Federico Fellini

Infobox Actor
name = Federico Fellini

---

imagesize = 300px
birthdate = birth date|1920|1|20|mf=y
location = Rimini, Italy
deathdate = Death date and age|1993|10|31|1920|01|20
deathplace = Rome, Italy
academyawards = Best Foreign Language Film
1956 "La strada"
1957 "Nights of Cabiria"
1963 "8½"
1974 "Amarcord"
Academy Honorary Award
1993 Lifetime Achievement
baftaawards = Best Production Design
1978 "Il Casanova di Federico Fellini"
goldenglobeawards = Best Foreign Language Film
1963 "8½"
awards = Silver Lion
1953 "I Vitelloni"
1954 "La Strada"
Career Golden Lion
1985 Lifetime Achievement
Golden Palm
1960 "La dolce vita"
NYFCC Award for Best Director
1973 "Amarcord"
NYFCC Award for Best Film
1973 "Amarcord"
NYFCC Award for Best Foreign Language Film
1960 "La dolce vita"
1963 "8½"
NBR Award for Best Foreign Language Film
1963 "8½"
1974 "Amarcord"
yearsactive = (1945 - 1990)
spouse = Giulietta Masina (1943 - 1993)

Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI [ [http://www.quirinale.it/onorificenze/DettaglioDecorato.asp?idprogressivo=15661&iddecorato=15241 quirinale.it] ] (January 20 1920 – October 31 1993) was an Italian film director. Known for a distinct style which meshes fantasy and baroque images, he is considered as one of the most influential and widely revered film-makers of the 20th century.

Biography

In August 1918, Fellini's mother, Ida Barbiani (1896-1984) married a traveling salesman and wholesale vendor named Urbano Fellini (1894-1956) in a civil ceremony (with the religious celebration the following January). After Fellini's birth in 1920, two more children arrived: Riccardo (1921-1991) and Maria Maddalena (m. Fabbri; 1929-2002). Urbano Fellini was originally from Gambettola, where the young Federico vacationed at his grandparents' house for several years.

Born and raised in Rimini, Fellini's childhood experiences would later play an important part in many of his films, in particular, "I vitelloni" (1953), "8½" (1963) and "Amarcord" (1973). It is misleading, however, to assume that all his films contain autobiographical anecdotes and fantasies. Intimate friends, such as screenwriters Tullio Pinelli and Bernardino Zapponi, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno and set designer Dante Ferretti have insisted on how Fellini invented his own memories simply for the pleasure of narrating them in his films. [See Bernardino Zapponi's memoir, "Il mio Fellini" (Roma:Marsilio Editori), 1995, and Fellini's own insistence on having invented his cinematic memories in "I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon", ed. Damian Pettigrew (New York: Abrams), 2003.]

During Mussolini's Fascist regime, Fellini and his brother, Riccardo, were part of the "Avanguardista", the fascist youth group that every adolescent Italian male was obliged to join. After moving to Rome in the spring of 1939, Fellini landed a well-paid job writing articles for the hugely popular satirical weekly, "Marc’Aurelio". It was at this time that he interviewed Aldo Fabrizi, inaugurating a friendship that would lead to professional collaboration and radio work. Of conscription age since 1939, Fellini had nonetheless managed to avoid being drafted through a suite of clever ruses. Commenting on this turbulent epoch, Fellini biographer Tullio Kezich notes that although "the "Marc'Aurelio" period was happy, the happiness masked a phase of shameless political apathy. Many living under the Mussolini dictatorship during its last years experienced the schizophrenic tug between official loyalty to the regime and the intrinsic freedom of humor." [ See Kezich, "Fellini: His Life and Work", p. 36.]

In 1942, Fellini met Giulietta Masina, and a year later, on October 30, 1943, they were married. Thus began one of the great creative partnerships in world cinema. Several months after their marriage, Masina fell down the stairs and suffered a miscarriage. Then, on March 22, 1945, Pierfederico (nicknamed Federichino) was born but died a mere month later on April 24. These family tragedies affected the couple in profound ways, particularly in the conception of "La strada" (1954). [See Kezich, "Fellini: His Life and Work", p.157 and the filmed interview with Luigi Titta Benzi in "Fellini: I'm a Born Liar" (2003).]

