As an institution with a consistent focus on the history of cinema, a comprehensive Federico Fellini retrospective is the least we can do to mark his centennial. He was a great inventor of cinematic forms and a complex artist – paradoxical, tormented, light-hearted, provocative, introspective, brutal, idealistic and jaded all at once. He recreated the world through his lens, while remaining a sharp observer of his contemporaries and the many sensitivities of his time.
Best Foreign Language Film at the 1964 Academy Awards
Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director, is suffering from the "director's block". Despite Anselmi declaring that this movie should be an easy one to make, he is having problems with his artistic vision, and in particular he does not want to tell lies on the screen. He’s blocked when shooting his new science fiction film, including some veiled autobiographical references, and he has lost interest amid artistic and marital difficulties. As Guido struggles half-heartedly to work on the film, a series of flashbacks and dreams delve into his memories and fantasies; they are frequently interwoven with reality. He is trying to relax in a spa after scoring success for his last film. He can't really have peace, however, as the people who have worked with him in the past are constantly asking for more work to do. He wrestles with his conscience but is unable to come up with a new idea. While thinking, he starts to recall the major events of his life, and all the women he has loved and then abandoned. He’s a lot of stress, both at professional and personal level. As he works through these problems in the spa, and he thinks over his childhood. Both at the spa and/or on a film set he’s surrounded by many real people he’ll portray on screen, including his wife Luisa – he loves her but he does not fully understand their marriage - his mistress Carla, the antithesis of Luisa, and an actress named Claudia who, in his opinion, will be his ultimate salvation.
Trailer in VOSTA. The movie will be presented with french subtitles.
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini was one of the greatest Italian writers and directors of the 20th century, and one of the most illustrious filmmakers in the history of cinema. He won the Palme d'or at Cannes in 1960 for La dolce vita, and took home the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film four times (La strada, Nights of Cabiria, 8 ½ and Amarcord), a record he shares with his compatriot Vittorio De Sica. Initially associated with neo-realism, Fellini’s work evolved over the course of the 1960s toward a unique approach related to European modernism, a movement associated with Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard and Andrei Tarkovsky. His films grew increasingly to embrace a proliferation of themes, deliberate artifice and the complete erasure of boundaries between dream, imagination, hallucination and reality. On March 29, 1993, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him a lifetime achievement Oscar, “in recognition of his place as one of the screen’s master storytellers.”
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Federico Fellini aurait eu 100 ans en 2020. Il a fait partie de ces cinéastes qui ont triomphé de leur vivant, dont la reconnaissance de leur apport au cinéma a été affirmée sans ambages, ce qui en retour a sans doute influencé les films qu’ils ont pu encore faire. Non pas qu’il ait gagné des prix à tout coup...
Huit et demi by Fellini | ©Wikipédia
Federico Fellini reçoit l'Oscar du Meilleur film en langue étrangère pour Huit et demi (1964)
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Que se passe-t-il lorsque le réalisateur, qui a déjà signé avec le producteur, est-en panne d'inspiration ? S'il s'agit de Guido, personnage incarné par Mastroianni, c'est une fabuleuse plongée dans un monde onirique. S'il s'agit de Fellini, cela donne un chef-d'œuvre, à travers lequel il nous livre son film le plus audacieux.
