Boccaccio ’70 is a four-part anthology film inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s collection of bawdy, limerick-laden farces, The Decameron. The Italian-American brainchild of producers Carlo Ponti and Joseph E. Levine, the film pulls together contributions from four major Italian directors: Mario Monicelli (Big Deal on Madonna Street), Federico Fellini (8½), Vittorio De Sica (Umberto D.), and Luchino Visconti (The Leopard).Read More »
During a trip to Rome, a debauched Shakespearian actor is tormented by fans, the press, the Italian film industry and the Devil – who appears as a little girl seeking to collect his head. Based on the E.A. Poe story “Never Bet the Devil Your Head”.Read More »
Six separate episodes: would-be suicides discuss their despair. A provincial dance hall. An investigative reporter posing as a husband-to-be. A young unwed mother. Girl-watching techniques of Italian men. A glimpse into prostitution.
EP #1
Amore Che si Paga a.k.a Love for Money (11 min) directed by Carlo Lizani with a screenplay by Cesare Zavattini. A mosaic of scattered images where the night workers are followed by a man with provocative questions. The short feels as an interview in which the women explain their unfortunate profession.Read More »
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In And the Ship Sails On, I needed a large exterior to paint, so I used the wall of the Pantanella pasta factory. It was where my father, Urbano Fellini, had worked when he passed through Rome on his way back from forced labor in Belgium after World War I. It was while at the pasta factory in 1918 that he met my mother, Ida Barbiani, and carried her off, not on a white charger, but in a third-class coach on the train, with her full consent, away from her home, family, and social class in Rome.Read More »
A trio of con-men led by a lonesome swindler must deal with their job and family pressures.Read More »
Federico Fellini accepts the request of a television crew to be interviewed about his career, narrating memories, dreams, realities and fantasies.Read More »
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There has never been a face quite like that of Giulietta Masina. Her husband, the legendary Federico Fellini, directs her as Gelsomina in La strada, the film that launched them both to international stardom. Gelsomina is sold by her mother into the employ of Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), a brutal strongman in a traveling circus. When Zampanò encounters an old rival in highwire artist the Fool (Richard Basehart), his fury is provoked to its breaking point. With La strada, Fellini left behind the familiar signposts of Italian neorealism for a poetic fable of love and cruelty, evoking brilliant performances and winning the hearts of audiences and critics worldwide. The Criterion Collection is proud to present La strada, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1956.Read More »
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The incomparable Federico Fellini (La Dolce Vita) directs this visually stunning portrait of Casanova, the infamous Italian womanizer, adventurer, author and libertine. In a remarkable performance, Donald Sutherland (MASH) portrays the great seducer not as an amorous anomaly, but an everyday man living in extraordinary times. Featuring dazzling European settings (although it was filmed entirely in Rome), an unforgettable musical score by Nino Rota (The Godfather), and Academy Award®-winning costumes, Fellini’s Casanova is a cinematic experience to fall in love with.Read More »
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8 1/2 weaves fluidly through the visually intoxicating landscape of Federico Fellini’s subconscious, seemingly to seek inspiration and validation for his life and work. In an opening scene that symbolizes much of Fellini’s films, a suffocating man, trapped inside his car, inexplicably begins to float into the skies, only to be abruptly tugged back to the ground. But it is also an indelible image that shatters any preconceived illusion of “typical” elements in a Fellini film. The film, 8 1/2, literally marks Fellini’s work on 8 1/2 feature films (the “1/2” derived from collaborative direction films), and proves to be a transitional film in his artistic career.Read More »