The Director's Chair

[Just Gus]

A discussion of directors and their body of work!

 

Page 1-3--John Huston

Page 3-4--John Ford

Page 4--Cecil B. DeMille

Page 4-5--Alfred Hitchcock

Page 5--Preston Sturges

Page 5-6--Michael Powell

Page 6-7--Federico Fellini

Page 7--John McTiernan

Page 8--Sam Peckinpah

Page 9--Roman Polanski

Page 11-Quentin Tarantino

Page 11--Elia Kazan

[sevenstars]

Really liked this.

[Just Gus]

Fellini and Lynch share a BD--January 20!

I'll profile Fellini who I like.  I invite someone else to profile Lynch who is an enigma to me (don't care for much--guess, I'm not deep enough!)

Director(24 titles)

1990 La voce della luna

 

1987 Fellini's Intervista

 

1986 Ginger and Fred

 

1983 And the Ship Sails On

 

1980 City of Women

 

1978 Orchestra Rehearsal

 

1976 Fellini's Casanova

 

1973 Amarcord

 

1972 Fellini's Roma

 

1970 The Clowns (TV movie)

 

1969 Fellini Satyricon

 

1969 NBC Experiment in Television (TV series documentary)

– Fellini: A Director's Notebook (1969)

 

1968 Spirits of the Dead (segment "Toby Dammit")

 

1965 Juliet of the Spirits

 

1963 8½

 

1962 Boccaccio '70 (segment "Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio")

 

1960 La Dolce Vita

 

1957 Nights of Cabiria

 

1955 Il Bidone

 

1954 La Strada

 

1953 Love in the City (segment "Agenzia matrimoniale, Un'")

 

1953 I Vitelloni

 

1952 The White Sheik

 

1950 Variety Lights

[Just Gus]

Date of Birth

20 January 1920, Rimini, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Date of Death

31 October 1993, Rome, Lazio, Italy (heart attack)

Nickname

FeFe
Il Maestro

Height

6' (1.83 m)

Mini Biography

The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the devil herself said the priests who ran his school) - and the Gambettola farmhouse of his paternal grandmother would be remembered in several films. His traveling salesman father Urbano Fellini showed up in La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8½ (1963). His mother Ida Barbiani was from Rome and accompanied him there in 1939. He enrolled in the University of Rome. Intrigued by the image of reporters in American films, he tried out the real life role of journalist and caught the attention of several editors with his caricatures and cartoons and then started submitting articles. Several articles were recycled into a radio series about newlyweds "Cico and Pallina". Pallina was played by acting student Giulietta Masina, who became his real life wife from October 30, 1943, until his death half a century later. The young Fellini loved vaudeville and was befriended in 1940 by leading comedian Aldo Fabrizi. Roberto Rossellini wanted Fabrizi to play Don Pietro in Rome, Open City (1945) and made the contact through Fellini. Fellini worked on that film's script and is on the credits for Rosselini's Paisan (1946). On that film he wandered into the editing room, started observing how Italian films were made (a lot like the old silent films with an emphasis on visual effects, dialogue dubbed in later). Fellini in his mid-20s had found his life's work.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Dale O'Connor

Spouse

Giulietta Masina

(30 October 1943 - 31 October 1993) (his death) 1 child

Trade Mark

Bizarre, abstract plots peppered with risque humor

[Just Gus]

Trivia

Inspired the word "Felliniesque"

Worked as a circus clown.

One of his first writing jobs was the Italian language script for the Flash Gordon comic strip.

He was a big fan of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics (publishers of superhero comics like Spiderman and the Hulk).

In 1966 he abandoned his planned film project "The Journey of G. Mastorna". In 1990 the storyline for the film was later adapted into a graphic novel entitled "Trip to Tulum: From a Script for a Film Idea", illustrated by Milo Manara.

He was the inspiration and his voice was sampled for the album "Fellini Days" (released in 2001) by former Marillion singer Fish.

The term "paparazzi" comes from a character named Paparazzo in his film, La Dolce Vita (1960), who is a journalist photographing celebrities.

Died on the same day as actor River Phoenix.

He had a bombastic, short-tempered personality when shooting films, a personality he made no attempt to hide when cameras were on him.

Was voted the 10th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 330-341. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

His movies La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), 8½ (1963) and Amarcord (1973) were Oscar-nominated for "Best Foreign Language Film". All 4 movies won.

The main character, Guido Contini, in the Maury Yeston musical "Nine" is inspired by Fellini.

Was an admirer of director Ken Russell's work.

The Broadway musical "Sweet Charity" was inspired by Fellini's Oscar-winning film, Nights of Cabiria (1957).

Is buried in the same bronze tomb as his wife Giulietta Masina and their son Pier Federico, located at the main entrance to the Cemetery of Rimini.

His hometown Rimini named the Federico Fellini International Airport in his honor.

Many of his movies such as 8½ (1963) or Fellini Satyricon (1969) are influenced by the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his ideas on the "anima" and the "animus", the role of archetypes and the collective unconscious.

His son Pier Federico was born on 22 March 1945, but died just one month later.

Born to Urbano Fellini (1894-1956), a salesman and wholesale vendor, and his wife Ida Barbiani (1896-1984), he had two younger siblings, Riccardo (1921-1991) and Maria Maddalena (1929-2002).

Died the day after his 50th wedding anniversary.

Dino De Laurentiis originally hoped that Fellini would direct Flash Gordon (1980).

A great admirer of Georges Simenon's novels. They shared a letter friendship for many years.

Profiled in "Conversations with Directors: An Anthology of Interviews from Literature/Film Quarterly", E.M. Walker, D.T. Johnson, eds. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008.

Has been described as a major influence by, among others, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

In the 5th edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (edited by Steven Jay Schneider), 7 of Fellini's films are listed: La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960), 8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969) and Amarcord (1973).

Denied his film Amarcord (1973) is autobiographical, but agreed that there are similarities with his own childhood.

[Scone]

 

Claudia: I don’t understand. He meets a girl that can give him a new life and he pushes her away? Guido: Because he no longer believes in it.

Claudia: Because he doesn’t know how to love.

Guido: Because it isn’t true that a woman can change a man.

Claudia: Because he doesn’t know how to love.

Guido: And above all because I don’t feel like telling another pile of lies.

Claudia: Because he doesn’t know how to love.

- 8 1/2

[Just Gus]

Thanks, Scone!  I do love 8 1/2.  It's a great meditation on life and art.

[Scone]

The harem scene - what a beautiful fantasy.

[Just Gus]

Fellini quotes (from imdb):

It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.

[Just Gus]

Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure. Besides, you can't teach old fleas new dogs.

Censorship is advertising paid by the government.

[Just Gus]

It's absolutely impossible to improvise. Making a movie is a mathematical operation. It is like sending a missile to the moon. It isn't improvised. It is too defined to be called improvisational, too mechanical. Art is a scientific operation, so I can say that what we usually call improvisation is in my case just having an ear and eye for things that sometimes occur during the time we are making the picture.

[Just Gus]

[on Akira Kurosawa] I think he is the greatest example of all that an author of the cinema should be. I feel a fraternal affinity with his way of telling a story.

Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.

[eviltimes]

It's absolutely impossible to improvise.

 

I gather you've never seen Animal House or Caddyshack?