Symphonic Dissonance by Selva Anuja

A FEDERICO FELLINI FILM FEST IVAL

A theory of irrational belief left open for interpretation

A theory of irrational belief, left open for interpretation

Symphonic Dissonance

A Federico Fellini Film Festival

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Table of Contents

08 75 51 23 15

The Location

The Films

The Director

The Dream

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“The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the World.” – Federico Fellini

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02 The Dream

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Some people live in dreams; some believe they are only for artists or fools. The truth is, everything that is built, everything that is created begins with your imagination.

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OUR LIVES

Do dream really mean something for real life? We all deal with different problems in our lives, sometimes its about our work, relationships and other external factors. Reality in this fast paced world often includes disappointments which causes anxiety and stress. If you don’t like uncertainty, you’re not alone. Most of us don’t, and will go to great lengths to reduce uncertainty, even in ways that seem quite dysfunctional. Some people live in dreams; some believe they are only for artists or fools. The truth is, everything that is built, everything that is created begins with our imagination. They are visions that have latched on to your heart and won’t let you go. Dreams can come as a thought that flashes into your mind and sometimes encourages you to take action.

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Some of us create escape dreams when our reality is very difficult to manage and we feel the need to balance it with joy. Whereas, reality takes real work that often includes disappointment. To manifest a dream you have to let go of its fantasy and sense of perfection. It’s up to you what your dreams will be – a place to escape or a creative journey. But most of the times the reality haunts you in the form of dreams and gets complex. Usually we tend to find answers through these dreams but we ultimately end up with more questions. Fellini’s movies are also based on his personal dreams and how he balanced his life in reality and dream. Hoping most of us will find meaning to our visions through Federico Fellini’s movies.

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“Experience is what you get while looking for something else.” – Federico Fellini

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23 The Director

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FEDERICO FELLINI

Italian film director Federico Fellini was one of the most celebrated and distinctive filmmakers of the period after World War II. Known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness, he is recognized as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. Federico Fellini was born January 20, 1920, in Rimini, Italy. He met director Roberto Rossellini and joined a team of writers who created Roma, città aperta, often cited as the seminal film of the Italian Neorealist movement. As a director, one of Fellini’s major works is La dolce vita, which starred Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée and Anita Ekberg. Fellini won best foreignlanguage Oscars for La strada, Le notti di Cabiria, 8 1/2 and Amarcord. He also took home a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1993. He started to show signs of creativity early on, and while in high school he served as a caricaturist for a local theater, drawing portraits of movie stars. In 1939, Fellini moved to Rome,

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ostensibly to attend law school but in fact working for satirical magazine Marc’Aurelio. He began writing professionally around this time, working on radio shows. On one such show, he met actress Giulietta Masina, and the couple were married in 1943. Masina later appear in several of her husband’s most important films. Fellini was soon making a name for himself as a screenwriter and formed lasting relationships with the likes of director Roberto Rossellini and playwright Tullio Pinelli. Fellini signed on to join the writing team for Rossellini’s Roma, città aperta (1945), and the screenplay earned Fellini his first Oscar nomination. The partnership with Rossellini would be a fruitful one and would end up sending some of the most important films in Italian history to the screen.

“It is not memory that dominates my films. To say that my films are autobiographical is an overly facile liquidation, a hasty classification. It seems to me that I have invented almost everything: childhood, character, nostalgia, dreams, memories, for the pleasure of being able to recount them”

– Federico Fellini

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Fellini predicts our culture of universal voyeurism. Given how acutely Fellini described the voyeuristic, celebrityobsessed, almost weightless culture we inhabit, it seems extraordinary now that he was ever accused of rejecting realism for vapid fantasy. But Fellini was a politically embattled film-maker. Or rather, he fought a battle not to make political films, of the kind that would satisfy Italian film critics.

avoided invoking the polemic based resistance of working class opposition; Felliniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision sidestepped the archetype by focusing of transcendent values by dealing with the virtual reality of people (rich director, optimistic prostitute ) who are far more desperate than to be seduced or contained by stereotypes and rational social reality: they are misfits, and marginalized classless fantasists.

Fellini perceptively saw that popular culture was not inherently virtuous but might even be fascistic.Fascistic roots to the addiction to unreality. The Disnification and monetization of ecstasy. Antagonists like Berlusconi might be tempted to concede on that point.In reality, postwar Italy, like all Europe was consumerist, mediasaturated and glamour-obsessed, and Fellini reflected all this accurately. He

Of all the Italian postwar filmmakers, Fellini was the most honest about the heritage of fascism. He engages with it indirectly, through his obsession with Italian popular culture. Felliniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s films are full of circuses, provincial actors, music-hall performers: he lingers lovingly, perhaps most of all in Roma, on his memories of kitsch working-class entertainment in the 1930s and 1940s, that is, the Mussolini era.

