Intervista

INTERVISTA
DIRECTOR:                     FEDERICO FELLINI
COUNTRY:                     ITALY 1987
CINEMATOGRAPHY:   Tonino Delli Colli
CAST:                              Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, and a whole slew of Fellini walk-ons and friends
SUPER FEATURES:        I don't think that this is as good a Fellini film as he has done before. But at least one moment or two ... you'll always remember! Isn't that what film is about?

I would like to call this film the CINECITTA's version of Hollywood's THE PLAYER. We'll have to rename it THE DIRECTOR.

I think this film suffers from FILMUS INTERRUPTUS once too often, and while Fellini's totally free shooting style, and outrageous ideas, as seen from the very tall crane shots, pretty much sums up the whole thing. No one, in that major studio second only to Hollywood in number of films ever made, can ever stand up and feel the freedom of creativity which the aging master has enjoyed. And while in his earlier days, his films had a feeling of necessity, a feeling of desire, and a feeling of wanting to create something new and different, this time, it has dried up a little, and the film becomes a series of moments, and events, during the filming of any work. And in between a Japanese crew is working diligently to try to interview the famous director and try to get him to discuss his ideas, which generally he does not. He doesn't call them ideas, he calls them life.

And the difference is quite apparent, when he proceeds to show a house full of guests (Anita Ekberg's) a few moments of his best film, 8 1/2. That film had a dreamy nature which few have been able to re-capture, even Fellini himself, though his attempts now appear very pale in comparison.

While still a fun film to watch, there are a lot of absurd bits and pieces (the screaming director, the elephants, the Mel Brooks send up), it also undoes some of the magic which film creates. The scenery from the trolley car which goes around the studio is obviously canned, and we see the start of it, and then the feeling disappears as we are inside the trolley and we can no longer see the mechanical part of the work anymore.

But for watching a film master, whose ideas are not in his head, but in the film itself (GODARD once said he didn't want to make a film about politics, he wanted to make a political film and statement) and pretty much asking us to figure it all out ourselves. INTERVISTA, is not a film about figuring out anything, but a simple film about how someone like Fellini actually works. Amidst the great mess, and mad ego studios, he manages to create his own scenery and do it well.

FUN TO WATCH.

IT IS A GOOD FILM, THOUGH AMERICAN AUDIENCES MAY WONDER WHAT THE HECK...

4 GIBLOONS