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(1920–1993). Italian director and writer.
To understand Fellini at all, one must begin by closely
examining his masterpiece, 8 1/2. It qualifies for discussion here not
only because of its outrageous fantasy sequences but also because it is, as
critics would say, a film of "associational" interest: it is a film about a
noted director, Guido Anselmi, who is planning to make a science fiction film.
He has assembled his crew, he has auditioned actors and actresses, and he has
built one spectacular set of a huge rocketship on a launch pad which, we are
told, will take characters in the film away from a doomed planet Earth into the
safety of outer space. Yet for some reason the director proves unable to
actually start making the film, and his exasperated producer finally pulls the
plug on the project.
In analyzing this film, reviewer Phil Villarreal asserts
that the director is reluctant to make this film because it "would be seen by a
wider audience than Guido is used to, but at the price [of] his creative
integrity." This is stuff and nonsense, a classic example of a critic
projecting his own snobbish attitudes onto the work he is analyzing; for having
seen the film several times, I can assure everyone that Fellini is extremely
careful to avoid giving even the slightest hint as to why the director is
reluctant to begin filming. Indeed, as a recurring comic motif, every time the
subject comes up during the film, something happens to change the topic of
conversation.
Since 8 1/2 is, as everyone acknowledges, an
autobiographical film, I am driven to a conclusion that is sure to scandalize
all of Fellini's learned critics: namely, that Federico Fellini throughout his
career was a man who longed to make science fiction films, but somehow found
himself unable to do so. Think of it: instead of seeking to compete with
Michelangelo Antonioni to be recognized as Italy's most talented and
sophisticated director, in actuality Fellini secretly dreamed of emulating
another countryman, Antonio MARGHERITI (better known to some Americans as
Anthony Dawson), by directing inane and colorful space adventures like Battle
of the Worlds (1961) and Wild, Wild Planet (1965), although he for
some reason could never bring himself to do it. It is as defensible an
interpretation of 8 1/2 as any other.
And, having gone this far, I might as well attempt to answer
the question so scrupulously unanswered in the film—why are Guido, and
his real-life counterpart Fellini, both attracted to, and unable to make,
science fiction films? Consider, as a potential definition of science fiction,
the idea that the genre is primarily characterized by a certain attitude, the
expectation that our apparently ordinary, mundane world is actually a façade
concealing all sorts of strange things, or is destined to soon be transformed
into a strange new world. With such an attitude, science fiction fans are happy
to speculate that underneath their contemporary environment lie ancient
mysteries, conspiracies of masterminds secretly controlling the world, mad
scientists creating powerful new inventions, and camouflaged aliens carefully
observing our planet and preparing for an invasion; and even if none of things
are actually present, aliens and brilliant scientists will surely emerge in the
near future to utterly alter all of our comfortable assumptions and beliefs.
Let us say that Fellini loves this attitude—this inclination to see the outré
in the familiar—but cannot accept the standard science-fictional explanations
for these hidden oddities, such as aliens and superscience. Indeed, he prefers
to embrace the fundamental strangeness of the world without worrying about
logical explanations. And this would serve to explain the one statement by
Guido in the film that might apply to his inability to make his science fiction
film: "I really have nothing to say, but I want to say it all the same." That
is, making a science fiction film would compel him to say something about why
the world is or will be strange, but he simply doesn't want to go there. Fellini's exhilarating resolution of his dilemma is the
decision to henceforth make films that will embrace and celebrate strangeness without
any explanations. Thus, it didn't make any sense at all to conclude
8 1/2 by having all its characters join Guido in a joyous dance around his
abandoned rocket ship, but Fellini thought it would be an entertaining way to
end the film, and he enjoyed filming the scene, so why should anyone worry
about whether it makes any sense or not? In considering Fellini's entire oeuvre,
then, 8 1/2 represents the transition from the mundane dramas and
comedies of his previous career (with occasional forebodings of the weirdness
to come, such as the sea monster on the beach in La Dolce Vita) and the
later films which almost invariably veered away from realism to offers touches
of the fantastic. For purposes of classification, I have listed in the credits
only those films that would provide the scrupulous categorizer of science
fiction and fantasy with solid reasons to include them, but I could just as
easily have chosen to list all of his post-8 1/2 films, or none of them.
For Fellini by his very nature resists classification. None of Fellini's later films quite match the brilliance of
8 1/2, but they are never boring. Highlights of special genre interest would
include the extravagant fantasies of Juliet of the Spirits, as well as
his only film that officially ventures near the fantastic, his segment of the
film Spirits of the Dead adapting Edgar Allan Poe's story "Never Bet the
Devil Your Head" (a horrific effort that Poe himself would actually enjoy, and
an implicit slap in the face to the day-glo travesties of Roger
CORMAN and Vincent
PRICE). A personal favorite is
Fellini—Satyricon, with an unforgettable scene of slaves in the
background carrying an enormous statue of a head that bears absolutely no
relationship to anything else happening in the film, a classic Fellini moment,
though one might also consider the scene in the realistic Roma (1972) of
the discovery of ancient Roman artworks in a subway tunnel as representative of
this director's singular attitude. I'm generally not as excited by his later
films, but Fellini never fails to surprise and entertain, and I look forward to
watching the Fellini films I haven't seen for their unexpected pleasures—and
surely, unexpected pleasures represent one of the reasons why people are drawn
to science fiction in the first place. Federico Fellini may have never made a
science fiction film, but so what? He remains a unique friend and ally to all
science fiction enthusiasts, and everyone else who knows that the world is
never what it seems.
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