User Reviews

This pseudo-documentary on Fellini's work methods - produced after 8 1/2, and as a sort of personal essay while developing Satyricon. Here Fellini is exploiting an obvious hunger for information on how he comes up with "that wild stuff" and is exploring a sort-of post-modern idea of himself as star, but in a fictionalized set-up.

The film shows Fellini auditioning actors, directing apparently verite footage, and conversing with his producers. This is most illuminating as an exercise and practice piece for Fellini's Roma, which most clearly was about the director's view of the city, filtered through his memories (NOT the real historical Rome), and a few years later, Intervista, which is literally an "interview" done by Japanese television (and is even MORE fictional).

Fellini became very interested in the line between fiction and reality, and began putting himself into the titles (Fellini Satyricon, not Petronius, which is a clue on how to approach this film; Fellini's Roma) and then himself into the films (he makes fleeting and tantalizing appearances in Roma, to remind you this is more about Fellini's memories than about Rome).

Director's Notebook, produced for Italian T.V. and long lost and unobtainable, is now available on the Criterion DVD of 8 1/2, and is a welcome puzzle piece to Fellini's late 60's development on fictionalizing the truth, and exploring the force of personal memories and history on narrative.

It is here that we have a Fellini documentary, about (what else?) Fellini himself. This movie was made after a failure of another film he wanted to make and on the verge of Satyricon. Fellini, in familiar nonsensical fashion, travels around Rome, visiting the odd characters that we have come to see in many of his films. At first, the similarity between the characters of such films as 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita is striking. But this is a documentary, leading me to wonder how much of this documentary Fellini actually planned. For example, when he is trapped in his room by countless eccentric characters who want to be in Satyricon, suddenly three of the women are dressed in Roman prostitute clothing. It may be that Fellini simply asked them to do this, if they were already so desperate to be in his movie themselves. Nevertheless, there's the woman on the accordian singing about Fortune, the man who tells Fellini to behold his bird-like whistling son, and the giant who walks up wondering if he can be in the film. We also get glimpses into the dreamlike lives of Marcello Mastrioanni (where, in an ironic twist, the man who plays Fellini so well gives Fellini some advice for his own life) and Giulietta Masina, and other characters who struggle to speak-a English for the camera.This is, in a way, 8 1/2 after 8 1/2. And the movie, being only an hour long, might be called "9". The way Fellini presents himself, he is living in a dream-like city, where time has gone by yet stayed still all the while, where eccentric characters crowd his study and where he is harsh and blunt with them, but where he comes to the realization that he needs these characters more than they need him. He needs their imperfections and oddities (we get to meet the clairvoyant seen in La Dolce Vita and Juliet of the Spirits), because in the end, Fellini's just as weird as they are.

My grade: 8/10

The Director's Notebook, a very off-the-cuff, stream-of-consciousness documentary by Federico Fellini, reminds me of what Terry Gilliam said in his introduction on the 8 1/2 DVD, of which this is so generously included. He said that once he went and shot a film in Italy and more specifically in Rome, he guessed that perhaps Fellini was perhaps more of a documentarian of what he saw in Rome than he was making up incredibly outrageous and fantastical visions. This time we as the audience get about as close as that can be (though Amarcord, and to an extent La Dolce Vita, come close too in their own ways) to the Rome that Fellini sees as real. We may not, of course, but it is of course all part of subjectivity when going into many documentaries. This time, we get a view inside Fellini's film-making style, his actors, some memories and locations and shots and "lost" sets and footage, and the un-reality of it all just pours more truth to the gobbledy-gook that sometimes makes up the film.

As with even the lesser Fellini moments, he doesn't leave fans totally without some fulfillment. It's something that is very much what Fellini would do, given what he wants to show the audience as his techniques and approaches. Right away we know this will and wont be your usual auto-bio into a director, as he gets some comments off some 'hippies' who happen to be traipsing around the ruins of a film he planned to shoot (or not, as case may be, I don't know). Then he and the American narrator go on between seeing things being shot- and the sets of which shot by Fellini himself with the usual peering and following and moving camera- on Satyricon. But it's not just that, to be sure, as it is basically a look through notes, ideas, and much of what might be considered almost conventional in the Fellini-esquire sense. But it's still entertaining through it all, and I loved seeing a partial re-creation and look at Fellini's inspiration from the "Old Rome" he knew through silent films as a kid. Or the moments with Mastroianni. A nice diddy, which is now no longer a lost scene but now restored, is the sack-man scene from Nights of Cabiria hosted by Masina herself.

