Four seasons in Fellini's life as he remembers their impact

Author: rogierr from Amsterdam, Netherlands
2 June 2001
I never thought of this movie as carnivalesque, but you could argue about that. I like to think it is surrealistic in the way that your memory can distort history and all that you once dreamed of or was scared of. Those memories evolve into caricatures of persons, their behaviour and caricatures of situations. We not only see Federico's memories, but also the supposed memories of people once surrounding him.

Also this is said to be Fellini's most accessible film. Well, I was 15 when I saw it first, and it is still one of my favorites. About 10 Fellini-films later I read that this won the academy-award for best foreign picture, which I never expected, but think is quite rightly. The many surrealistic scenes stick to the mind for decades. Hilarious, tragic, oppressive (upcoming fascism: so most of it must take place just before ww2), nostalgic, poetic: there's something for everyone (and every age) to appeal to, while Fellini makes no compromises. If this was higher-paced, you wouldn't have time to appreciate the details, the photography and the music (Nino Rota). Don't look for a plot here.

The cinematography (Giuseppe Rotunno) has comparable feel with some films by Mike Nichols (Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Graduate (1967)). Rotunno worked with Mike Nichols on three films: Carnal Knowledge, Regarding Henry and Wolf. And with Fellini on 9 films (e.g. City of women (1980). I don't know if this is relevant, but Fellini is said to have had a conversation with Mike Nichols during the production of Catch-22. Otherwise I can't think of many films that are comparable with this fabulous collage of events happening apparently in spring, summer, autumn, winter and ends in spring to conclude some cycle (generation ?) accompanied by beautiful distinctive music. Why o why can't we vote 11 :(

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More intelligible and informed comment

Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN
20 February 2001
I wrote the previous review having just walked to my room after viewing Amarcord. I was ecstatic, and my comments were vague. Now that I have raved, I would now like to show a few of this film's merits.

I had previously thought that Fellini as a filmmaker had died after 8 1/2. His films following that seemed utterly pretentious, as if the director had lost his touch and was trying desperately to figure out what people had liked so much about his films (the exemplary masterpieces being La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, and 8 1/2). I thought that he had decided that it was off-the-wall flamboyancy and densely-layered symbolism that made his films great, and that he was mistaken. I still think this is true for his immediately post-8 1/2 films (Giulietta of the Spirits, Satyricon, and Roma, to be exact). Then, I have now discovered, he made a new discovery.

To be truthful, Amarcord is not much like his pre-Juliette of the Spirits films, his Golden Age. It is, in fact, a lot like the three films of his that I truly dislike, again, Juliette of the Spirits, Satyricon, and Roma. Amarcord, like those films, is quite flamboyant - the colors are orgasmic, as they were in those three bad films, the sex is exaggerated (sort of as if these films all took place in that fantasy world where Guido from 8 1/2 had his harem), and the characters are sort of typical or stereotypical.

So what is different about Amarcord? Well, I think the difference is sincerity. In fact, I would say that Fellini's major trait as a director is not flamboyancy, but sentimentalism. UH-OH! That dreaded word! To call a film "sentimental" is an insult. I do not understand this. In all his best films, Federico Fellini absolutely loves his characters. Often, you will notice that a director loathes the characters of his film, either loathes or just feels cynical and indifferent. This is the trait of such much-ballyhooed films as Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, The Matrix, Lola Rennt, etc. Fellini's characters are his children. A couple of filmmakers have restarted this trend, Paul Thomas Anderson of Boogie Nights and Magnolia fame is the best example. While I think that he is still a maturing filmmaker, he is already a great one. And even towards his most despicible characters he shows love.

Anyway, back to Amarcord, the structure of this film is exquisite. It has no real plot line, which is great. Plot is unnecessary. I would much rather experience a world than a contrived story. Fellini has realized this forever. Even his first film, Variety Lights (it was co-directed, actually) has a lack of plot. The wonderful characters just exist, and you exist along with them. Amarcord's script is revolutionary. How to describe it... Actually, I think of Roma as Fellini's failed attempt to make Amarcord. It is a tourists' guide of sorts to Rome. There, Fellini tried to make a love poem to Rome while also mixing in a decay-of-Europe theme, and it never worked. It felt awfully forced. Amarcord also has one very serious subject: the rise of Fascism in Italy. Many critics have complained about Fellini not criticizing the Fascist Party in this film, but rather treating it kindly, for the most part. In fact, all of the characters whom you fall in love with in the film, except for one man (who we identify, though incorrectly, as Fellini's own father), love and support Mussolini.

Some people are absolutely outraged at this prospect, believing that Fellini is doing a great disservice to his country. This is nuts! I think we're lucky he had any of his characters criticize the Fascist party, because, truth be told, the people of the Italian countryside loved the Fascist Party until after the onset of WWII (see Vittorio de Sica's rather pretentious _Two Women_ to see this; he actually creates a very unbelievable character to oppose the Fascists in that film). The same goes for the Nazis in Germany. The fascist parties of Europe helped them out of the Great Depression (and consequently threw them into a horrible war), so it is no wonder they were beloved by their countrymen. To say different is simply revisionist history.

