Italian director Federico Fellini is a recognized master and classic of world cinema. He managed to become the owner of five Oscar statuettes, and this is a record to this day. The work of this great master has changed the idea of cinema and its possibilities.
Fellini in childhood and youth
Federico Fellini was born in 1920 in the resort town of Rimini into a poor family of a traveling salesman. At the age of seven, Federico became a student at the school at the monastery. And when he turned seventeen, he left for Florence and got a job here as a cartoonist in the publishing house "Phoebo". His income was modest, but it was quite possible to do without the help of his father and mother.
A year later, Fellini moved to Rome, where he continued to draw funny cartoons for newspapers - many readers liked them. And in Rome, Fellini entered the law faculty of the National University. But he didn't want to be a lawyer too much, the main goal was different - to get a reprieve from military service.
Fellini during the war
During the Second World War, Fellini showed himself as a screenwriter for radio shows. In 1943, on one Italian radio, one could hear funny programs about a fictional couple of lovers - Chico and Pauline. It was Fellini who created the scripts for these programs. Once he was offered to shoot these stories on film, and he agreed. One of the actresses recruited for this project was the beautiful Juliet Mazina. The future film director liked this girl madly, and already on October 30, 1943, they formalized their relationship.
In March 1945, a son was born in the Fellini family, it was decided to name him, like his father, Federico. Alas, the baby was in very poor health and died a few weeks after birth. The couple had no other children. But this did not stop them from living together for fifty years. That is, Juliet was the director's only wife, and he certainly considered her his muse.
Of great importance for Fellini's career was his acquaintance with the Italian director Roberto Rossellini (this acquaintance also happened during the war years). Fellini wrote the screenplay for his film Rome - Open City. The tape was released in 1945 and instantly made its creators famous. Fellini's work was highly appreciated, he even received an Oscar nomination. Today the film "Rome - Open City" is considered a vivid example of Italian neo-realism.
First films
In 1950, Fellini was credited for the first time as a director. The film "Variety Show Lights", shot with Alberto Lattuada, received mostly positive reviews from critics.
Then Fellini directed the films The White Sheikh (released in 1952) and Mama's Sons (1953). They adhere to a certain extent to the neo-realist tradition, but at the same time you can find in them features unusual for this direction, for example, a departure from the linear structure of the narrative, an obsession with certain interesting details.
Fellini's next picture, The Road (1954), became a real hit. She brought him and his wife Juliet Mazine, who played the main role here, world fame and the coveted Oscar statuettes.
Fellini's work from 1955 to 1990
In 1955, Fellini directed Fraud, in 1957 - Cabiria Nights, and in 1960 - the legendary La Dolce Vita. Many rightly consider this motion picture the pinnacle of the director's creativity. Here he managed to show life as a kind of miracle, full of pleasant moments that you want to savor like an intoxicating sweet drink. Although at first in Italy, the film was sharply criticized, in particular, for its explicit striptease scene. It is also interesting that in “La Dolce Vita” there is a hero whose surname has become a household name - we are talking about the photographer Paparazzo.
Fellini's next film masterpiece was called Eight and a Half. It was released in 1963 and was truly groundbreaking. In this tape, the Italian director went on experiments with editing, which were quite daring for his time. In other words, Fellini was one of the first to use the stream of consciousness technique in cinema.
Beginning with Juliet and the Perfume (1965), Fellini shoots exclusively in color. In the early seventies, the Italian director tries to rethink his childhood and youth memories in three films: the semi-documentary comedy Clowns, which was not appreciated by the general public, and Rome (1972) and Amarcord (1973). Amarcord is perhaps the master's most politicized work. In this film, the realities of fascist Italy in the thirties are shown through the experiences of the protagonist, a fifteen-year-old teenager named Titta.
In the eighties, the director shot such films as "And the ship sails …", "City of women", "Ginger and Fred", "Interview". These films repeat the motives that Fellini one way or another has already touched on earlier. But none of them achieved success comparable to, say, the success of La Dolce Vita. In addition, in this decade, the director has been criticized for self-citation and detachment from reality.
Fellini made his last motion picture, Voices of the Moon, in 1990. Here the director showed the audience the world through the eyes of a kind madman who had just been discharged from a mental hospital.
Death of a great director
In March 1993, the director was awarded the fifth honorary Oscar for his significant contribution to the cinema. In the autumn of the same year, Juliet and Federico planned to celebrate a golden wedding in the circle of their closest people. However, on October 15, 73-year-old Fellini was admitted to the hospital with a stroke. And on October 31 he was gone.
On the day of the Italians' farewell to the outstanding director, car traffic in Rome was specially suspended. The funeral black cortege drove through the streets of the capital to applause. The master was buried in the town where he was once born, in Rimini.
