David Vining's Blog, page 170

La Dolce Vita

For a movie that seems to have a reputation as a loose collection of events, La Dolce Vita is surprisingly tightly built. This is my third or fourth viewing of the film, and my appreciation for it just grows with every new visit to this mad look at the circus that was Rome in the 50s.

Federico Fellini found the perfect actor to play Marcello Rubini. Marcello Mastroianni was the Italian Cary Grant, the consummate movie star, and he eases into the role of the society journalist Rubini with ...

Nights of Cabiria

This might end up being my favorite Fellini. It’s use of character is so clear and on point while it’s perfectly acted, centered on Giulietta Masina’s wonderful performance as the eponymous Cabiria. From the opening to its tragic but still hopeful ending, Nights of Cabiria is a marvelous creation from a director who is in full command of every element on screen.

The joys of this movie are evident from the beginning. Masina was a well known comic radio performer when she met her future hus...

The French Connection

A quick break from the Fellini circus.

This is a stripped down bare version of the crime thriller. Characters exist purely as archetypes with little to no life outside of the job at hand. The movie is purely about the crime and ensuing investigation. The movie is told in a handheld, cinema verité style that was fresh to the genre at the time, which explains a lot of the love for the film in the 70s. It was a new way to tell a story, but once you get past that you realize that the actual...

Il Bidone

Ive seen La Strada described as Fellinis bridge film from his earlier, more grounded works, into his more elaborate spectacles that defined his later career, but that title should probably go to Il Bidone. It carries hallmarks of both eras and feels like it could fit easily in parts in both. Theres a big party scene that feels right out of La Dolce Vita and the entire second half feels like it comes from the more grounded films like La Strada.

One thing about this story that strikes the...

La Strada

No one wanted to finance this movie about a young girl sold to a traveling circus performer who ends up dying. I wonder why. It took the international success of I Vitelloni for Fellini to find the money. He cast his wife, Giulietta Masina, as Gelsomina, the simple girl sold to Zampano, played by Anthony Quinn, who worked concurrently on two productions at once (the other was Atilla) and Richard Basehart as the Fool. Taking advantage of the common Italian post-war practice of not capturing...

I Vitelloni

I sometimes wonder why some foreign titles get translated and others dont. I Vitelloni, the word, is a slang in the Italian dialect around Pescara, Italy that indicates young men who dont really do anything. They dont contribute, they just consume. Derived from the Italian word for intestine, the idea was that they just waited to digest, providing nothing else of value. Other times the word is translated to the guys. I cannot imagine referring to this movie as The Guys. Its too off from the...

The White Sheik

This is the light, comic, and Italian version of Eyes Wide Shut, a movie about dreams that ends with a husband and wife waking up and facing each other in the wake of what they learned about themselves. Writing out that comparison makes it sound like Federico Fellinis second feature, and his first solo directing credit, is a heavy slog, but it really is a light and fun little movie that wears its comic sensibilities on its sleeve. The dual journeys are comic misadventures.

The one major...

Variety Lights

Based on my reading of the production of Variety Lights, co-director Alberto Lattuada was in charge of the technical aspects of production, but co-director Federico Fellini was everything else. Knowing what I know of Fellinis later career walking into this first viewing of Fellinis first credited directing job (which is more than nothing, for sure), its easy to see some of the dual contradictions that would pepper his later work in embryonic form here. Theres the complicated relationship...

Cabaret

And now, for a completely different kind of musical. Bob Fosse directed a grand total of five movies, Cabaret being the second, and he apparently wanted little to do with the song and dance in film, working to move away from the stuff he was known for on Broadway. Well, when he chose to adapt Cabaret for the big screen, his producers were going to get song and dance out of an adaptation of a Broadway musical directed by a famous Broadway song and dance director and choreographer. And yet thi...

Singin’ in the Rain

Bright, colorful, energetic, and fun. What more could you ask for from the movie called the best musical ever? I don’t know about that specifically, but I do know that Singin’ in the Rain is a hodgepodge of a film that shouldn’t work at all but works marvelously. Built around a series of songs that the studio had the rights to, the story of the transition from silent to sound movies is told with such innocent and infectious energy that it’s nearly impossible to resist.

It’s the silent era...