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HIS INSPIRATION

Archetypes of the collective unconsciuos In order to understand the work of Federico Fellini, one must know a bit about Federico Fellini, the man. Many of the events and characters in his movies are drawn from his own life. Yet, Fellini has repeatedly insisted that none of his films are pure autobiography. Fellini was first introduced to the theories of Jung by an analyst friend, Ernst Bernhard, who lived nearby. He was immediately drawn to Jung’s work regarding dreams and his treatment of symbols. Bernhard guided Fellini through his studies and encouraged him to keep a dream journal of his own. For Fellini, this journal served as a way to openly explore his creativity and to work out ideas that would occasionally appear in his films. The impact of psychoanalysis on the world of art has been very important. The movement

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known as surrealism, which began in the 1920s, is directly influenced by psychoanalytic theory regarding dreams. Film quickly became a major tool of the surrealists. Ironically, the form of art that guarantees the truest depiction of reality became the ideal venue for exploring dreams and the fantastic. Fellini was aware of all of this when he decided to shoot his filmmaking style a bit with 8 1⁄2. However, it wasn’t the writings of Freud that he looked to for inspiration, but those of one of his contemporaries, Carl Gustav Jung. Carl Jung who was Freud’s student disagreed with the stereotyping of the unconscious. He maintained that the unconscious, which is the unperceivable contour of humans, is not merely a reference point for various projections of dreams. He argued that

“What do we mean by inspiration? The capacity for making direct contact between your unconscious and your rational mind. When an artist is happy and spontaneous, he is successful because he reaches the unconscious and translates it with a minimum of interference... The transformation from dream to film takes place in the awakened conscious state, and it’s clear that consciousness involves intellectual presumption which detracts from creativity.” – Federico Fellini

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the unconscious is in fact a sum of the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. According to him, there exists a portion of the unconscious that is shared by all people. Though individual’s language and ways of expressing emotions may differ, the emotions themselves remain the same. Within the collective unconscious lie images known as archetypes. These archetypes are universal thoughts or predispositions to respond to the world in certain ways. Though they never fully enter consciousness, the archetypes appear in symbolic form through art, myths and dreams.

a new creative potential that resulted in the production of 8 1⁄2. To him, “dreams and fantasies represented a way of gaining access to an imaginative world of greater significance”, otherwise known as the collective unconscious. The symbols and archetypes contained in the collective unconscious provided Fellini with a new vocabulary of imagery that could be used to appeal to viewers on an emotional, rather than simply visual level.

Fellini was very much inspired by Jung’s philosophy on dreams. His childhood memories and his association with women are all part of his personal unconscious, now resurfacing through his personal crisis. The glamorized childhood, the harem that has him coexisting with his wife and all his love interests is a depiction of that collective unconscious constructed through the medium of cinema. One cannot be looked at as a disjoint entity from the other; both “compliment” each other’s existence. Fellini’s interest in Jung was crucial to the development of his

The opening scene of 8½ is a grandiose depiction of the Jungian integration of unconscious with the waking consciousness. It marks the subtext of the film from here on, the decent of man into hopelessness, fighting from his bourgeois life of being a stagnated director and finding solace in his dreams. It highlights the Italian director’s penchant for juxtaposing the real with the imaginary, or the surreal. The scene, which focuses on the psychological state of the character Guido, demonstrates Fellini’s ability to use film as a tool for examining the human psyche. He succeeds in creating scenery that is fantastic and ambiguous, yet real and strangely familiar, much like the mind itself. It should stand as no surprise that

signature filmmaking style. Apparently, when faced with the daunting task of creating a follow-up to La Dolce Vita, Fellini began studying Jung and realized

in his attempt to analyze the human condition, Fellini’s work is informed by psychoanalytic theory, especially that of Jung.

