Federico Fellini

Selected Quotes from Fellini

• All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography

• It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.
• Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be
about me
• It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive
• Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no
line between the imaginary and the real
 Fellini - Trivia

• Inspired the word "Felliniesque“

• The term "paparazzi" comes from a character named Paparazzo in
his film, La Dolce Vita (1960), who is a journalist photographing
celebrities.
• Was voted the 10th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment
Weekly.
 Fellini - Trivia

• His movies La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), 8½ (1963)

and Amarcord (1973) were Oscar-nominated for "Best Foreign
Language Film". All 4 movies won.
• Many of his movies such as 8½ (1963) or Fellini Satyricon (1969)
are influenced by the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his
ideas on the "anima" and the "animus", the role of archetypes and
the collective unconscious.
 Fellini - Trivia
• Has been described as a major influence by, among others,
Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese,
Bernardo Bertolucci and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
• In the 5th edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
(edited by Steven Jay Schneider), 7 of Fellini's films are listed:
La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960),
8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969) and
Amarcord (1973).
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• Fellini was born into a middle-class family on the
rocky Adriatic coast of Rimini, portrayed in ‘Il
Viteloni’ aand ‘Amarcord ‘
• His father, Urbano Fellini (1894–1956), laterv
became a traveling salesman and wholesale vendor
• His mother Ida Barbiani (1896-1984)was a much
more influential figure
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• There is an anecdote that Fellini was born in a train, but
as many of his self-invented stories are, this is probably
false
• He spent his early childhood at a strict Catholic boarding
school. One of the regular punishments the priests meted
out was making their students kneel on grains of maize (his
Catholic upbringing is a frequent element in his work)
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• There is an anecdote (probably invented… as well)
that at the age of eight he ran away from home and
joined a circus for a day.
• Whether true or not, from the age of seven until his
death he was enchanted with the circus, a motif that
appears in almost all of his movies.
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• At school he passed most of his time drawing,
staging puppet shows, and reading ‘Il corriere dei
piccoli’, the popular children’s magazine that
reproduced traditional American cartoons
• The very strong influences in his childhood and
adolescence are his Catholic upbringing and
growing up in Fascist Italy
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• In 1939 Fellini went to Rome, where he enrolled at
the University of Rome's law school. Instead of
attending classes (there is no record he ever attended
a class) he worked for in several places, including
the humor magazine Marc' Aurelio’, where he met
highly influential people, Cesare Zavattini and
Bernardino Zapponi
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• During World War II, Fellini worked as a
scriptwriter for the radio program ‘Cico e Pallina’,
starring Giulietta Masina, the actress who became
Fellini's wife in 1943 and who went on to star in
several of the director's greatest films during the
course of their 50-year marriage.
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• During World War II, Fellini worked as a scriptwriter for
the radio program ‘Cico e Pallina’, starring Giulietta
Masina, the actress who became Fellini's wife in 1943 and
who went on to star in several of the director's greatest films
during the course of their 50-year marriage.
• The turning point in his film career took place in 1945,
when he was asked to co –author the script of Roberto
Rosellini’s ‘Rome - Open City.’
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• In 1946, he worked as both a screenwriter and an
assistant director for Rossellini’s Paisà (Paisan), the
second of Rossellini's Neo-realist trilogy.
• Fellini became one of the most famous screenwriters
in the Italian cinema, a trade we continued also in
his directing years, for his own movies and sometime
others’
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• Fellini's’ debut as director came when he co-
directed Alberto Lattuada on ‘Luci del varietà’
(1951; Variety Lights).
• This was the first in a series of works dealing with
provincial life and was followed by Lo sceicco bianco
(1951; The White Sheik), his solo directing first film
that failed in box office
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• The third film of his series ,I vitelloni (1953; The
bums), was his first critically and commercially
successful work. This film, a bitterly sarcastic look at
the idle “mama's boys” of the provinces, is still
considered by some critics to be Fellini's
masterpiece.
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)

