73
In his colossal biography, Tullio Kezich tells how Fellini, dejected by the tepid response to City of Women (1980), decided to discreetly visit cinemas in Rome to gauge audiences’ reactions for himself. He discovered that ‘the audience had changed planet, it no longer existed’.30 This mournful assessment helps us understand the valedictory yet defiant tone of his last period.
After the success of Amarcord, the public lost interest in Fellini, even though the baroque excesses of the Felliniesque aesthetic had entered the mainstream. The media reduced him to his own caricature while his films were greeted with incom¬ prehension, controversy or even indifference. In the period between Fellini’s Casanova (1976) and La voce della luna (1990) Italian cinema went through a major creative crisis, mainly triggered by the emergence of ‘neo-television’. The appearance of private TV channels — and that of Silvio Berlusconi’s financial and political empire — led to a banalization of the image. This phenomenon was accompanied by a dearth of exemplars in Italian cinema: some directors were working abroad (Bertolucci and Antonioni), the old masters were dead (Rossellini, Pasolini, Visconti) and audiences were deserting cinemas that had failed to keep up with the times. Ensconced within the studios of Cinecitta, Fellini would continue to create startling, visionary images, while resisting a society of spectacle that embraced television to the detriment of any artistic or intellectual standards.
nooo
In his colossal biography, Tullio Kezich tells how Fellini, dejected by the tepid response to City of Women (1980), decided to discreetly visit cinemas in Rome to gauge audiences’ reactions for himself. He discovered that ‘the audience had changed planet, it no longer existed’.30 This mournful assessment helps us understand the valedictory yet defiant tone of his last period.
After the success of Amarcord, the public lost interest in Fellini, even though the baroque excesses of the Felliniesque aesthetic had entered the mainstream. The media reduced him to his own caricature while his films were greeted with incom¬ prehension, controversy or even indifference. In the period between Fellini’s Casanova (1976) and La voce della luna (1990) Italian cinema went through a major creative crisis, mainly triggered by the emergence of ‘neo-television’. The appearance of private TV channels — and that of Silvio Berlusconi’s financial and political empire — led to a banalization of the image. This phenomenon was accompanied by a dearth of exemplars in Italian cinema: some directors were working abroad (Bertolucci and Antonioni), the old masters were dead (Rossellini, Pasolini, Visconti) and audiences were deserting cinemas that had failed to keep up with the times. Ensconced within the studios of Cinecitta, Fellini would continue to create startling, visionary images, while resisting a society of spectacle that embraced television to the detriment of any artistic or intellectual standards.
nooo
88
While Fellini is conjuring up his world in Fellini’s Intervista, Marcello Mastroianni appears once again. For the last time, the creator and his creature are on screen together. The evocation of the glorious Cinecitta of days long gone is counterpointed by the sight of its former splendours. Marcello looks back to the past only to meet up once again with Anita Ekberg, overweight and cruelly aged. The two of them watch the handsome Marcello and the exuberant Anita in the famous Trevi Fountain scene from La Dolce Vita. Nobody can return from the kingdom of the dead: cinema and youth belong to another age, the shipwreck has already taken place.
nooo
While Fellini is conjuring up his world in Fellini’s Intervista, Marcello Mastroianni appears once again. For the last time, the creator and his creature are on screen together. The evocation of the glorious Cinecitta of days long gone is counterpointed by the sight of its former splendours. Marcello looks back to the past only to meet up once again with Anita Ekberg, overweight and cruelly aged. The two of them watch the handsome Marcello and the exuberant Anita in the famous Trevi Fountain scene from La Dolce Vita. Nobody can return from the kingdom of the dead: cinema and youth belong to another age, the shipwreck has already taken place.
nooo