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HIS TRADE MARKS

Cast: Marcello Mastroianni Fellini belives Mastroianni as his alter ego. Marcello Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, Italy in 1924, but soon his family moved to Turin and then Rome. During WW2 he was sent to a German prison camp, but he managed to escape and hide in Venice. He debuted in films as an extra in Marionette (1939), then started working for the Italian department of "Eagle Lion Films" in Rome and joined a drama club, where he was discovered by director Luchino Visconti. In 1957 Visconti gave him the starring part in his Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation Le Notti Bianche (1957) and in 1958 he was fine as a little thief in Mario Monicelli's comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). But his real breakthrough came in 1960, when Federico Fellini cast him as an attractive, weary-eyed journalist of the Rome jet-set in La Dolce Vita (1960); that film was the genesis of his "Latin

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lover" persona, which Mastroianni himself often denied by accepting parts of passive and sensitive men. He would again work with Fellini in several major films, like the exquisite 8Â˝ (1963) (as a movie director who finds himself at a point of crisis) and the touching Ginger and Fred (1986) (as an old entertainer who appears in a TV show). He also appeared as a tired novelist with marital problems in Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (1961), as an impotent young man in Mauro Bolognini's Bell' Antonio (1960) , as an exiled prince in John Boorman's Leo the Last (1970), as a traitor in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Allonsanfan (1974) and as a sensitive homosexual in love with a housewife in Ettore Scola's A Special Day (1977). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, for Divorce Italian Style (1961), A Special Day

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Cast: Giulietta Masina Appears as long-suffering, often abused but never down-hearted women in Federico Fellini's films. Born in San Giorgio di Piano, Giulietta

as director (the film credits both Fellini

Masina spent part of her teenage years

and Lattuada); and Europe '51 (1952),

living with a widowed aunt in Rome,

directed by Roberto Rossellini. Her

where she cultivated a passion for the

artistic partnership with her husband

theater and studied for a degree in

really took off with the Oscar-winning

Philosophy. She began her career on

La Strada (1954), followed by Il Bidone

the radio with the program "Terzoglio"

(1955) and the widely acclaimed Nights

(1942), about the adventures of

of Cabiria (1957), which again won an

newlyweds Cico and Pallina from scripts

Oscar and brought her the award for

written by Federico Fellini. The series

Best Female Performance at the Cannes

brought her great success. The following

Film Festival. Over the following years

year she married Fellini and became the

she played many memorable roles in

inspirational muse for many of his films.

such films as Fortunella (1958), directed

She made her cinema debut in Without Pity (1948), directed by Alberto Lattuada, but really established her reputation with her next few films: Behind Closed Shutters (1951), directed

by Eduardo De Filippo; and the Wild Wild Women (1959), directed by Renato Castellani; and later in Juliet of the Spirits (1965) and Ginger and Fred (1986), both directed by Fellini.

by Luigi Comencini, Variety Lights

From 1966 to 1969 she hosted the

(1950), which also marked Fellini's debut

immensely popular radio show "Lettere

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Music Composer: Nino Rota Music scores in many Federico Fellini films. Born in Milan in 1911 into a family

a degree in literature from the University

of musicians, Nino Rota was first a

of Milan. In 1937, he began a teaching

student of Orefice and Pizzetti. Then,

career that led to the directorship of the

still a child, he moved to Rome where

Bari Conservatory, a title he held from

he completed his studies at the

1950 until his death in 1979. After his

Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in 1929

"childhood" compositions, Nino Rota

with Alfredo Casella. In the meantime,

wrote the following operas: Ariodante

he had become an 'enfant prodige',

(Parma 1942), Torquemada (1943), Il

famous both as a composer and as an

cappello di paglia di Firenze (Palermo

orchestra conductor. His first oratorio,

1955), I due timidi (RAI 1950, London

"L'infanzia di San Giovanni Battista,"

1953), La notte di un neurastenico

was performed in Milan and Paris as

(Premio Italia 1959, La Scala 1960), Lo

early as 1923 and his lyrical comedy,

scoiattolo in gamba (Venezia 1959),

"Il Principe Porcaro," was composed in

Aladino e la lampada magica (Naples

1926. From 1930 to 1932, Nino Rota

1968), La visita meravigliosa (Palermo

lived in the USA. He won a scholarship

1970), Napoli milionaria (Spoleto

to the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia

Festival 1977). He also wrote the

where he attended classes in

following ballets: La rappresentazione

composition taught by Rosario Scalero

di Adamo ed Eva (Perugia 1957), La

and classes in orchestra taught by Fritz

Strada (La Scala 1965), Aci e Galatea

Reiner. He returned to Italy and earned

(Rome 1971)

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THE INTERVIEW

The following interview with Fellini by Bert Cardullo took place during the summer of 1986, not long after the release of ‘Ginger and Fred’.