• Fellini's next films formed a trilogy that dealt with

salvation and the fate of innocence in a cruel and
unsentimental world: ‘La Strada’ (1954; “The
Road”), ‘Il Bidone’ (1955; The Swindle) and ‘Le
notti di Cabiria’ (1957; The Nights of Cabiria).
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• His early works Il bidone and La Strada are
transitional movies from Neorealism. The larger
social concerns of humanity, treated by neorealists,
gave way to the exploration of the individual. His
needs, his alienation from society and his tragic
failure to communicate became the main focal point
in the Italian films to follow in the 1960s.
 Fellini (Rimini, 1920 - Roma, 1993)
• Fellini's next film, La dolce vita (1960; “The Sweet
Life”), was his first collaboration with Marcello
Mastroianni, the actor who would come to represent
Fellini's alter ego in several films throughout the next
two decades.
• His next film 81/2 (1963) is perhaps his most praised and
seminal work, and the reason for our meeting tonight .
Filmography (5 Fellini movies I’ll take to a
desert island….)
 Fellini’s and Carl Jung
• A major discovery for Fellini after his great neorealist
period was the work of Carl Jung, whom he first read in
1961 under the supervision of noted Jungian
psychoanalyst, Ernst Bernhard. Jung's seminal ideas on the
anima and the animus, the role of archetypes and the
collective unconscious were vigorously explored in such
classics as 8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Satyricon
(1969), Casanova (1976), and City of Women (1980).
Fellini’s Book of Dreams
 81/2
• What is the origin of its name?
• This movie is semi-autobiographical and auto-referenced to
Fellini's own mental state
• This movie is about a director with a mental block , embarked in a
‘grandiose’ project that he looses interest in.
• He’s haunted by his fears and tend to retreat into his dream world
• The movie alternates between the fantasy world and the real world
while the borders are blurred
 81/2
• This movie can also be understood in terms of Jung’s theory of
the ‘collective unconscious and archetypes “dreams and
fantasies represented a way of gaining access to an
imaginative world of greater significance”.
• 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
 81/2

• “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”
 Some Movies Inspired by 81/2

• Mickey One (Arthur Penn, 1965)

• Alex in Wonderland (Paul Mazursky, 1970)
• Beware of a Holy Whore (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1971)
• La Nuit américaine ("Day for Night") (François Truffaut, 1974)
• All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979)
• Stardust Memories (Woody Allen, 1980),
• Sogni d'oro (Nanni Moretti, 1981),
 Some Movies Inspired by 81/2

• Parad Planet (Vadim Abdrashitov, 1984),

• La Pelicula del rey (Carlos Sorin, 1986)
• Living in Oblivion (Tom DiCillo, 1995)
• 8½ Women (Peter Greenaway, 1999),
• Nine
• 92009 directed by Rob Marshall).
 Full Filmography
Written and directed
• Luci del varietà (1950) (co-credited with Alberto Lattuada)
• Lo sceicco bianco (1952)
• I vitelloni (1953)
• L'amore in città (1953) (segment Un'agenzia matrimoniale)
• La strada (1954)
• Il bidone (1955)
 Filmography
Written and directed
• Le notti di Cabiria (1957)
• La dolce vita (1960)
• Boccaccio '70 (1962) (segment Le tentazioni del Dottor
Antonio)
• 8½ (1963)
• Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
 Filmography
Written and directed
• Histoires extraordinaires (1968) (segment Toby Dammit, based on
Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Never Bet the Devil Your Head")
• Fellini: A Director's Notebook (1969)
• Satyricon (1969)
• I clowns (1970)
• Roma (1972)
• Amarcord (1973)
 Filmography
Written and directed
• Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976)
• Prova d'orchestra (1978)
• La città delle donne (1980)
• E la nave va (1983)
• Ginger and Fred (1986)
• Intervista (1987)
• La voce della luna (1990)
 Filmography
Major screenplay contributions
• L'ultima carrozzella (1943) (dir. Mario Mattoli) Co-scriptwriter
• Roma, città aperta (1945) (dir. Roberto Rossellini) Co-
scriptwriter
• Paisà (1946) (dir. Roberto Rossellini). Co-scriptwriter
• Il delitto di Giovanni Episcopo (1947) (dir. Alberto Lattuada)
Co-scriptwriter
• Senza pietà (1948) (dir. Alberto Lattuada) Co-scriptwriter
 Filmography
Major screenplay contributions
• Il miracolo (1948) (dir. Roberto Rossellini) Co-scriptwriter
• Il mulino del Po (1949) (dir. Alberto Lattuada) Co-
scriptwriter
• Francesco, giullare di Dio (1950) (dir. Alberto Lattuada)
Co-scriptwriter
• Il Cammino della speranza (1950) (dir. Pietro Germi) Co-
scriptwriter
 Filmography
Major screenplay contributions
• La città si defende (1951) (dir. Pietro Germi) Co-scriptwriter
• Persiane chiuse (1951) (dir. Luigi Comencini) Co-scriptwriter
• Il brigante di Tacca del Lupo (1952) (dir. Pietro Germi) Co-
scriptwriter
• Fortunella (1979) (dir. Eduardo De Filippo) Co-scriptwriter
• Lovers and Liars (1979) (dir. Mario Monicelli) Fellini not
credited
 Nominations and Price
• Rome, Open City (Dir. Roberto Rossellini, 1945)
– Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay (with Sergio Amidei)
• Paisà (Dir. Roberto Rossellini, 1946)
– Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay (with Sergio Amidei,
Alfred Hayes, Marcello Pagliero, and Rossellini)
• I Vitelloni (1953)
– Venice Film Festival Silver Lion
– Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay (with Tullio Pinelli,
Ennio Flaiano)
 Nominations and Prices
• La Strada (1954)
– Venice Film Festival Silver Lion
– Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film
– Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay (with Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano,
Brunello Rondi)
– New York Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Film
– Screen Directors Guild Award for Best Foreign Film
• Nights of Cabiria (1957)
– Festival de Cannes Best Actress Award (Giulietta Masina)
– Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film
 Nominations and Prices
• La Dolce Vita (1960)
– Palme d'Or at Festival de Cannes
– Oscar Best Costumes in B&W (Piero Gherardi)
– Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Screenplay (with
Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, Brunello Rondi), Best Art and Set
Direction
– New York Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film
– National Board of Review citation for Best Foreign Language
Film
 Nominations and Prices (81/2)

