Roma (1972 film)

Infobox Film
name = Roma


caption = original film poster
imdb_id = 0069191
director = Federico Fellini
writer = Bernardino Zapponi
Federico Fellini
starring = Peter Gonzales
editing = Ruggero Mastroianni
producer = Turi Vasile
music = Nino Rota
released = March 16, 1972
runtime = 128 min.
language = Italian, English

"Roma", also known as "Fellini's Roma", is a 1972 semi-autobiographical, poetic film depicting director Federico Fellini's move from his native Rimini to Rome as a youth. It is formed by a series of loosely connected episodes. The plot is minimal, and the only character to develop significantly is Rome herself. Peter Gonzales plays the young Fellini, and the film features mainly unknowns in the cast, but includes uncredited guest appearances by Anna Magnani, Marcello Mastroianni, Feodor Chaliapin, Jr., Alberto Sordi, Gore Vidal, John Francis Lane, Elliott Murphy and Fellini himself. The appearances by Marcello Mastroianni and Alberto Sordi were deleted in the later copies of the film and in VHS and DVD editions.

Historical contrasts and moodern alienation

Fellini repeatedly contrasts Roman life in wartime Fascist Italy with its counterpart in the early 1970s. The wartime scenes emphasize the congregation of neighbors in Rome's public places such as street restaurants, a variety show, and a bomb shelter. With the exception of hippies and a conversational scene with Fellini bemoaning the loss of Roman life with radical students, the analogous congregations of the 1970s are between automobiles and motorcycles. Fellini makes a darker and more absurd comparison between the parade of prostitutes at wartime brothels and a fantasy runway fashion show featuring clerical garb and a papal audience.

Narrative devices

The plot (such as it is) centers on two journeys to Rome by the director. The first is as a young man in the early 1940s. The second is as the director of a film crew creating a movie about Rome. The film alternates these two narratives.

Notes

*This is the last movie in which Anna Magnani appears as herself.

External links

*imdb title|id=0069191|title=Roma