BERT CARDULLO: Signor Fellini, tell me a little about your background and your first film job. FEDERICO FELLINI: I reached the cinema through screenplays, and these through my collaboration on humorous publications – Marc’ Aurelio especially – for which I wrote stories and columns in addition to drawing cartoons. If, one day in 1944, Roberto Rossellini hadn’t invited me to collaborate on the screenplay of Rome, Open City, I would never even have considered the cinema as a profession. Rossellini helped me go from a foggy, apathetic period in my life to the stage of cinema. It was an important encounter but more in the sense of my future destiny than in the sense of influence. As far as I’m concerned, Rossellini’s was an Adam-like paternity; he is a kind of forefather from whom many of my

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generation descend. Let’s just say I was open to this particular endeavour, and he appeared at the right time to guide me into it. But I wasn’t thinking of becoming a director at this juncture. I felt I lacked the director’s propensity to be tyrannically overpowering, coherent and fussy, hardworking, and – most important – authoritative on every subject: all endowments missing from my temperament. The conviction that I could direct a film came later, when I was directly involved on one and could no longer pull out. After having written a number of screenplays for Rossellini, Pietro Germi, and Alberto Lattuada, I wrote a story called Variety Lights. It contained my recollections of when I toured Italy with a variety troupe. Some of those memories were true, others invented. Two of us directed the film: Lattuada

and myself. He said ‘camera,’ ‘action,’ ‘cut,’ ‘everyone out,’ ‘silence,’ etc. And I stood by his side in a rather comfortable yet irresponsible position. The same year, 1950, I wrote a story called The White Sheik together with Tullio Pinelli. Michelangelo Antonioni was supposed to direct the film, but he didn’t like the screenplay, so Luigi Rovere – the producer – told me to film it. I can therefore unequivocally state that I never decided to be a director. Rovere’s rather reckless faith induced me to become one. The vocation itself was altogether rather mysterious to me. As I said, my temperament led me elsewhere. Even today, when a film is finished, I find myself wondering how the devil I could have been so active, gotten so many people into motion, made a thousand decisions a day, said ‘yes’ to this and ‘no’ to that, and at the same time not have fallen madly in love with all those beautiful women that actresses are. BC: Apart from women, how do you find inspiration in our mediocre times? Or perhaps you don’t find that we are constantly surrounded by mediocrity. FF: No, it’s a barbaric era all right. People say this is an era of transition, but that’s true of every period. Certainly we have no more myths left. The Christian myth doesn’t seem to be able to help humanity anymore. So, we’re waiting for a new myth to comfort us. But which one? Nonetheless, it’s very interesting to live at a time like this. We must accept the time in which we live.

We have no choice. Having said that, I feel that my mission in life, my vocation if you will, is to be a witness; and if your life consists of such testimony, you have to accept what you witness. Sure, you can be nostalgic about the past and how great it was, and you can lament the erosion of values, but there’s no point in doing that. From a generational point of view, I’m aware that there’s a certain regret about things past, but I personally try to live with the confidence that the future will assimilate the past. The past will transform itself into the future, so in a sense it will be relived—not in regret, but as part and parcel of the world to come. BC: Does this vision of yours have to do with your looking into an interior reality rather than an exterior one? Are the dreams and fantasies of which an interior reality consists the basis of your inspiration? FF: I don’t dwell too much on what it is that inspires me. Instead I have to be in touch with my delusions, my discomforts, and my fears; they provide me the material with which I work. I make a bundle of all these, along with my disasters, my voids, and my chasms, and I try to observe them with sanity, in a conciliatory manner. BC: What are you afraid of, if I may ask? FF: I’m afraid of solitude, of the gap between action and observation in which solitude dwells. That’s a reflection on my existence, in which I attempt to act without being swept away by the action, so as to be able to bear

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witness at the same time. I fear losing my spontaneity precisely because of such testimony or witnessing, because of my habit of constantly analysing and commenting. I also fear old age, madness, decline. I fear not being able to make love ten times a day... BC: Do you make films because solitude ranks high among your fears? FF: Making films for me is not just a creative outlet but an existential expression. I also write and paint in isolation, in an ascetic manner. Perhaps my character is too hard, too severe. The cinema itself is a miracle, though, because you can live life just as you tell it. It’s very stimulating. For my temperament and sensibility, this correlation between daily life and the life I create on screen is fantastic. Creative people live in a very vague

