Fellini's Roma
(1972)
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Fellini's Roma is a virtually plotless autobiographical tribute to Rome, Italy, featuring narration by Fellini himself and a mixture of real-life footage and fictional set pieces. It flows from episode to episode, beginning with the director's early years arriving in Rome in 1931 during the time of Mussolini. Played by Stefano Mayore as a child, he visits the city with classmates and becomes infatuated. Played by Peter Gonzales at age 18, the young Fellini moves in to a tenement building and explores the wild characters living in neighborhood. The events that follow switch between the past and contemporary times, including a story line that involves a 1970s film crew making a movie about Rome. He also incorporates segments of Roman history and problems in the government, including an improvised speech from Gore Vidal. Throughout this journey there are visits to an outdoor restaurant, a movie theater, a music hall, and a brothel. In one famously surreal segment, groups of clergymen gather together for a Catholic fashion show spectacle. After a visit to a street festival and some on-camera interviews, the film concludes with shots of motorcycles driving by the Colosseum. |
Radio Times
Posing as a documentary, this mix of memories, fantasies and idle musings confirms Federico Fellini's visual genius, while also exposing his reckless lack of intellectual rigour. Beginning with youthful impressions of the Eternal City gained from his home town of Rimini, Fellini recalls people and place as the fancy takes him (hence the film's much-criticised shapelessness). Whether reminiscing or chatting to the likes of Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Magnani and Gore Vidal, he makes a companionable, if occasionally overbearing guide. But it's the 1940s music-hall show, the unearthing of an ancient villa and the clerical fashion parade that reveal the maverick maestro close to his best.
