Dreams and desire. The cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini and Federico Fellini: A conversation with Roberto Chiesi

In this interview, Roberto Chiesi talks about the personal and professional relationship between Pier Paolo Pasolini and Federico Fellini. He describes their experience with neorealism and how each of them moved past it to develop an original and unique cinematographic style. He focuses on specific elements of their cinema, such as the importance of the oneiric dimension and their conception of the sacred. Chiesi explains the central role civic involvement had in the work of Pasolini; his last movie Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom) (Pasolini 1975) is centred on the dramatic process of degradation caused by the new consumeristic ideology. Fellini, instead, was primarily concerned with the corruptive vulgarity of the new commercial television. Highlighting the importance of Pasolini and Fellini’s legacy, Chiesi concludes the interview by saying that the two artists had the foresight to imagine the dreadful long-term consequences the events of their time would produce, consequences we are experiencing in today’s society.

Neorrealismo italiano: la mirada y el misterio

El neorrealismo supuso una revolución en el arte cinematográfico italiano que anunció el cine moderno. Configuró la presencia de una realidad en la que la cámara busca la inmediatez del hombre ignorado, o l’uomo cualunque, en expresión de Roberto Rossellini. La cámara no recrea la realidad, es ella misma la que se nos irá descubriendo sin estar sometida a un sistema, y gracias a esta espontaneidad nos muestra sus misterios. Ello implica una nueva mirada en el cine, que en el de Vittorio De Sica es más desnuda y en el de Federico Fellini integra la fantasía, sobre todo en su mirada hacia los marginados. Este artículo cuenta con el soporte de la visión crítica de los cineastas que pertenecían a Cahiers du Cinéma y parte desde el luminoso umbral de la pensadora universal María Zambrano.

Visiones utópicas y distópicas en las películas. La voz de la luna y Tiempo después

In the mid-1980s, the program of economic, political, and social restructuring —perestroika— and the new era of transparency and openness —glasnost— became the unintended catalyst for dismantling what had taken nearly three-quarters of a century to erect Communist states. While the reforms of perestroika and glasnost instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev, were not the sole causes of the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., the forces they unleashed destabilized an already weakening system and hastened its end. The political protests and the exodus of thousands of East Germans —Peaceful Revolution— fleeing to West Germany and Austria through the Hungarian border, contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989, and it also triggered the German reunification in 1990. But since the end of the Cold War (1947-1991), many disappointments such as the worsening of socio-economic inequality and global instability, have followed the initial euphoria associated with the victory of the Western Bloc over the Eastern Bloc. The resurgence of the dichotomous relationship capitalism vs communism, and the political polarization driven by a sharp generational divide, are portrayed by the Italian-French co-production “The Voice of the Moon” (Dir. Federico Fellini, 1990), and the Spanish-Portuguese co-production “Some Time Later” (Dir. José Luis Cuerda, 2018). Both cinematic approximations embrace the ideological resistance towards the ongoing process of dehumanization and its pernicious effects on society. The achievement of social justice is deliberately postponed by the technocratic power elite, and by youth generations that are disengaged with its historical past, and enslaved by digital technologies.

FEDERICO FELLINI'S FILM ORCHESTRA REHEARSAL FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF NEW MUSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL THEATER

The genre of new musical/instrumental theater represents a new and complex endeavor in the field of art. Its complexity includes various artistic aspects such as acting, music, dance, performance, stage design, etc. The specificity of the plot of Fellini's film Orchestra Rehearsal (Prova d’Orchestra) provides a possibility to be interpreted from the perspective of the new musical theater. Different discourses that have permeated the film (e.g. verbal, musical, visual discourse, physical movements, and body language) represent the basic idea of the new genre. In the Orchestra Rehearsal, Federico Fellini managed to merge together different discourses of artistic expression in an extraordinary way, and thus bring his film closer to the genre of new musical theater.

Federico Fellini and the debate in Italian feminist magazines (1973–80)

Many articles focus on the feminine ‘Fellinian’ models and stereotypes, on his sexist imaginary and, in wider terms, on the relationship between Fellini and women in general, but very few analyses have actually investigated the real effects that these feminist critics had in shaping Federico Fellini’s public image. Starting from the debate that surrounds his films La città delle donne (City of Women) (1980), Amarcord (1973) and Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (Fellini’s Casanova) (1976), this article analyses the bonds between Fellini and the feminist movement in the 1970s, and it focuses on the role played by feminist magazines in the director’s public image construction. The problematic relationship between Fellini and the feminist movement and ideologies will be analysed especially through a review of feminist magazines such as Quotidiano donna and Effe. Daily newspapers Il Giorno, Corriere della Sera and Paese Sera will also be taken into account in order to consider a wider field of investigation.

The gestures of Hermes: Federico Fellini as an interpreter and circulating agent of images

Based on its relationship to comic books, this article proposes an iconographic study of the public figure of Federico Fellini in terms of the Hermes archetype. With the aim of explaining how Fellini’s image has been interpreted from different visual perspectives, I consider two basic questions: what relationship does Fellini have to the images of himself and of Italian culture? And why have images in Fellini’s films and his own public image been the object of constant reinterpretations in film, advertising and on social networks? Focusing on the rereading of Fellini’s image in the comics of Milo Manara, this article explores a phenomenon that distinguishes Fellini’s filmmaking: his role as a circulator of images of classical and popular culture out of the past and into the future. The figure of Hermes, the god of mediation, constitutes the archetype through which we can understand this central role of Fellini.

A ‘means of distribution’: Federico Fellini and Italian television1

This article will examine both the Fellinian imagery of television that is present in his films and the role of Fellini as a television ‘critic’. In the first part, we consider Federico Fellini’s entire filmography, focusing on the main cinematic texts that deal most explicitly with the world of television: Il bidone (The Swindle) (1955), La Dolce Vita (1960), Prova d’orchestra (Orchestra Rehearsal) (1979), Ginger e Fred (Ginger and Fred) (1986), Intervista (1988) and La voce della luna (The Voice of the Moon) (1989). In order to define Fellini’s thoughts on television and to compare this intellectual assertiveness to traces of his own involvement with several Italian television productions, we connect the analysis of his filmography with the study of Fellini’s comments, interviews and articles published in several Italian journals and magazines between the 1970s and 1980s. The aim of this article is to trace an organic relationship between Fellini and television, from the production of his films to his notes as an intellectual.

‘Mon cher Fédérico’: Fellini and the Cannes Film Festival

Between the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s, the Cannes Film Festival contributed to the rise of Federico Fellini’s image as an internationally acclaimed Italian auteur. This article situates the relationship between the director and the festival within the respective cultural, industrial and historical contexts. First, it discusses the role of festival director Robert Favre Le Bret in selecting and promoting Italian auteur cinema. Then it focuses on how the system of co-production between Italy and France impacted Fellini’s work and the Festival’s embrace of his films. Finally, it examines how the French press constructed the image of Fellini as an ‘intellectual celebrity’. By grounding the analysis in documents from the Cinémathèque Française (French Film Archive), the Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Central State Archive) in Rome, and other primary sources from both Italy and France, this article provides a synergic view of the conditions for the emergence of Fellini’s public image through the Cannes Film Festival.