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territory, where what we call ‘reality’ and ‘fantasy’ are disjointed – where one interferes with the other. They both become one and the same thing. In sum, I enjoy telling stories with an inextricable mixture of sincerity and invention, as well as a desire to astound, to shamelessly confess and absolve myself, to be liked, to interest, to moralize, to be a prophet, witness, clown... to make people laugh and to move them. Are any other motives necessary? BC: Not really! Let’s talk now about the description of your early films as socially realistic, while your later ones are described as more hallucinatory. FF: You could call hallucination a ‘deeper reality.’ Critics have a need to categorize and classify. I don’t see it that way. I detest the world of labels, the

world that confuses the label with the thing labeled. I just do what I have to do. Realism is a bad word, in any event. In a sense, everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real; I see much reality in the imaginary. BC: Do you see yourself as a romantic? FF: I don’t think I have a romantic view of the world, because I don’t recognize a particular view of the world. I probably have a romantic conception of the artist and art, but of life, no. I like to probe behind appearances and discover what’s really there, like a naughty boy. In this I recognize the skeptic, who tries not to put too much faith in façades, who tries to unmask falsehood. I think that’s the most important thing: I have no ideology, but if I had to identify myself

with one, it would be that the beauty of art is in its unmasking of falsehood; in educating; in planting in people’s minds the suspicion that reality is something more complex than it appears to be; in giving people the pleasure of suspicion, not just the burden of doubt; in keeping them from feeling too protected by taboos, concepts, ideologies. Life is more complex than all that. If, in my pictures, I were asked to recognize a motif – a thread that runs through them – I’d say that this is the only one. It’s an attempt to create emancipation from conventional schemes, liberation from moral rules: that is to say, an attempt to retrieve life’s authentic rhythm or mode, its vital cadence, as opposed to all the inauthentic forms life is forced to take. That, I believe, is the central idea to be

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found in all the films I have made. BC: Do you feel transformed when you’re on the set, or are you always the same? FF: I’m always the same confused man. There’s no difference. When I work, I am perhaps healthier because the pressure to do, to escape, to be alive gives me added neurotic energy. When I’m in between pictures, I’m a bit weaker. But I’m always in the same situation of not knowing what I’m doing. BC: How does such confusion evolve into a unified, focused vision? FF: That’s a very difficult question to answer. I don’t want to appear too mystical or too mysterious, but there’s

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a part of me that sometimes comes out at the last moment. The more confused I am, the more I’m ready for this new tenant that inhabits my imagination to take possession of me. This is what makes everything fall into place. The more I feel lost, the more I believe I can be helped by this unknown source of knowledge or understanding. It’s magic. Perhaps I’m being a bit superstitious with this trust of mine in the unknown. Of course, what I really mean by saying that I don’t know what I’m doing is that my knowledge comes after I have tried everything. I look at a hundred faces to choose one that will just inhabit a dark corner of the screen, and only for a very short period of time. That’s the kind of effort I’m talking about.

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“Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real.” – Federico Fellini

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The Films

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65 wins and 38 nominations

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FILMOGRAPHY

1990

The Voice of the Moon

1963

81/2

1986

Ginger and Fred

1962

Boccacio '70

1983

And the Ship Sails On

1960

La Dolce Vita

1976

Fellini Casanova

1957

Nights of Cabiria

1972

Roma

1955

Il Bidone

1973

Amarcord

1954

La Strada

1991

The King of Ads

1953

Love in the City (Documentary)

1970

The clowns ( Documentary)

1953

Il Vitelloni

1969

Fellini Satyricon

1952

The White Sheik

1968

Spirits of the Dead

1950

Variety Lights

1965

Juliet of the Spirits

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8Â˝ 1963 Drama, Fantasy 138 Min Black and White

Cast: Marcello Mastroianni Anouk AimĂŠe Claudia Cardinale

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Trying to relax after his last big hit, famed director Guido Anselmi is working on his latest movie - part science fiction, part commentary on Catholicism, but most importantly primarily autobiography. Despite Anselmi declaring that this movie should be an easy one to make, he is having problems with his artistic vision, specifically as he does not want to tell a lie on screen. From the stress, he has checked himself into a spa to help him with many of his problems, both professional and personal. As he works through these problems, he reminisces about his childhood and fantasizes about how he either sees things playing out or how he hopes they will play out. Surrounding him at the spa and/or on set are many of the real life people who will be portrayed on screen including: his wife Luisa who he loves but who he does not fully understand especially as it relates to their marriage; his mistress Carla, the antithesis of Luisa; and an actress named Claudia who he sees as providing his ultimate salvation. At the end, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an autobiographical film of Fellini, about the trials and tribulations of film making.

