Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini, an Italian film director, and screenwriter was born on January 20, 1920. He is well-known for his work and has a strong influence on filmmakers. He is known for his distinct style, which combines fiction, vivid pictures, and earthiness. His films are widely regarded as among the best of all time. Fellini received several awards during his career, including an honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, Best Foreign Language Oscars for the four films he directed, and the Palme d’Or of the Academy Awards. Fellini’s films include 812, which is ranked as the 10th greatest film in Sight and Sound lists, and Satyricon, La Strada, Juliet of the Spirits, Fellini’s Casanova Nights of Cabiria and Amarcord. There is a need to expound on the distinct approach Fellini used in filmmaking. This paper will look into the style and approach used by Fellini and provides reasons why he belonged to the Italian auteur cinema.

Style and approach

Fellini is considered as a master filmmaker. His masterpiece film 8½ covers a theme that many think as impossible to pull out. But because of his talents and flamboyance, the director managed to make the film, and it has made him one of the most celebrated filmmakers of all time. His cinemas of good-natured fools, carnivalesque lessons on the society and human nature, neorealist screenplays, mixture, and war formed unique universe which stood for Fellini’s feelings. His work was pure fantasy, and the use of a fool as his character was a stylistic choice which was not accepted in early 1940’s. However, he got influenced by Neorealist movement, and he decided to create his stylish methods of imaginary and imagery situations. As a result, his films the La Strada, La Dolce Vita and Amarcoid of 1954, 1960 and 1973 respectively made him an icon. Some of the people who got inspired by his works are Martin Scorsese and Charlie Rose.

Fellini’s films have a sense of emotional touch and a straightforward abnormally. Fellini was fascinated by beauty and ugliness. According to him, it was a moralistic point of view and not beauty or vulgarity. He considered it from an aesthetic point of view how expressing ‘visionality’ with hands would appear beautiful. Fellini saw people as ugly, but he still found beauty in the ugliness through the use of assumptions and judgments in his films and allowed the grotesque things to be human. Also, Fellini used his life to make films on screens. It was a unique style of filmmaking that is portrayed by few. His life stories were demonstrated on screen. Fellini also used bias, profound scrutiny of his emotions and mental states to make his films. The exaggerated, fictional and vibrant styles of filmmaking made his works unique and stylish.

Another distinguished approach of Fellini’s screenplays was the evolution with time. His films changed, adapted and shifted in the main concern but maintained the distinct, honest and unique style. Fellini’s identity on making films was not static. It was dynamic, and it developed and transformed in various ways as he grew old. Despite his evident narcissism in his films, Fellini was self-aware of himself, and the blend helped him to make high ranked films. Fellini’s approach to filmmaking was centered towards the reality of spirituality, the metaphysical and any other thing that existed inside a human being. Fellini connected his films with is dreams, and he made the films the same way he would live his dream. It is a unique way of expressing his inner being to the screens, and this approach is used by a few if not Fellini alone.

In Fellini’s films, he portrays carefully illustrated characterizations which are blended with universal themes that are comic yet with apparent unmixed emotional content. In La Strada, Fellini depicted the possibility of redeeming the bestiality of a human being. It also shows how feelings are powerful than words. The film is a representation of both emotions and physical nature of the abusive relationship which he experienced. Fellini used his life experiences to come up with a unique theme and an imagery film. In all his films, Fellini related or drew the themes from a different point of views, but they were all linked to his personal life. However, the features of neorealist were still evident in his films as he shot films outside the studio and blended some styles with his style to create unique and exemplary films that impressed many and inspired a lot of filmmakers both in Italy cinema and across the world.

Why does he belong to the Italian auteur cinema?

When Fellini was young, he believed that he belonged to Rome. His dream came through when they moved to Rome in late 1930’s. Life was not easy there, and he survived through selling humor magazines for Marc’Aurelio. His career started by writing scripts for the radio serial. Later in mid-1940’s, Fellini met with director Rossellini, and he was accepted to be one of the writers for Rome, Open City Neorealism’s pioneer film. His input to the screenplays earned him his first Oscar nomination. As a result, Fellini was one of Italy’s successful screenwriters. He made collaborations with various directors and produced many screenplays. He collaborated with Alberto, Pietro, and Comencini and produced screenplays such as Without Pity, The Path of Hope, and Behind Closed Shitters respectively. Also, Fellini made contributions to Rossellini Paisan of 1946 and The Miracle of 1948. His encounters with various directors gave him an opportunity in show business and cinema.

Fellini felt that he needed to do more than what he was doing and he withdrew from Neorealist and concentrated on his style which was based on fantasy and dreams. His entrance to directing was the Variety Lights of 1950 which he collaborated with Lattuada. The White Sheik of 1952 was his first feature alone which was characterized by satirical and fanatical comic. Fellini works and up, and downs made him an auteur of Italy cinema. At one time, when he directed a cinema, he was regarded as not having slightest ability to direct a cinema by a particular reviewer. However, he still made it to the top despite the challenges he went through. His unique style of filmmaking and use of his own life experiences made him make stylish films hence becoming an auteur in the cinema of Italy.

His major work, La Strada which won the Academy Award for the best foreign film made him an icon. It was one of his commercial works. Followed by his many collaborations with Marcello Mastroianni, Fellini produced many highly praised films which include La dolce vita of 1960, 8½ of 1963 and much more. As an auteur of Italy cinema, Fellini has been able to increase new styles of filmmaking and vital criticism to the literature of filmmaking. Casanova is considered as the last of his great personal creation. His significant contributions to many films and his exemplary directional approach made Fellini on one of the greatest auteurs of Italy cinema. The cinema of Italy which had challenges in 1910’s to 1920’s t revitalized by the influence of Fellini and other directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni in 1950’s when the Neorealist movement declined. Fellini and his colleagues to become the strongholds and the major players in the Cinema of Italy since then.

Conclusion

Fellini, Italian film director, and a screenwriter is a celebrated and distinctive filmmaker of all time. His career got influenced by Neorealist, but he later withdrew and decided to start his unique style of filmmaking which was based on fantasy, his dreams, and his own life experiences. He contributed immensely in the Cinema of Italy and became a pioneer of his style of filmmaking. His major works include La Strada, 8½, The Nights of Cabiria, and Amarcoid among others. He got Oscar nominations and Academy awards for his exemplary work, and he was later given an honorary Oscar award for Lifetime Achievement. His style and approach to filmmaking were distinct. He used fiction, imagery and his life experiences. His style was dynamic, and it evolved with time. His exaggeration tactics and the use of beauty and ugliness made his work unique and stylish. Fellini became the auteur of Italian Cinema as he was a pioneer of personal style and influence in the Italy Cinema industry.