The fascist regime fell on July 25, 1943, and the Allies liberated Rome on June 4, 1944. During that euphoric summer, Fellini set up the Funny-Face Shop with his friend De Seta, drawing caricatures of Allied soldiers for money. It was here that Roberto Rossellini came to see Fellini about his project, titled "Rome, Open City" (1945). Rossellini wanted the young man to introduce him to Aldo Fabrizi and collaborate on the script (with Suso Cecchi D'Amato, Piero Tellini, and Alberto Lattuada). Fellini accepted, contributing gags and dialogue.

In 1993, Fellini received an Oscar "in recognition of his cinematic accomplishments that have thrilled and entertained audiences worldwide." That same year, he died of a heart attack in Rome at the age of 73, a day after his fiftieth wedding anniversary on October 31st. His wife, Giulietta Masina, died six months later of lung cancer on March 23 1994. Fellini, Giulietta Masina and their son Pierfederico are buried in the same bronze tomb sculpted by Arnaldo Pomodoro. Shaped like a ship's prow in the water, the tomb is located at the main entrance to the Cemetery of Rimini. The Federico Fellini International Airport in Rimini is named in his honor.

Filmmaking career

"Variety Lights" (1950), Fellini's first film, was co-directed with the more experienced director, Alberto Lattuada. The film is a charming backstage comedy set amongst the world of small-time traveling performers, a world Fellini knew well after working on Roberto Rossellini's "Paisà" in 1946. While the film shoot was an exhilarating one for the 30-year-old Fellini, its release to poor reviews and limited distribution proved a disaster for all concerned. The production company went bankrupt, leaving both Fellini and Lattuada with debts to pay for over a decade. [ This information is found in Tullio Kezich, "Federico Fellini: His Life and Work" (New York: Faber & Faber), 2006, p.114.]

Fellini's first solo-directed film was "The White Sheik" (1952). Starring Alberto Sordi, the film is a revised version of a treatment first written by Michelangelo Antonioni in 1949 and based on the "fotoromanzi", the very popular photographed cartoon strip romance magazines published in Italy at the time. Producer Carlo Ponti had commissioned Fellini and Tullio Pinelli to develop the treatment. Finding the finished screenplay perplexing, Antonioni gave it to Alberto Lattuada who also turned it down. Fellini then decided to take the plunge and direct the film himself.

Working on the new script with Fellini and Pinelli was playwright Ennio Flaiano (who also co-wrote "Variety Lights" with Fellini and Lattuada). Together, they crafted a now classic tale of a newly-wed couple whose outward appearance of respectability is demolished by the fantasies of the immature wife (convincingly portrayed by Brunella Bovo). For the first time, Fellini and his composer, Nino Rota, worked together on the film's score. Having met in Rome in 1945, their collaboration continued successfully until Rota's death during the making of the ill-fated "City of Women" in 1980. This exceptional artistic relationship has been memorably described as one of "empathy, irrationality and magic." [See Kezich, "Fellini: His Life and Work", p.125.]

A major discovery for Fellini after his Italian neorealism period (1950-1959) 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). [The influence of Jung and Italian popular culture such as the "Corriere dei Piccoli" on Fellini's style are closely examined in Peter Bondanella, "The Cinema of Federico Fellini", (Princeton:Princeton University Press), 1992.] Fellini's films were widely acclaimed, and four of his films won the Best Foreign Film Oscar: "La strada" (1954); "Le Notti di Cabiria" (1957); "8½" (1963) and "Amarcord" (1973). "La dolce vita" (1960) was also awarded the Palme d'Or at Festival de Cannes and is considered a quintessential film of the 1960s.Fact|date=September 2008 The film also contributed the term "paparazzi" to the language, derived from Paparazzo, the photographer friend of journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni). [ Fellini scholar Peter Bondanella argues that although "it is indeed an Italian family name, the word "paparazzo" is probably a corruption of the word "papataceo", a large and bothersome mosquito. Ennio Flaiano, the film's co-screenwriter and creator of Paparazzo, reports that he took the name from a character in a novel by George Gissing." Cited in Bondanella, Peter, "The Cinema of Federico Fellini", Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 136. The title of Gissing's novel is "By the Ionian Sea" (1901).]