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“I have seen 8½ over and over again, and my appreciation only deepens. It does what is almost impossible: Fellini is a magician who discusses, reveals, explains and deconstructs his tricks, while still fooling us with them. He claims he doesn't know what he wants or how to achieve it, and the film proves he knows exactly, and rejoices in his knowledge.” Roger Ebert, August 5, 2001

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REVIEW

The conventional wisdom is that

that you have to cave in and enjoy it,

Federico Fellini went wrong when he

regardless of theory. This conventional

abandoned realism for personal fantasy;

view is completely wrong. What we think

that starting with "La Dolce Vita" (1959),

of as Felliniesque comes to full flower

his work ran wild through jungles

in "La Dolce Vita" and "8 1/2." His later

of Freudian, Christian, sexual and

films, except for "Amarcord," are not as

autobiographical images. The precise

good, and some are positively bad, but

observation in "La Strada" (1954) was

they are stamped with an unmistakable

the high point of his career, according

maker's mark. The earlier films,

to this view, and then he abandoned

wonderful as they often are, have their

his neorealist roots. "La Dolce Vita" was

Felliniesque charm weighted down by

bad enough, "8 1/2" (1963) was worse,

leftover obligations to neorealism.

and by the time he made "Juliet of the Spirits" (1965), he was completely off the rails.

The critic Alan Stone,are best when they are free to evoke many associations one viewing." True enough. But true of

Then all is downhill, in a career that

all great films, while you know for sure

lasted until 1987, except for "Amarcord"

what you've seen after one viewing of a

(1974), with its memories of Fellini's

shallow one.

childhood; that one is so charming

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LA DOLCE VITA 1960 Drama, Comedy 174 Min Black and White

Cast: Marcello Mastroianni Anita Ekberg Anouk AimĂŠe

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In one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s, Federico Fellini featured Marcello Mastrioanni as gossip columnist Marcello Rubini. Having left his dreary provincial existence behind, Marcello wanders through an ultra-modern, ultra-sophisticated, ultra-decadent Rome. He yearns to write seriously, but his inconsequential newspaper pieces bring in more money, and he's too lazy to argue with this setup. He attaches himself to a bored socialite (Anouk AimĂŠe), whose search for thrills brings them in contact with a bisexual prostitute. The next day, Marcello juggles a personal tragedy (the attempted suicide of his mistress (Yvonne Furneaux)) with the demands of his profession (an interview with none-too-deep film star Anita Ekberg). Fellini's hallucinatory, circus-like depictions of modern life first earned the adjective "Felliniesque" in this celebrated movie, which also traded on the idea of Rome as a hotbed of sex and decadence. A huge worldwide success, La Dolce Vita won several awards, including a New York Film Critics CIrcle award

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“I have heard theories that Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” catalogs the seven deadly sins, takes place on the seven hills of Rome, and involves seven nights and seven dawns, but I have never looked into them, because that would reduce the movie to a crossword puzzle. I prefer it as an allegory, a cautionary tale of a man without a center.” Roger Ebert, January 5, 1997

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REVIEW

Fellini shot the movie in 1959 on the Via

(Magali Noel) at home. In a nightclub, he

Veneto, the Roman street of nightclubs,

picks up a promiscuous society beauty

sidewalk cafes and the parade of the

(Anouk Aimee), and together they visit

night. His hero is a gossip columnist,

the basement lair of a prostitute. The

Marcello, who chronicles “the sweet

episode ends not in decadence but

life” of fading aristocrats, second-rate

in sleep; we can never be sure that

movie stars, aging playboys and women

Marcello has had sex

of commerce. The role was played by

with anyone.

Marcello Mastroianni, and now that his life has ended we can see that it was his most representative. The two Marcellos character and actor -- flowed together into a handsome, weary, desperate man, who dreams of someday doing something good, but is trapped in a life of empty nights and lonely dawns.

Another dawn. And we begin to understand the film’s structure: A series of nights and dawns, descents and ascents. Marcello goes down into subterranean nightclubs, hospital parking lots, the hooker’s hovel and an ancient crypt. And he ascends St. Peter’s dome, climbs to a choir loft, and to the

The movie leaps from one visual

high-rise apartment of Steiner (Alain

extravaganza to another, following

Cuny), the intellectual who is his hero.

Marcello as he chases down stories

He will even fly over Rome.

and women. He has a suicidal fiancee

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NIGHTS OF CABIRIA 1957 Drama 110Min Black and white

Cast: Giulietta Masina François Périer Franca Marzi

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Nights of Cabiria opens with Cabiria and her boyfriend playfully embracing by the seaside â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and then he shoves her into the water and steals her purse. Cabiria is revived by some local boys and runs off by herself, shouting. What follows is a series of similarly humiliating episodes, in which the defiantly positive prostitute Cabiria is hurt, but never broken. She gets picked up by movie star Alberto Lazzati and taken to his palatial estate. However, his mistress shows up and Cabiria gets locked in the bathroom all night with the dog. She then joins her fellow prostitutes for a blessing from the Virgin Mary, and ends up getting drunk and wandering into a local show, where the hypnotist invites her to join him on-stage. The audience heckles her, and she toughly reminds them of her independence and that she owns her own house. There she meets Oscar, an accountant who romantically pursues her. Despite the warnings of her fellow prostitute friend, Wanda, she prepares to sell all her belongings and accept Oscar's proposal of marriage. After being ruthlessly taken advantage of once again, Cabiria walks off alone with a smirk of hope.