• 8½ (Otto e Mezzo, 1963)

– Moscow International Film Festival Grand Prize
– Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film
– Oscar for Best Costumes in B&W (Piero Gherardi)
– Oscar nomination for Best Director
– Oscar nomination for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration in
B&W (Piero Gherardi)
 Nominations and Prices (81/2)
– Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbons
for Best Cinematography in B&W (Gianni Di Venanzo), Best
Director (Federico Fellini), Best Original Story (Fellini and
Flaiano), Best Producer (Angelo Rizzoli), Best Score (
Nino Rota), Best Screenplay (Fellini, Pinelli, Flaiano, Rondi),
and Best Supporting Actress (Sandra Milo)
– Berlin Film Festival Special Award
– BAFTA Film Award nomination for Best Film from any Source
 Nominations and Prices (81/2)
– Bodil Award for Best European Film
– Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial
Achievement in Motion Pictures
– New York Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Film
– National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language
Picture
– Grolla d’Oro at Saint Vincent Film Festival for Best Director
– Kinema Junpo Award for Best Foreign Language Film & Best
Foreign Language Film Director
 Nominations and Prices
• Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
– New York Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Film
– National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Story
– Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
• Satyricon (1969)
– Oscar nomination for Best Director
• I clowns (1970)
– National Board of Review citation for Best Foreign Language
Film
 Nominations and Prices

• Amarcord (1974)
– Oscar for Best Foreign Film
– Oscar nomination for Best Director
– Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Original Screenplay
– New York Film Critics Award for Best Direction
– New York Film Critics Award for Best Motion Picture
• Fellini's Casanova (1976)
– Oscar for Best Costumes (Danilo Donati)
 Nominations and Prices

• Intervista (1987)
– Moscow International Film Festival Grand Prize
– Festival de Cannes Special 40th Anniversary Prize
• The Voice of the Moon (1990)
– David di Donatello Awards for Best Actor, Best Production
Design, and Best Editing)
 Distinctions
• 1974
– 27th Cannes Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award (with
French director René Clair)
• 1985
– 42nd Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement
– Film Society of Lincoln Center Award for Cinematic Achievement
• 1989
– Lifetime Achievement Award - European Film Awards
 Distinctions
• 1990
– Japan Art Association's Praemium Imperiale (equivalent of
the Nobel Prize in the visual arts)
• 1993
– Oscar for Lifetime Achievement