![A Guest in My Own Dreams: An Interview with Federico Fellini, Film Quarterly, Spring 1994 [pdf]
This is probably one of the best interviews with Fellini.
The conversation which follows did not take place all at once. Although I had known Federico Fellini since 1956, when he came to New York to publicize Nights of Cabiria and appeared on my radio show, and although I had written about him extensively, made a documentary about him (Ciao, Federico!), and photographed him continually for 37 years, we had not actually sat down to discuss his filmmaking ideas and his life philosophy until a few years before his death.
This was not because I did not ask him. It was, I now think, his reluctance to sound definitive about anything, and especially about himself, which made him postpone again and again a long-promised, lengthy, and in-depth conversation on these topics. Even the simple telling of the facts of his life kept being postponed. And although once, in 1962, after I had worked with him on 8’/2 and was following him during the shooting of Juliet of the Spirits, he sat down with me on a rainy afternoon and allowed me to record his story on five hours of tape, he was beside himself when these tapes were lost and refused to do new ones. I think this is because the story would not have been the same if he had tried again. He would have invented another life, a risk he probably wished to avoid in case the first tapes ever showed up.
But after City of Women, on which my companion, Deborah Beer, was the set photographer (as she was on And the Ship Sails On and on Ginger and Fred), he became somewhat more open to the suggestion of talking about himself in what I told him would be a discussion in depth. He smiled at this definition but he did not refuse, although at the same time he practically stopped giving journalistic interviews. From today’s vantage point, I can’t help feeling that for Fellini, allowing this discussion was a small way of giving up a battle for continual renewal.
I hope to convey, with these excerpts from many hours of tape, an image of a man who has shaped our vision of the century. —Gideon Bachmann](http://24.media.tumblr.com/6d711cdf5b0f9514b6c0fae0f4a03d1a/tumblr_mm7zis2Ic51rovfcgo1_500.jpg)
A Guest in My Own Dreams: An Interview with Federico Fellini, Film Quarterly, Spring 1994 [pdf]
This is probably one of the best interviews with Fellini.
The conversation which follows did not take place all at once. Although I had known Federico Fellini since 1956, when he came to New York to publicize Nights of Cabiria and appeared on my radio show, and although I had written about him extensively, made a documentary about him (Ciao, Federico!), and photographed him continually for 37 years, we had not actually sat down to discuss his filmmaking ideas and his life philosophy until a few years before his death.
This was not because I did not ask him. It was, I now think, his reluctance to sound definitive about anything, and especially about himself, which made him postpone again and again a long-promised, lengthy, and in-depth conversation on these topics. Even the simple telling of the facts of his life kept being postponed. And although once, in 1962, after I had worked with him on 8’/2 and was following him during the shooting of Juliet of the Spirits, he sat down with me on a rainy afternoon and allowed me to record his story on five hours of tape, he was beside himself when these tapes were lost and refused to do new ones. I think this is because the story would not have been the same if he had tried again. He would have invented another life, a risk he probably wished to avoid in case the first tapes ever showed up.
But after City of Women, on which my companion, Deborah Beer, was the set photographer (as she was on And the Ship Sails On and on Ginger and Fred), he became somewhat more open to the suggestion of talking about himself in what I told him would be a discussion in depth. He smiled at this definition but he did not refuse, although at the same time he practically stopped giving journalistic interviews. From today’s vantage point, I can’t help feeling that for Fellini, allowing this discussion was a small way of giving up a battle for continual renewal.
I hope to convey, with these excerpts from many hours of tape, an image of a man who has shaped our vision of the century. —Gideon Bachmann
This is a gem: A 1965 interview with the great screenwriter-director Federico Fellini.
We think of Fellini as a director, but did you know he has over 50 film-writing credits including La strada (1954), La dolce vita (1960), 8½ (1963), Giulietta degli spiriti (1965), Fellini – Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972, and Amarcord (1973). This 7-minute excerpt from the interview Fellini talks about how immersed he can become in the story world when directing one of his movies, and in keeping with his fascination with the subconscious, dreams, and fantasy, even talks about taking LSD. —Scott Myers
The Secret World of Federico Fellini (8 Dec. 1972). Rare Federico Fellini interview:
With thanks to NellyM
“Toby Dammit” Fellini’s rare psychedelic joyride-to-hell.
