Federico Fellini
Birthday:
20 January 1920, Rimini, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Height:
182 cm
The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the devil herself said the priests who ran his school) - ...
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The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the devil herself said the priests who ran his school) - and the Gambettola farmhouse of his paternal grandmother would be remembered in several films. His traveling salesman father Urbano Fellini showed up in La dolce vita (1960) and 8½ (1963). His mother Ida Barbiani was from Rome and accompanied him there in 1939. He enrolled in the University of Rome. Intrigued by the image of reporters in American films, he tried out the real life role of journalist and caught the attention of several editors with his caricatures and cartoons and then started submitting articles. Several articles were recycled into a radio series about newlyweds "Cico and Pallina". Pallina was played by acting student Giulietta Masina, who became his real life wife from October 30, 1943, until his death half a century later. The young Fellini loved vaudeville and was befriended in 1940 by leading comedian Aldo Fabrizi. Roberto Rossellini wanted Fabrizi to play Don Pietro in Roma città aperta (1945) and made the contact through Fellini. Fellini worked on that film's script and is on the credits for Rosselini's Paisà (1946). On that film he wandered into the editing room, started observing how Italian films were made (a lot like the old silent films with an emphasis on visual effects, dialogue dubbed in later). Fellini in his mid-20s had found his life's work. Show less «
There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.
There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.
My work is my only relationship to everything.
My work is my only relationship to everything.
You exist only in what you do.
You exist only in what you do.
In the myth of the cinema, Oscar is the supreme prize.
In the myth of the cinema, Oscar is the supreme prize.
In the mythology of the cinema, the Oscar is the supreme prize.
In the mythology of the cinema, the Oscar is the supreme prize.
Our dreams are our real life. My fantasies and obsessions are not only my reality, but the stuff of which my films are made.
Our dreams are our real life. My fantasies and obsessions are not only my reality, but the stuff of which my films are made.
You have to live spherically--in many directions. To accept yourself for what you are without inhibitions, to be open.
You have to live spherically--in many directions. To accept yourself for what you are without inhibitions, to be open.
Put yourself into life and never lose your openness, your childish enthusiasm throughout the journey that is life, and things will come your...Show more »
Put yourself into life and never lose your openness, your childish enthusiasm throughout the journey that is life, and things will come your way. Show less «
It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.
It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.
All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography.
All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography.
Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure. Besides, you can't teach old fleas new dogs.
Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure. Besides, you can't teach old fleas new dogs.
Censorship is advertising paid by the government.
Censorship is advertising paid by the government.
It's absolutely impossible to improvise. Making a movie is a mathematical operation. It is like sending a missile to the moon. It isn't impr...Show more »
It's absolutely impossible to improvise. Making a movie is a mathematical operation. It is like sending a missile to the moon. It isn't improvised. It is too defined to be called improvisational, too mechanical. Art is a scientific operation, so I can say that what we usually call improvisation is in my case just having an ear and eye for things that sometimes occur during the time we are making the picture. Show less «
I always direct the same film. I can't distinguish one from another.
I always direct the same film. I can't distinguish one from another.
Happiness is simply a temporary condition that proceeds unhappiness. Fortunately for us, it works the other way around as well. But it's all...Show more »
Happiness is simply a temporary condition that proceeds unhappiness. Fortunately for us, it works the other way around as well. But it's all a part of the carnival, isn't it. Show less «
[on Akira Kurosawa] I think he is the greatest example of all that an author of the cinema should be. I feel a fraternal affinity with his w...Show more »
[on Akira Kurosawa] I think he is the greatest example of all that an author of the cinema should be. I feel a fraternal affinity with his way of telling a story. Show less «
We don't really know who woman is. She remains in that precise place within man where darkness begins. Talking about women means talking abo...Show more »
We don't really know who woman is. She remains in that precise place within man where darkness begins. Talking about women means talking about the darkest part of ourselves, the undeveloped part, the true mystery within. In the beginning, I believe man was complete and androgynous-both male and female, or neither, like angels. Then came the division, and Eve was taken from him. So the problem for man is to reunite himself with the other half of his being, to find the woman who is right for him-right be she is simply a projection, a mirror of himself. A man can't become whole or free until he has set woman free-his woman. It's his responsibility, not hers. He can't be complete, truly alive until he makes her his sexual companion, and not a slave of libidinous acts or a saint with a halo. Show less «
I'm just a storyteller, and the cinema happens to be my medium. I like it because it recreates life in movement, enlarges it, enhances it, d...Show more »
I'm just a storyteller, and the cinema happens to be my medium. I like it because it recreates life in movement, enlarges it, enhances it, distills it. For me, it's far closer to the miraculous creation of life than, say, a painting or music or even literature. It's not just an art form; it's actually a new form of life, with its own rhythms, cadences, perspectives and transparencies. It's my way of telling a story. Show less «
Anyone who lives, as I do, in a world of imagination must make an enormous and unnatural effect to be factual in the ordinary sense. I confe...Show more »
Anyone who lives, as I do, in a world of imagination must make an enormous and unnatural effect to be factual in the ordinary sense. I confess I would be a terrible witness in court because of this--and a terrible journalist. I feel compelled to a story the way I see it and this is seldom the way it happened, in all its documentary detail. Show less «
No doubt there's a connection between pathology and creation, we can't deny it. Yet I view with pleasure the work of film professionals I lo...Show more »
No doubt there's a connection between pathology and creation, we can't deny it. Yet I view with pleasure the work of film professionals I love, such as Bunuel, Kurosawa, Kubrick, Bergman. Show less «
With the death of Sergei Parajanov cinema lost one of its magicians. (July, 1990)
With the death of Sergei Parajanov cinema lost one of its magicians. (July, 1990)
Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop ...Show more »
Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It's a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something as in a dream. Show less «
The visionary is the only true realist.
The visionary is the only true realist.
Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.
Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.
Our duty as storytellers is to bring people to the station. There each person will choose his or her own train... But we must at least take ...Show more »
Our duty as storytellers is to bring people to the station. There each person will choose his or her own train... But we must at least take them to the station... to a point of departure. Show less «
Federico Fellini's Photos