I don't have much more I want to say, although there is plenty left to discuss. This film is a masterpiece. And though it may be sacrilige, this is my favorite Fellini film. 10/10

Elaborate Nostalgia Piece

Author: ilpositionokb (silverlion03@yahoo.com) from Merced, CA.
22 April 2004
Federico Fellini's "Amarcord" is perhaps the flamboyant directors most entertaining and autobiographical film. His personal recollections on growing up in 1930's pre-war Italy under control of Fascism and the Church, are recorded with lively, colorful images. Fellini stylishly evokes his unique vision of provincial Rimini(Where he was born)through an adolescent viewpoint. The youthful irreverence, casual vulgarity. and tawdry exuberance of the characters flow unrestrained throughout the narrative. Fellini vividly recreates a carnival-like atmosphere filled with incident and observation. He excelled at constructing private worlds; distinct and spirited in their sense of community and place. In "Amarcord" childhood perceptions and improbable encounters are summoned via symbols, dreams, and illusions. Similar to Pirandello, the nature of truth becomes suspect.

Fellini does little to dispel this notion. He once stated that 'nothing stifles the imagination more than a good memory'. Fabrication with Fellini often times blends imperceptibly with reality. "Amarcord"(The title translates as "I Remember") is structured in a series of loosely connected tales. Detailed vignettes of public school shenanigans; curious instruction; and the hyper-critical approach of the church. Cinematographer Guiseppe Rotuno favors shooting with a short lense to exaggerate the perspective. He frequently films the sizable features of the actors in extreme close-up contributing to the film's overstated visuals.

Fellini was notorious for his preference of using actors with strange and unusual faces. He favored grotesqueness over craft for the most part. (The majority of the cast were selected from amateur groups all over Northern Italy. "Amarcord" is filled with memorable and eccentric characters including a blind accordianist; a foul-mouthed midget nun; a buxom tobacco store owner with a penchant for young men; a lascivious and gaseous grandfather; Volpina the town nymph; Theo the sexually-repressed, mad uncle; and an ever present dim-witted street vendor. Erratic personalities who consistently insist on indulging their illusions.

The film uses an on-screen narrator who comments directly into the camera about Rimini's storied past. The pedantic commentator's articulate and austere tone is comically undercut by some off-screen antics.(Ill-timed, loud raspberries; well-tossed snowballs; general heckling, etc.) In the course of the film, an array of odd processions confront the spectator from every conceivable angle. Several of Fellini's films share this infinite movement of characters. Much of the scenario is taken up by the presentation of these large groups of comic figures as they interact around town. "Amarcord", Fellini's last commercial success, is an elaborate nostalgia piece populated with exotic individuals. Endearing misfits who seem to fit perfectly in the director's unconventional universe. One may not know where Fellini is heading half the time, but that's part of his lasting appeal. And in "Amarcord, make no mistake, Fellini is ALL over the place. KB

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Rimini Remembered: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…and Spring

Author: Galina from Virginia, USA
7 July 2005
Federico Fellini's "Amardord" is a series of sketches about his youth in a seaside town Rimini in the 1930s. In this regard it reminds another favorite film of mine, "Fellini's Roma". After repeat viewing, I can understand why many viewers may not like Fellini, especially his so called "later films" –"Amarcord" may seem too crowded, too loud, too vulgar, too bawdy, and too self-indulgent. It is all true, it is. But so is life – loud but tender, vulgar but touching, self-indulgent but full of humor, love and compassion to the film's eccentric characters. It's been said a lot about memorable scenes and images in "Amarcord": yes, the famous peacock that spreads its plumage on the snow, a magnificent ocean liner that is been greeted by the townspeople, a local tobacconist – a woman of such size and proportions that it could be simply dangerous for the teenage boys to try and make their dreams about her come true.

I love "Amarcord" – always have – perhaps, Fellini played all the right notes for me or more likely, Nino Rota wrote his best musical score for the film which could be the best score ever. My favorite image in the film – Gradisca's (local beautician) walk accompanied by Rota's music. What is it in the way Italian women walk, the way their hips sway? Monica Belucci in "Malena", Sofia Lauren in "Marriage Italian Style"? And Magali Noël as object of every man's in Rimini desire – Gradisca ("Help Yourself").Wonderful film – by the power of his magic, by the light of his memory, the great master saved the town where he was young and happy. We can visit it as often as we'd like and it won't go away and disappear - Fellini's Rimini is captured forever. 9.5/10

The best kind of magic...

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Reminiscences of a Great Filmmaker

Author: Benedict_Cumberbatch from Los Angeles, CA
7 March 2006
"Amarcord" was the first Fellini film I saw, about two years ago. It was on TV at 4 o'clock a.m. and I was very sleepy, but I watched it till the end. I wasn't disappointed at all, and I do want to watch it again.

It's not hard to say why this is considered one of Federico Fellini's masterpieces. "Amarcord" (which means "I remember" in the Italian dialect of Emilia-Romagna, the region in which Fellini was born and where the film is set) is one of the most dazzling, personal films you'll ever see. Though Fellini denied that the film is autobiographical (but agreed that has similarities with his own childhood), he made some of the most magic scenes in film history. Nino Rota's unforgettable music score is perfect to highlight the story of a teenage boy's daydreaming (and many other people) in the fascist 1930s Italy. There's a sentence written by the Brazilian author Machado de Assis in one of his novels that is suitable for this magnificent film: "O menino é o pai do homem" ("The Boy is The Man's Father").A well deserved Best Foreign Film Oscar (Nino Rota should've won too – he wasn't even nominated!). 10 out of 10.
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