People, please: this emperor has no clothes. I love La Dolce Vita (seen it 7 times maybe? Own the DVD at home!) and I like 8 1/2, which, though more navel-gazing, still has something universal to say, and gorgeous visuals to display; but this Casanova (like The City Of Women" before that) reeks of personal fantasies from its director, and in spite of the glowing reviews of some bizarrely entranced people on this forum, I bet very few viewers have been entertained since 1976 by Fellini's gloomy vision of a historical character who -by the way- had a zest for life and wrote about it in such glorious language that 19th century book critics thought Stendhal was the true author of those "Memoires" (I must add: golly, I did read the real Casanova memoirs, "Histoire de Ma Vie", the whole 3 volumes in French, and it was compelling.)
The movie is constructed like a wild opera, with the usual cast of Fellinian grotesques romping about in extravagant costumes, on cardboard sets I did not find particularly arresting visually, while the script throws repetitive scenes at the viewer without attempt at coherence for 2 hours. It looks and feels like the bad dream of a director who hates his protagonist, or has a beef with his own sexuality, or with women, or with the men who like to please them.
In the end, it is Fellini's fears we are gawking at, and Fellini's fears at this stage of his career are overexposed, with nothing original here for the viewer to chew on or relate to.
Summary: I found this Casanova to be one long, tedious, depressing and empty film.
The movie is constructed like a wild opera, with the usual cast of Fellinian grotesques romping about in extravagant costumes, on cardboard sets I did not find particularly arresting visually, while the script throws repetitive scenes at the viewer without attempt at coherence for 2 hours. It looks and feels like the bad dream of a director who hates his protagonist, or has a beef with his own sexuality, or with women, or with the men who like to please them.
In the end, it is Fellini's fears we are gawking at, and Fellini's fears at this stage of his career are overexposed, with nothing original here for the viewer to chew on or relate to.
Summary: I found this Casanova to be one long, tedious, depressing and empty film.