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Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini won his fourth Oscar for Amarcord. He was awarded a fifth Oscar in 1993 for Lifetime Achievement to add to the Oscars he had won for Nights of Cabiria, La Strada and 8½. 8½ was turned into the Broadway musical Nine, which last year was then turned into the movie, Nine with Daniel Day-Lewis following in the footsteps of Marcello Mastroianni – a role which Day-Lewis accomplished with the fleet-of-foot of Astaire coupled with the psychological intensity of Hamlet.

Set in the provincial town of Romagna at the time of his youth, Fellini uses Amarcord to display the perpetual adolescence of Italians, every shirking moral responsibility, incapable of growing out of childish sexual fantasies (in which the Church imprisons them), that constituted Fascism.

In conversation with Costanzo Costantini, Fellini had this to say about the criticism that he repeats himself:

"It's true that I repeat myself and will continue to repeat myself. Indeed, I've always been a director, I've never changed occupation and I don't intend to change. It's like accusing a craftsman or an architect of continuing in his trade. We are often accused of repeating ourselves just when we are changing and growing. Writers and painters who constantly rework the same materials are respected, whereas a director who does is not. I don't see what things Roma and Satyricon, or Amacord and Juliet of the Spirits have in common. I am always myself: however insatiable our curiosity might be, however much we might be able to increase it, a boundary is indispensable. Otherwise we risk going up in smoke, becoming cloud. Each person works alone in his own little garden. If my endowments really are exhausted, then I'll do a film about exhaustion, repeating myself all over again."

Extract taken from Fellini on Fellini edited by Costanzo Costantini (Faber & Faber, 1995).

Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini won his fourth Oscar for Amarcord. He was awarded a fifth Oscar in 1993 for Lifetime Achievement to add to the Oscars he had won for Nights of Cabiria, La Strada and 8½. 8½ was turned into the Broadway musical Nine, which last year was then turned into the movie, Nine with Daniel Day-Lewis following in the footsteps of Marcello Mastroianni – a role which Day-Lewis accomplished with the fleet-of-foot of Astaire coupled with the psychological intensity of Hamlet.

Set in the provincial town of Romagna at the time of his youth, Fellini uses Amarcord to display the perpetual adolescence of Italians, every shirking moral responsibility, incapable of growing out of childish sexual fantasies (in which the Church imprisons them), that constituted Fascism.

In conversation with Costanzo Costantini, Fellini had this to say about the criticism that he repeats himself:

"It's true that I repeat myself and will continue to repeat myself. Indeed, I've always been a director, I've never changed occupation and I don't intend to change. It's like accusing a craftsman or an architect of continuing in his trade. We are often accused of repeating ourselves just when we are changing and growing. Writers and painters who constantly rework the same materials are respected, whereas a director who does is not. I don't see what things Roma and Satyricon, or Amacord and Juliet of the Spirits have in common. I am always myself: however insatiable our curiosity might be, however much we might be able to increase it, a boundary is indispensable. Otherwise we risk going up in smoke, becoming cloud. Each person works alone in his own little garden. If my endowments really are exhausted, then I'll do a film about exhaustion, repeating myself all over again."

Extract taken from Fellini on Fellini edited by Costanzo Costantini (Faber & Faber, 1995).