Fellini's works garnered numerous awards, including four Oscars, two Silver Lions, a Palme d'Or and a grand prize at the Moscow International Film Festival. In 1990, Fellini won the prestigious "Praemium Imperiale" awarded by the Japan Art Association. Considered as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize, the award covers five disciplines: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, and Theatre/Film. Past winners include Akira Kurosawa, David Hockney, Balthus, Pina Bausch, and Maurice Béjart.

Other work

In 1948, Fellini acted in Roberto Rossellini's "Il miracolo" with Anna Magnani. To play the role of a silent rogue who is mistaken by Magnani for a saint, Fellini had to bleach his black hair blond. Fellini also wrote scripts for radio shows and movies (most notably for Rossellini, Pietro Germi, Eduardo De Filippo and Mario Monicelli) as well as numerous and often uncredited gags for well known comic actors like Aldo Fabrizi. A gifted caricaturist, Fellini produced satirical drawings in pencil, watercolors and colored felt pens that toured Europe and North America, and which are now eagerly sought after by collectors. Much of the inspiration for his sketches was derived from his own dreams while the films-in-progress stimulated drawings for decor, costumes and set designs (just as it was for Sergei Eisenstein whose own drawings share striking affinities with Fellini's work). [A selection and analysis of these working drawings are available in Pier Marco De Santi, "I disegni di Fellini", (Roma: Editori Laterza), 1993. For comparing Fellini's graphic work with Eisenstein's, see S.M. Eisenstein, "Dessins secrets" (Paris: Seuil), 1999.]

In 1990, Fellini's graphic novel "Trip to Tulum" was published in the magazine "Crisis" with artwork by Milo Manara and English translation by Stefano Gaudiano, and as a comic book novel by Catalan Communications later the same year. [Elizabeth Bell supplied additional translations of short essays by Fellini and Vicenzo Mollica for the Catalan Communications North American edition.]

In 1992, Fellini worked in close collaboration with Canadian director Damian Pettigrew on a long final interview for the cinematic portrait "" (2002). Co-produced by Arte, the award-winning feature documentary has been described as the maestro's "spiritual testament" by Fellini biographer Tullio Kezich. [Cited in Kezich's forward to "I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon", (New York: Abrams), p.5. In "Fellini: His Life and Work", Kezich observes that "some consider Fellini yesterday's news, and still others expect that old age will bring an even higher vision and more useful prophecies. That theory seems almost confirmed by the suddenly quite serious and thoughtful interview that Fellini will give Canadian director Damian Pettigrew in April 1992, the maestro's last long intimate discussion" (p. 388).]

Influence and legacy

A unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire, Fellini's films are deeply personal visions of society, often portraying people at their most bizarre. The term "Felliniesque" is used to describe any scene in which a hallucinatory image invades an otherwise ordinary situation.

Important contemporary filmmakers such as Woody Allen, David Lynch, Girish Kasaravalli, David Cronenberg, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, [ See [http://www.thecityofabsurdity.com/quotecollection/infl.html City of Absurdity Quote Collection] Accessed Sept 17 2008 ] Tim Burton, [ See [http://www.timburtoncollective.com/influences.html Tim Burton Collective] Accessed Sept 17 2008 ] Pedro Almodovar, Terry Gilliam [ See [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/gilliam.html Gilliam at Senses of Cinema] Accessed Sept 17 2008 ] and Emir Kusturica [ See [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_9_29/ai_55683952 Kusturica Interview at BNET] Accessed Sept 17 2008 ] have all cited Fellini's influence on their work. Woody Allen, in particular, has used Fellini's imagery and themes in several films: "Stardust Memories" evokes "8 1/2", "Radio Days" is reminiscent of "Amarcord" while "Broadway Danny Rose" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo" echo "Variety Lights" and "The White Sheik", respectively.Fact|date=September 2008

Polish director, Wojciech Has, whose two major films, "The Saragossa Manuscript" (1965) and "The Hour-Glass Sanatorium" (1973) are outstanding examples of modernist fantasies, has been compared to Fellini for the sheer "luxuriance of his images." [Cited in Gilbert Guez's film review of "The Saragossa Manuscript", "Le Figaro", 1966.]

