Federico Fellini
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"Spending time in those theaters, I grew increasingly irritated by the offhand putdowns and snide of cinema snobs like the New Yorker’s Pauline Kael and The New York Times’s Vincent Canby, who implied that Times Square movies could only entertain low-IQ types, and seemed unable to praise anything beyond the hip new Fellini or Bergman film. I, on the other hand, felt their "old masters" were directors who hadn’t shown a new wrinkle in years,. To me, 42nd Street was where the real aesthetic innovations were being made. There was no permanent record of the type of exploitation films I had so relentlessly attended. So in June 1980, I started Sleazoid Express."-- Sleazoid Express (1984) by Bill Landis |
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Federico Fellini (January 20 1920 – October 31 1993) was an Italian filmmaker of the 20th century, celebrated by his authorial descriptive "Felliniesque".
Influence and legacy
A unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire, Fellini's films are deeply personal visions of society, often portraying people at their most bizarre. The term "Felliniesque" is used to describe any scene in which a hallucinatory image invades an otherwise ordinary situation.
Important contemporary filmmakers such as Woody Allen, David Lynch, Girish Kasaravalli, David Cronenberg, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Tim Burton, Pedro Almodovar, Terry Gilliam and Emir Kusturica have all cited Fellini's influence on their work. Woody Allen, in particular, has used Fellini's imagery and themes in several films: Stardust Memories evokes 8 1/2, Radio Days is reminiscent of Amarcord while Broadway Danny Rose and The Purple Rose of Cairo echo Variety Lights and The White Sheik, respectively.
Polish director, Wojciech Has, whose two major films, The Saragossa Manuscript (1965) and The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (1973) are outstanding examples of modernist fantasies, has been compared to Fellini for the sheer "luxuriance of his images."
In 2001, singer Fish released an album titled Fellini Days, taking inspiration for the lyrics and music from the works of Fellini.
Fellini's work was, and continues to be, a strong inspiration for the music and image of the rock band, the The B-52's. They cited his influence from films such as 8 1/2 for their trademark bouffant hairstyles and retro-futuristic clothing styles. Most recently, his work was the main inspiration behind their latest album, Funplex (2008) with the song Juliet of the Spirits.
Filmography as director
Links to Fellini's drawings related to single films
- Luci del Varietà (1950) (co-credited with Alberto Lattuada)
- Lo Sceicco Bianco (1951)
- I Vitelloni (1953)
- L'amore in città (1953) (segment Un'agenzia matrimoniale)
- La strada (1954) Oscar (best foreign language film) [1]
- Il bidone (1955)
- Le Notti di Cabiria (1957) Oscar (best foreign language film) [2]
- La dolce vita (1960) Oscar (best costumes)
- Boccaccio '70 (1962) (segment Le tentazioni del Dottor Antonio)
- 8½ (1963) Oscar (best foreign language film and best costume design)
- Giulietta degli Spiriti (1965)
- Histoires extraordinaires (1968) (segment Toby Dammit)
- Satyricon (1969)
- I clowns (1970)
- Roma (1972)
- Amarcord (1973) Oscar (best foreign language film)
- Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976) Oscar (best costume design)
- Prova d'orchestra (1978)
- La città delle donne (1980)
- E la Nave Va (1983)
- Ginger and Fred (1986)
- Intervista (1987)
- La voce della luna (1990)