Movie #48: Released in 1963, directed by Federico Fellini, 139 minutes. New to me!

LetterBoxd score: 4 Stars

There are four things I quite liked about this movie.

Most notably, the movie seamlessly moves between a kind of inner dream/memory world and the “real” events of the movie. The two standout scenes here are the opener, where Guido floats above the Roman city, before ultimately being pulled to Earth, and the scene where Guido imagines himself living with a harem of adoring women who baby him but eventually rebel. This is one of those things where the execution is really good – I don’t know how he does it but the move into the dreamworld is never confusing and works as a way to shed light on Guido’s inner world. That’s a kind of “bravo” achievement.

Second, the movie conveys the chaotic stress of everyone needing you to make decisions when you don’t have the answers. Guido is constantly evading and dodging the crowd of people who need answers from him. Famously, he was facing this challenge himself, not knowing what his new film was about, and turned that paralyzing indecision into this film. Another kind of bravo achievement.

Third, Anouk Aimée is really good as Guido’s wife Luisa. She’s tethered to this kind of hopeless guy, she knows it, but he’s too evasive for any kind of climactic decision. When she’s at the restaurant and sees his mistress is in town; when she sees the scenes he asks women to read for – and the way he makes them put on little glasses just like hers. Oh Luisa.

The fourth thing I liked about it is closely related to something I didn’t like about it. In some kind of fundamental way, the movie feels a bit juvenile to me. I think Guido is supposed to be established by this point, but there’s not really anything to him except ennui and sex. Maybe because he has no family (Fellini’s wife apparently could not have children)? Anyway, he feels kind of stuck as a teenager, which is a bit disappointing for a movie of this stature.

So what did I like? Well, I think there is a reading of the movie that is about this kind of impoverished life. This crystalized for me in the scene where Guido goes for a drive with his newest obsession, Claudia. Guido’s inability to commit to any woman (the dream sequence does a great job of establishing that once they turn thirty he loses interest, and knows this is problematic), echoing his indecision in filmmaking, has put him in this unhappy life.

Ultimately though I think the movie kind of chickens out. Apparently the original ending was going to be Fellini and his wife in a train car; it goes into a tunnel as characters smile at him ambiguously. Maybe this is death looming? In any event it is a kind of darkness. But the film’s co-scriptwriter warned against this downbeat ending and they instead adopted an exuberant ending where all the characters kind of dance in a circle together. There’s kind of revelation where Guido realizes that with the support of all these people in his life he can, I don’t know, do it?

To me, it feels false. Add it to the list of stories that set themselves a trap they can’t find a way out of, and so manufacture a happy ending that strains credulity: The Searchers, Journey to Italy, and The Book of Job.

(Actually, the way Gerwig’s Little Women makes this tendency explicit makes me respect that movie even more)

Why would someone think it’s one of the ten greatest movies ever made?

Those dream sequences, integrated into the main events of the story, which is itself a story of making a film. Wouldn’t make my own list though – I just don’t like watching it enough!

Next: The Leopard