Fellini’s segment in “Tre passi nel delirio” a “film collettivo” from 1968 – starring (and with a voice-over by) a seemingly drugged Terence Stamp, screened in all its groovy, surreal, glory at “Operazione Paura,” the festival of Horror “Made in Italy” currently underway in Seravezza. The fest celebrates the Masters of the genre, like Bava, Fulci and Argento, as well as the younger generation of practitioners of the craft in a series of screenings and conferences held in the Scuderie Granducali in the Palazzo Mediceo complex for the next two days.
Stamp plays Toby Dammit, a british actor in Rome to make a “Catholic Western” in exchange for a Ferrari, … as a troubled loner, a self-centered ham prone to whining fits when drunk, and given to nightmarish psychotic episodes featuring a creepy girl, all dressed in white. All of Fellini’s famous themes are in full form in this, his “liberal adaptation” of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Never Wager the Devil Your Head.”
The soundrack is by Nino Rota.
We link to part 1of 5 of this wonderful 43-minute tale of strange women, beautiful parties and crazy car rides. It’s a funny look at the excesses of showbiz and a delirious glance at the daily horrors of eveyday life. Enough to make anyone lose his head!
Source: artislimited.wordpress.com
A behind the scenes look at the making of Federico Fellini’s Casanova. 5th April 1976. (With thanks to NellyM)
‘I’ve never compromised. But then I’ve always been lucky’: Federico Fellini talks about ‘Casanova’
Federico Fellini had been working on his 12th feature film Casanova. It had been a difficult experience. Filming had taken over a year to complete, and Fellini had spent in excess of $10m, using up 3 producers. He claimed he hated his leading star, Donald Sutherland. There had been union disputes, and the negative had been “kidnapped” and returned. Then the Vatican declared one of Fellini’s previous films “obscene”. But the great master was unfazed by all of this.
‘I’m sorry if I disappoint you by not describing the tears in my eyes, my role as the victim, the artist forced to sacrifice his own integrity and purity,’ Fellini explained in an interview with the BBC in 1976.
‘I’ve never compromised. But then I’ve always been lucky.
‘On the occasions that I could be reproached for compromising, was directly attributable to my own laziness, because I was in love, or I wanted to finish the film. Or, simply because I was fed-up by it.
‘I don’t think absolute liberty is necessarily a good thing for people creatively. As far as I, or people like me are concerned.
‘Being Italian, I have a particular type of psychology: I am an artist who is conditioned to the idea of delivering his work to All.
‘The Popes in the 14th and the 15th century, or the great Lords of days gone by, they always used to commission painters or writers to create a madrigal or a crucifixion for them. It’s this necessity of an obligation - a contract - it’s an authority that forces you to work.’
For Casanova that authority was the American film company. Fellini may have had control over the designs, the sets, the costumes, the cast, the script, and the direction, but ultimately Fellini was answerable to his producers. This was partly why he had chosen to work with Donald Sutherland.
‘Well, in Casanova,’ said Fellini, ‘There was a precise plan for a certain type of character. Because the film is an American film - made by an Italian crew for a major American company. My contractual position is that the producer made me make the film in English.’
Fellini made Sutherland have his head partially shaved, his eyebrows removed and his teeth “cut” by 2mm. A false nose, chin and eyebrows were then added. Sutherland had to rethink how best to interpret Casanova’s experience in terms of 18th century expression.
Fellini wanted authenticity, and he knew his film would cause outrage from the prudes and hypocrites of his homeland, who had already burnt copies of The Last Tango in Paris on the streets of Rome.
‘You’ve got a real moralistic tyranny in Italy,’ Fellini said. ‘It is fast coming to the point where people are being told how to make love, how to dress, how to shave, how to look at a woman. I feel completely bewildered and confused. Clearly what’s going on in our country is a real mess. I cannot honestly see how we are going to extricate ourselves.