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Cabiria’s eyebrows are straight, black horizontal lines, sketched above her eyes like a cartoon character’s. Her shrug, her walk, her way of making a face, all suggest a performance. Of course a prostitute is always acting in one way or another, but Cabiria seems to have a character in mind--perhaps Chaplin’s Little Tramp, with touch of Lucille Ball, who must have been on Italian TV in the 1950s. Roger Ebert, August 18, 1998

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REVIEW

As artificial as Cabiria’s behavior

There is also a 7 1/2-minute scene that

sometimes seems, it always seems her

was suppressed in earlier versions of

own, and this little woman carries herself

the film.

proudly through the gutters of Rome.

Seeing it in its new glory, with a score

“Nights of Cabiria,” directed by Masina’s

by Fellini’s beloved composer Nina

husband, Federico Fellini, in 1957, won

Rota, “Nights of Cabiria” plays like a

her the best actress award at Cannes,

plucky collaboration on an adult theme

and the film won the Oscar for best

between Fellini and Chaplin. Masina

foreign picture--his second in a row, after

deliberately based her Cabiria on the

“La Strada” in 1956 (he also won for “8

Little Tramp, I think--most obviously with

1/2” in 1963 and “Amarcord” in 1974).

some business with an umbrella, and a

Strange, then, that it is one of Fellini’s

struggle with the curtains in a nightclub.

least-known works--so unfamiliar that

But while Chaplin’s character inhabited

he was able to recycle a lot of the same

a world of stock villains and happy

underlying material in “La Dolce Vita”

endings, Cabiria survives at the low

only three years later.

end of Rome’s prostitution trade. When

Now the movie has been re-released in a restored 35-mm. print, with retranslated, bolder subtitles giving a better idea of the dialogue by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

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she’s picked up by a famous actor and he asks her if she works the Via Veneto, the center of Rome’s glitz, she replies matter-of-factly that, no, she prefers the

AMARCORD 1973 Comedy, Drama 123 min Color

Cast: Magali NoĂŤl Bruno Zanin Pupella Maggio

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One year in a small northern Italian coastal town in the late 1930's is presented. The slightly off-kilter cast of characters are affected by time and location, the social mores dictated largely by Catholicism and the national fervor surrounding Il Duce aka Benito Mussolini and Fascism. The stories loosely center on a mid-teen named Titta and his household including his adolescent brother, his ever supportive mother who is always defending him against his father, his freeloading maternal Uncle Lallo, and his paternal grandfather who slyly has eyes and hands for the household maid. The several vignettes presented include: the town bonfire in celebration of spring; life at Titta's school with his classmates and teachers; Aurelio, Titta's father, at his beachfront construction worksite and his and his workmates' encounter with Volpina; Titta's confessions to the priest about his burgeoning sexuality; Aurelio being questioned by authorities about his anti-Fascist leanings; a fantasy sequence at the luxurious Grand Hotel; a family outing with Aurelio's institutionalized brother, Teo; many townsfolk embarking on a sail to witness a marine event passing by their town; an annual car race; Titta's fantasy encounter with the tobacconist after closing hours come true; events surrounding the big snowfall that year, including a family tragedy; and an event centering on Gradisca and her future.

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If ever there was a movie made entirely out of nostalgia and joy, by a filmmaker at the heedless height of his powers, that movie is Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord.” The title means “I remember” in the dialect of Rimini, the seaside town of his youth, but these are memories of memories, transformed by affection and fantasy and much improved in the telling. Here he gathers the legends of his youth, where all of the characters are at once larger and smaller than life -- flamboyant players on their own stages. Roger Ebert, January 4, 2004

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REVIEW

At the center is an overgrown young

man can know is that he will live forever,

adolescent, the son of a large, loud

love all the women, drink all the wine,

family, who is dizzied by the life churning

make all the movies and become Fellini.

all around him -- the girls he idealizes,

Fellini was more in love with breasts

the tarts he lusts for, the rituals of the

than Russ Meyer, more wracked with

village year, the practical jokes he

guilt than Ingmar Bergman, more of

likes to play, the meals that always

a flamboyant showman than Busby

end in drama, the church’s thrilling

Berkeley. He danced so instinctively to

opportunities for sin and redemption,

his inner rhythms that he didn’t even

and the vaudeville of Italy itself -- the

realize he was a stylistic original; did

transient glories of grand hotels and

he ever devote a moment’s organized

great ocean liners, the play-acting of

thought to the style that became known

Mussolini’s fascist costume party.

