Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

FEDERICO FELLINI
b. Rimini, Italy, 20 January 1920, d. 31 October 1993
Acclaimed film director, accomplished screenwriter, and
cartoonist, Federico Fellini is one of Italy’s most celebrated
filmmakers. In 1943 he married actress Giulietta Masina,
who starred in several of his films.
When World War II ended, Fellini wrote important
neorealist screenplays, including Roberto Rossellini’s Roma,
città aperta (Open City, 1945)—work that earned him his
first Academy Award Ò nomination, Paisà (Paisan, 1946)
and L’Amore (Ways of Love, 1948), which contains ‘‘Il
miracolo’’ (‘‘The Miracle’’); Alberto Lattuada’s Senza pietà
(Without Pity, 1948);andPietroGermi’sIl Cammino della
speranza (The Path of Hope, 1950). Subsequently, Fellini
launched a series of major works dealing with Italian
provincial life that won him international fame, including
Lo Sceicco bianco (The White Sheik, 1952),La Strada (The
Road,1954),andLe Notti di Cabiria (The Nights of Cabiria,
1957). The last two films won Oscars Ò for Best Foreign
Language Film. Shortly thereafter, Fellini completed one of
the most successful of all postwar European films, La Dolce
Vita (The Sweet Life, 1959), his first collaboration with
actor Marcello Mastroianni. The film’s title became
synonymous everywhere and in numerous languages with
the society life depicted by Rome’s gossip-column
photographers or paparazzi, a word Fellini contributed to
the English language. Fellini’s often imitated but never
equaled masterpiece 8½ (1963) cast Mastroianni as Fellini’s
alter ego and earned a third Oscar Ò for Best Foreign Film.
Fellini’s later films became more personal and thus
are linked to the postwar European art film. They deal
with such themes as the myth of Rome—Satyricon
(Fellini’s Satyricon, 1969) and Roma (Fellini’s Roma,
1971); Italy under fascism—Amarcord (1973), a film that
won Fellini his fourth Oscar Ò for Best Foreign Film; and
the very nature of art and creativity itself—E la nave va
(And the Ship Sails On, 1983); Ginger e Fred (Ginger and
Fred, 1986); and Intervista (Fellini’s Interview, 1987). As
Fellini’s art developed beyond his neorealist origins, it
Fellini’s early works also continue an evolution
beyond neorealist preoccupation with social problems.
In I Vitelloni (The Vitelloni, 1953), a film to which
Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973) is deeply indebted
as a model, Fellini provided a portrait of six provincial
began to explore dreams or surrealistic fantasies and
to exploit the baroque imagery and sumptuous
Cinecittà sets for which his cinema has become justly
renowned.
During the last years of his life, Fellini made three
television commercials for Barilla pasta, Campari Soda,
and the Banco di Roma. They are extraordinary lessons in
cinematography and reveal not only his genius, but also
his grasp of popular culture. He also exhibited his sketches
and cartoons, many of which were taken from private
dream notebooks, thus uncovering the source of much of
his artistic creativity—the unconscious. Fellini received
numerous honors during his lifetime, including twentythree
nominations for Oscars Ò in various categories (eight
of which were successful and four of which were for Best
Foreign Film); a special fifth Oscar Ò for his career
achievement (1993); the Golden Lion Career Award from
the Venice Film Festival (1985); and dozens of prizes from
the world’s most important film festivals.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
Lo Sceicco bianco (The White Sheik, 1952), La Strada (The
Road, 1954), La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life, 1959), 8½
(1963), Giulietta degli spiriti ( Juliet of the Spirits, 1965),
Satyricon (Fellini’s Satyricon, 1969), Amarcord (1973),
Intervista (The Interview, 1987)
RECOMMENDED READING
Bondanella, Peter. The Cinema of Federico Fellini. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Chandler, Charlotte. I, Fellini. New York: Random House,
1995.
Fellini, Federico. Fellini on Fellini. Translated by Isabel
Quigley. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996.
Kezich, Tullio. Federico Fellini: His Life and Work. New York:
Faber, 2006.
Stubbs, John C. Federico Fellini as Auteur: Seven Aspects of His
Films Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
2006.
Peter Bondanella
Italy
slackers, their miserable daydreams, and their humble
existence. Instead of indicting his characters for their
limited perspectives, Fellini, as in his later films, focused
upon the clash of illusion and reality in the dreary lives of
his comic figures. Soon afterward, two masterful films
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