And all the while, in tricky English, Fellini leads us along in his very bigger-than-life though somehow modest way of talking to us as his audience, through Roman ruins, coliseums, actors in screen tests, scenes being shot, seeing some strange things (one of which, maybe not as strange, is his own office), and other fragments that are very reminiscent of Fellini's comedies and tragedies. Nothing too revelatory, but just enough to keep Fellini fans salivating.

Speaking for myself, this is the most rewarding Fellini experience I have had. That's because in his early work, where one takes risks, he was very less ambitious narrative-wise than his later work. But then when he got to the later more complex ideas, he already could fall back on technique. Here, he was near suicide, completely out of his wig. And the results are remarkable.

8 1/2 is one of the best films ever made. It blends layers of reality including that of the film itself. It explores sex. It is direct and honest. It has passion and controlled vision. But it is _too_ well shaped, in fact it is rather glossy and stylish. The competence and gloss and control fight the honesty and spontaneity. In 8 1/2 the controlling devil won. Here, the chaotic one and the results are harder to read, but better.

Seven civilizations on top of one another. Fellini portraying himself as among ridiculous characters and not seeing himself as equally ridiculous. Many film images of images from other films that did not work and a (very) few that do or will.

A camera that shifts in and out of control like a schizophrenic -- a narrative that may be brilliant or just random, reminding us of the unclear difference. A feeling of hungry crew and entourage members eager to jump at any inspiration from the great one. A feeling of desolation when the great one fully realizes he is alone. Some exasperation at not just sex, but the incessant commenting on sex and the style associated with sex and the thin rewards from real sex as compared to fabricated sex.

I suppose it all depends on what you want from a film and how much coloring you are prepared to do. But this is a good one. Found on disc 2 of the 8 1/2 DVD.

Ted's Rating -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.

This will especially appeal to Fellini fanatics or those who are thinking of taking film on seriously as a career. The latter, while going to hold a big place in my heart, isn't the career I'm pursuing(singing is my main passion) but I am a great admirer of Fellini. And I was intrigued after reading about Fellini: A Director's Notebook on Fellini's filmography. After seeing it, it was very interesting. The photography is not as fluid as in Fellini's movies, but it's still focused in how it's used. The scenery and such is beautiful, and musically it is cheerful and nostalgic. What was also fascinating about Fellini: A Director's Notebook is its blend of reality and fiction, blend of brilliant and very random, and how it keeps largely true to Fellini's nostalgic and thematically strong if not always subtle(satire, religion and women for examples) directing style. Many times it also comes across as very personal, as a lot of Fellini films are. The discussions are just fascinating, the best being (obviously) Fellini's with his comments of his movies and how he makes them as well as his reflective retrospect, Marcello Mastroianni, who comes across as idealistic and somewhat honest about his reputation as a womaniser and Genius, whose interview is where it is more reality than fiction. Giulietta Masina is lovely to see, though not as insightful or as understandable as the above. Overall, very well done and interesting if not quite a favourite, if anything I would have liked it to have been a little longer though that's probably just me. 8/10 Bethany Cox

When The Voyage of G. Mastorna came to a halt in 1968, Federico Fellini began plans to film a version of Petronius' Satyricon. In between the two films, he quickly put together this hour-long semi-documentary for NBC. It is an unwieldy and somewhat nonsensical 50 minutes (the running time without commercials) that might as well be forgotten by everyone except Fellini biographers and fanatics (and I am certainly one of the latter). So what is there of worth here? The best scene is the interview with Marcello Mastrioanni, who exploits to the hilt his reputation as a Grade-A Womanizer in a scene that resembles the scene in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless where a group of reporters, Jean Seberg among them, interview a novelist played by the film director Jean-Pierre Melville. The tiniest bit of The Voyage of G. Mastorna is also shown, and some of its ideas are expressed, which is always interesting. If you've never heard of this film, well, that's because it doesn't exist. Fellini developed director's block during its early stages. It was to be about a cellist's journeys in the afterlife. Much of his loss of reputation during this period was a result of its scrapping and the enormous amount of money lost by the producers, among whom, I believe, was Dino de Laurentiis, Fellini's frequent collaborator and arch-enemy. Another point of interest is an interview with the spiritual medium Genius. I haven't seen it for years, but I believe he co-stars in Giulietta of the Spirits. In reality, as far as the word "reality" works in this situation, Genius was Fellini's personal medium. It was partly because of his predictions that Fellini scrapped Mastorna. The rest of the film closely resembles Fellini-Roma, which might just be my least favorite Fellini film. This semi-documentary ends with footage from the shooting of Fellini-Satyricon (which is another of my least favorite; however, I need to see these two and Giulietta again; they're the only features I do dislike at the moment). The documentary is to be found on the new Criterion DVD of 8.5. 5/10.