as “Felliniesque,” or was he simply

Sometimes from this tumult an image

following the melody that always played

of perfect beauty will emerge, as when

when he was working? The melody was

in the midst of a rare snowfall, the

literal most of the time. Like his Italian

count’s peacock escapes and spreads

contemporaries, he post-synched most

its dazzling tail feathers in the blizzard.

of his dialogue, so it didn’t matter so

Such an image is so inexplicable and

much how his actors read their lines, ll

irreproducible that all the heart can do

orchestra or a phonograph to supply

is ache with gratitude, and all the young

music while a scene was being filmed.

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JULIET OF THE SPIRITS 1965 Drama, Fantasy 137 Min Color

Cast: Giulietta Masina Sandra Milo Mario Pisu

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Juliet lives in a beautiful house by the ocean. Her sisters, and especially her Mother overshadow her with their beauty. She is a spiritual, superstitious and naive woman. She visits a psychic seer who tells her she must follow the sex trade in order to be happy. Not long after she meets her eccentric and sexy neighbour, Suzy, who, by all counts appears to be a high class prostitute and encourages Juilet into sexual acts which make her guilty and nervous. A rare night when her husband is at home she wakes up to catch him talking to another woman on the phone. He calls out the name "Gabriella" while sleeping, but when she questions him he lies his way out of it. She finds out who Gabriella is and fears her husband will leave her. Juliet begins having visions who accuse and terrorize her. The pinnacle of the visions comes at the end where it is implied she realizes she would be better off without her husband and is ultimately emotionally emancipated.

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Fellini lore has it that the master made â&#x20AC;&#x153;Juliet of the Spiritsâ&#x20AC;? as a gift for his wife. Like many husbands, he gave her the gift he really wanted for himself. The movie, starring a sadeyed Giulietta Masina who fears her husband is cheating, suggests sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be happier if she were more like her neighbor, a buxom temptress who entertains men in a tree house. Roger Ebert, August 5, 2001

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REVIEW

Fellini believed the movie turned the

dressed flamboyantly in tight colors,

tables on his two previous films, “La

feather boas, and necklines that flaunt

Dolce Vita” and “8 1/2,” which were

her charms. In “8 1/2,” about a harassed

autobiographical laments about his own

and philandering movie director, the

problems. This one, he felt, was about

wife is also a chain-smoker with a trim

Giulietta. Watching it, I was reminded of

haircut--and the mistress is played by

Daryl F. Zanuck, who said, “But enough

Sandra Milo, who looks exactly as she

about me! What did you think of my

does here. In “8 1/2,” the director has

movie?” “Juliet of the Spirits” is not an

a daydream in which in which his wife

attempt to identify with Masina’s point

and mistress are friends who share in

of view, but a bald-faced exercise in

his care and feeding. In “Juliet of the

Fellini’s self-justification. When Juliet has

Spirits,” Fellini seems to be suggesting

fantasies, they’re Fellini’s fantasies. That’s

that if only his wife were more like

why at the end it isn’t Federico who is

this pneumatic sex toy, she would be

burned alive.

happier. Our conclusion: She might not

One clue to the movie’s buried message is in the casting. Giulietta Masina plays

be happier, but her husband certainly would be.

Juliet, a chain-smoker with a trim little

The movie is generally considered to

haircut and an understated wardrobe.

mark the beginning of Fellini’s decline.

Sandra Milo plays her neighbor Suzy,

Some feel his great days came1950s.

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The Location

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Foreign Cinema

2534 Mission Street San Francisco

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FOREIGN CINEMA

From the South Take 101 North. Get off at Cesar Chavez Street exit West. Take a right onto Mission Street. Foreign Cinema is located on your left between 22nd and 21st Streets. From the East Bay Take 80 West. Get off at Cesar Chavez Street exit West. Take a right onto Mission Street. Foreign Cinema is located on your left between 22nd and 21st Street. From the North After Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, follow Lombard Street. Take right onto Gough Street. Follow Gough across town and then make right onto Market Street. Take first left onto Valencia Street. Take left onto 21st Street, and then right onto Mission Street. Foreign Cinema is located on your right between 21st and 22nd Street.

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21st St

Mission St

Valencia St

Foreign Cinema

22nd St

Mission Stree t

Valencia St

23rd St 23rd St t Mission Stree

Valencia St S

24th St

n 24th St Mission Statio

24th St

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Avenue

Folsom St

ess Avenue South Van N

Folsom St

ess Avenue

South Van N

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Folsom St

ess South Van N

24th St

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