you are now building up’.”5 At the interview, potential extras were asked to leave a photo. This repertoire of weird faces forms an astonishing collection, which Fellini himself classified by type: Interesting faces, Exotic men, Pretty women, Ample women with sensual faces, Grannies, Dancers, Ugly mugs, Generously endowed, Whorish girls, Naïve and droll girls, Little fag faces, Clowns, Sophisticated, Funereal women, etc.

This is not the world according to Fellini, but the world as it appeared to Fellini, the world that answered his call – the one that, rightly or wrongly, considered itself Felliniesque.

Photo of would-be actor sent to Fellini.

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Casting sessions

Casting session for Fellini’s Casanova, 1976.

Photo of would-be actor sent to Fellini.

Federico Fellini, casting session for A Director’s Notebook, 1969.

Photos of would-­be actors sent to Fellini.

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Photos of would-足be actors sent to Fellini.

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One evening in November 1958, a young Roman aristocrat was cele­ brat­­ing his birthday in a fashionable night­club, the Rugantino, which was popular with bright young things but also with film stars, writers and intel­ lectuals. That night, Anita Ekberg set the joint on fire by launching into a wild, barefoot dance. Eager to outdo the star, Aiché Nanà, a young actress desperate to make a name for herself, raised the roof with a provocative striptease.

An uproar ensued. The scene was immortalised by Tazio Secchiaroli, one of the first celebrity photo­graphers, and the next morning his pictures were on the front page of all the magazines.

Italians were outraged, and worried by the decadence of the nation’s high society.

As for Fellini, who at the time was in the middle of his screenplay for La Dolce Vita (1960), the event inspired him to write the scene with the strip­ tease by the actress Nadia Gray.

The Rugantino Music hall scene, Variety Lights, 1950.

Striptease scene, La Dolce Vita, 1960.

Striptease scene, La Dolce Vita, 1960.

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“Turkish girl strips,” L’Espresso, 16 November 1958.

Nadia Gray’s striptease, La Dolce Vita, 1960.

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Aiché Nanà strips at the Rugantino, November 1958.

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In the 1950s, the American studios were looking to cut costs. At the time, Cinecittà, with its sophisticated infra­ structure and its cheap skilled labour was a commercial godsend for the big Hollywood production companies.

Over the next years, these giants of cinema invaded the place with a trawl of film stars, love affairs and scandals in their wake. Rome became known as Hollywood-on-Tiber.

This was the birth of the celebrity press, scandal sheets that published photos taken on the sly. The Via Veneto became the playground of a new kind of photographer who was always hunting for a scoop or a snapshot of a star. Pictures that fetched high prices grabbed the headlines of the gutter press. In La Dolce Vita, Fellini shows the entertainment world and casts an amused eye on this game of appear­ ances. The photographer in the film, Paparazzo, played by Walter Santesso, is modelled after Tazio Secchiaroli, the most famous photo­ grapher at the time. Fifty years later, La Dolce Vita is a cult film and the term paparazzi has become a house­hold word.

Paparazzi Paparazzi photographing the arrival of Anita Ekberg, La Dolce Vita, 1960.

Ava Gardner on the front page of L’Espresso, 26 July 1956.

Photographers at work, L’Espresso, 17 February 1957.

Candid photos of Ava Gardner and Walter Chiari swimming, 26 August 1956.

Anouk Aimée and two photographers in the Via Veneto, La Dolce Vita, 1960.

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Federico Fellini, drawing of Walter Santesso as Paparazzo, around 1960.

Photographer with his damaged camera, 1950s.

Anita Ekberg and her husband Anthony Steel about to give chase to a photographer, 15 August 1958.

The actor Walter Chiari chasing Tazio Secchiaroli, 1958.

Anthony Steel chasing a photographer, 15 August 1958.

Anita Ekberg greeting journalists with a bow and arrow, 20 October 1960.

Walter Santesso, the photographer Paparazzo in La Dolce Vita, 1960.

Tazio Secchiaroli in front of the CafĂŠ de Paris, Via Veneto, 1950s.

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Sandro Simeoni, poster for La Dolce Vita, 1960.

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In the 1940s, Ginger and Fred became acclaimed music hall stars with their imitation of the tap dancing of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Forty years later, forgotten by the public, they are hauled back into the limelight by television for a comeback, randomly surrounded by a troupe of dwarves, a lover of extraterrestrials and a defrocked priest (played by photo足 grapher Jacques-Henri Lartigue).

Among this Felliniesque crowd was an amazing host of look-alikes, as if to say that television is merely a pale copy, that cinema is still the original.

To recruit his extras, Fellini care足 fully organised casting sessions with Deborah Beer, his set photo足grapher.

Among the look-alikes of celebrities from the worlds of cinema and literature were two Woody Allens, a Kojak, a Marlene Dietrich and a Brigitte Bardot. Fellini even took on literature, with look-alikes of Marcel Proust and Franz Kafka.

Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust and Elisabeth II, casting for look-alikes, Ginger and Fred, 1986.

Look-alikes Ronald Reagan, Brigitte Bardot, Bette Davis, Woody Allen 1 and Woody Allen 2, casting for look-alikes, Ginger and Fred, 1986.

Marlene Dietrich and Kojak, casting for lookalikes, Ginger and Fred, 1986.

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Bette Davis, casting for look-alikes, Ginger and Fred, 1986.

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Anita Ekberg had caused a sensation in La Dolce Vita. The following year, Fellini offered Anita Ekberg a rather unusual role in his new film, The Temptations of Doctor Antonio (1962).

Here, a giant advertising poster shows the generously endowed actress reclining, encouraging passers-by to drink more milk! This billboard stands in the middle of a vacant lot, facing the buildings of the EUR district, built under Mussolini. This “gross indecency” incurs the wrath of a local resident, the very puritanical Doctor Antonio. Outraged at this assault on morality, he starts up a censorship campaign, but then the splendid creature comes down from her poster and starts trying to seduce him. Fellini was once again exploring the theme of morality ravaged by the images of the modern world.

The Temptations of Doctor Antonio

Peppino De Filippo as Saint George, The Temptations of Doctor Antonio (Boccaccio ’70), 1962.

Anita Ekberg on an advertisement poster, “Drink more milk,” The Temptations of Doctor Antonio (Boccaccio ’70), 1962.

The Temptations of Doctor Antonio (Boccaccio ’70), 1962.

Peppino De Filippo, The Temptations of Doctor Antonio (Boccaccio ’70), 1962.

The Temptations of Doctor Antonio (Boccaccio ’70), 1962.

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Ginger and Fred (1986) is a long diatribe against private television and the mediocrity of its fare. “For me, television has nothing in common with cinema: it reduces and mortifies films.

In fact, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a televisual style. […] Television is a domestic appliance, incapable of conveying images by an authentic filmmaker.”6 Fellini even interlarded his film with mock advertisements and over-the-top posters.

The filmmaker targets television and casts a critical eye on this brave new world in which commercials persuade us that everything is for sale.

These were the decisive years when the Italian government started privatising the public channels and Silvio Berlus­coni laid the foundation of a powerful media group. Soon the businessman was arguing that films on television should be broken up to fit in com­mercials. Fellini was furious.

Mock advertisement posters, Ginger and Fred, 1986.

Mock advertise­ments Group of young hippies, Fellini’s Roma, 1972.

Federico Fellini, sketches for a mock poster, The Voice of the Moon, 1990.

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