In 2001, singer Fish released an album titled "Fellini Days", taking inspiration for the lyrics and music from the works of Fellini.

Fellini's work was, and continues to be, a strong inspiration for the music and image of the rock band, the B-52s. They cited his influence from films such as "8 1/2" for their trademark bouffant hairstyles and retro-futuristic clothing styles.Fact|date=September 2008 Most recently, his work was the main inspiration behind their latest album, "Funplex" (2008) with the song "Juliet of the Spirits".

Filmography as director

"Links to Fellini's drawings related to single films"
* "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) Oscar (best foreign language film)
* "Il bidone" (1955)
* "Le notti di Cabiria" (1957) Oscar (best foreign language film)
* "La dolce vita" (1960) Oscar (best costumes), Palme d'Or
* "Boccaccio '70" (1962) (segment "Le tentazioni del Dottor Antonio")
* "8½" (1963) Oscar (best foreign language film and best costume design)
* "Giulietta degli spiriti" (1965)
* "Histoires extraordinaires" (1968) (segment "Toby Dammit")
* "Satyricon" (1969)
* "I clowns" (1970)
* "Roma" (1972)
* "Amarcord" (1973) Oscar (best foreign language film)
* "Il Casanova di Federico Fellini" (1976) Oscar (best costume design)
* "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)

ee also

*Art film
* [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/fellini.html Fellini Bibliography] via UC Berkeley

References

Notes

Further reading

Giovanni Scolari, L'Italia di Fellini, Edizioni Sabinae, 2008, ISBN 97888961050106
*cite book
last = Bondanella
first = Peter
authorlink = Peter Bondanella
year = 1992
chapter =
title = The Cinema of Federico Fellini
publisher = Princeton University Press
location = Princeton
id = ISBN 0-691-00875-2 In-depth study of Fellini's cultural and artistic influences.

*cite book
last = Fellini
first = Federico
authorlink =
year = 2008
chapter =
title = Fellini's Book of Dreams
publisher = Rizzoli
location = New York
id = ISBN 0847831353 Fellini's illustrated dream diary.

*cite book
last = Kezich
first = Tullio
authorlink = Tullio Kezich
year = 2006
chapter =
title = Federico Fellini: His Life and Work
publisher = Faber and Faber, Inc
location = New York
id = ISBN 0-571-21168-2 Biography of Fellini by renowned specialist and film critic.

*cite book
last = Pettigrew
first = Damian
authorlink = Damian Pettigrew
year = 2003
chapter =
title =
publisher = Harry N. Abrams, Inc
location = New York
id = ISBN 0-8109-4617-3 The Maestro's last filmed interviews arranged as a lexicon and lavishly illustrated.

*cite book
last = Walter
first = Eugene
authorlink = Eugene Walter
coauthors = Katherine Clark
year = 2002
chapter =
title = Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet
publisher = Three Rivers Press
location = New York
id = ISBN 0-609-80965-2 The author describes his many years of working with Fellini in Italy.

Documentaries

* "Ciao Federico" (1969) by Gideon Bachman
* "" (2002) by Damian Pettigrew

External links

* [http://www.federicofellini.it/ Fellini Foundation] official web site (in Italian)
* [http://www.fondation-fellini.ch/ Fondation Fellini pour le cinéma (Switzerland)] official web site (in French)
*
*
*
* [http://www.felliniana.com/ Felliniana Archive (USA)] Fellini's influence on popular culture

Persondata
NAME= Fellini, Federico
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Director, screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH= January 20, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH= Rimini, Italy
DATE OF DEATH= October 31 1993
PLACE OF DEATH= Rome, Italy