‘The Italians are like confused children. They’ve had a thousand years of Catholic up-bringing which has left us uncertain in our context of life. We are incapable, apparently, of making personal judgments because we have always asked other people. We ask our fathers, the teacher, police, the ministry, priests, the Pope. We have always asked others to give their opinion for us, without ever having to judge for ourselves individually.’
Source: dangerousminds.net
Federico Fellini and Magali Noël between takes of Amarcord.
Fellini dice… (Fellini says) directed by Gianni Paolucci. A documentary about Italian film director Federico Fellini; review of Fellini’s most popular films (Le Notti di Cabiria, Amarcord, Casanova, Dolce Vita, I Vitelloni, Giulietta degli Spiriti, Otto e Mezzo). Appearances of: Alberto Sordi, Marcello Mastroianni, Franco Fabrizi, Magali Noel, Anouk Aimee, Anita Ekberg, Donald Sutherland, Giulietta Masina… among many others.
Megaphone in hand, Federico Fellini directs Casanova. Kneeling, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno.
Fellini directs Intervista.
Fellini directs Sandra Milo in Giulietta degli spiriti.
Fellini checks the camera angle for a shot of Amarcord.
Fellini rides the camera on the set of Roma.
Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini chat.
Dino Risi and Federico Fellini at the 1957 San Sebastián Film Festival, at which Risi’s La nonna Sabella took the top prize.
Source: acertaincinema.com
Federico Fellini directs Marcello Mastroianni & Bernice Stegers on the set of City of Women (1979) (via)
Previously on Cinephilia & Beyond:
- 8 Minutes on the Set of Fellini’s 8 1/2
- Federico Fellini Playboy Interview
- Federico Fellini filming 8 1/2
- Fellini: A Director’s Notebook (1969)
- Genius at work: Fellini shooting “Satyricon”, 1969.
- A look at Fellini’s creative process
- 1965 Playboy interview with Mastroianni
Source: oldhollywood
Polish Poster for 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Previously on Cinephilia & Beyond: A look at Fellini’s creative process. In extensive interviews, Fellini talks a bit about his background and then discusses how he works and how he creates. Several actors, a producer, a writer, and a production manager talk about working with Fellini. Archive footage of Fellini and others on the set plus clips from his films provide commentary and illustration for the points interviewees make. Fellini is fully in charge; actors call themselves puppets. He dismisses improvisation and calls for “availability.” His sets and his films create images that look like reality but are not; we see the differences and the results.
Marcello Mastroianni during the filming of 8½, 1963
Fellini discusses his views of making motion pictures and his unorthodox procedures. He seeks inspiration in various out of the way places. During this film viewers go with him to the Colisseum at night, on a subway ride past Roman ruins, to the Appian Way, to a slaughterhouse, and on a visit to Marcello Mastroianni’s house. Fellini also is seen in his own office interviewing a series of unusual characters seeking work or his help.
Fellini: A Director’s Notebook (1969)
Fellini: A Director’s Notebook (1969)
Fellini discusses his views of making motion pictures and his unorthodox procedures. He seeks inspiration in various out of the way places. During this film viewers go with him to the Colisseum at night, on a subway ride past Roman ruins, to the Appian Way, to a slaughterhouse, and on a visit to Marcello Mastroianni’s house. Fellini also is seen in his own office interviewing a series of unusual characters seeking work or his help.
Genius at work: Fellini shooting “Satyricon”, 1969.
Fellini: I’m a Born Liar (2002)
A look at Fellini’s creative process. In extensive interviews, Fellini talks a bit about his background and then discusses how he works and how he creates. Several actors, a producer, a writer, and a production manager talk about working with Fellini. Archive footage of Fellini and others on the set plus clips from his films provide commentary and illustration for the points interviewees make. Fellini is fully in charge; actors call themselves puppets. He dismisses improvisation and calls for “availability.” His sets and his films create images that look like reality but are not; we see the differences and the results.
