The translation, which sets a conversational, at times flippant, tone by using the present tense, reinforces the lightness of Kezich's account, suggesting early on that it's up to readers whether to believe what they read. Much of what readers learn of Fellini's life before movies, for example, comes through Kezich's examination of Fellini's old newspaper columns and radio scripts the personal, conversely, is largely reduced to the anecdotal. Despite the close author-subject connection, however, the biography rarely presents an intimate view of the director, preferring to view Fellini primarily through the prism of his films and other work. This is a revised and updated edition of Kezich's 1988 biography of Fellini (1920 1993), one of several books the Italian film critic has written about his longtime friend since the two met at a film festival in the early 1950s.
#Federico fellini books full#
The result is a book that explores both the machinations of cinema and the man who most grandly embraced the full spectrum of its possibilities, leaving his indelible mark on it forever. As Kezich reveals, the dilemmas Fellini presents in his movies reflect not only his personal battles but those of Italian society. His is an art of delicate pathos, of episodic films that directly address the intersection of reality, fantasy, and desire that exists as a product of mid-century Italy-a country reeling from a Fascist regime as it struggled with an outmoded Catholic national identity. In this moving and intimately revealing account of a lifetime spent in pictures, Kezich uses his friendship with Fellini as a means to step outside the frame of myth and anecdote that surrounds him-much, it turns out, of the director's own making.Ī great lover of women and a meticulous observer of dreams, Fellini, perhaps more than any other director of the twentieth century, created films that embodied a thoroughly modern sensibility, eschewing traditional narrative along with religious and moral precepts. Now, more than forty years later, film critic and Fellini confidant Tullio Kezich has written the work by which all other biographies of the filmmaker are sure to be measured. With the revolutionary 8 1/2, Federico Fellini put his deepest desires and anxieties before the lens in 1963, permanently impacting the art of cinema in the process. Thankfully, though, he is far too lively and mischievous a filmmaker to allow nostalgia and self-pity to cloud his vision.A lively and authoritative journey into the world of a cinema master So is his yearning for the lost world of his youth. Sorrentino captures the excitement in Naples when Maradona mania was at its height, and his affection for his colourful, carnivalesque home city is evident in every frame.
(Even when having sex, his mind is elsewhere). He gives the sense that he is always looking in at events, an observer more than a participant. Scotti is very well cast as the sensitive but sometimes arrogant young protagonist. This isn’t just a case of a now very successful filmmaker making fun of his lovable relatives and neighbours: Fabietto has to deal with loss and death, there is a darkness at the core of the story told here.
The Hand of God could easily have seemed whimsical and self-indulgent.
In other words, this is another of those coming of age movies in which the callow young artist learns familiar lessons about life, love and the nature of creativity. Luisa Ranieri as Patrizia (Photo: Gianni Fiorito/Netflix)