#0000C/#747: FELLINI, Federico: Fellini Satyricon (1969)
FELLINI, Federico (Italy)
#0000C/#747:
Ciao, Federico!
Archival interviews
Fellini Satyricon [1969]
Spine #0000C/Spine #747
Blu-ray
Federico Fellini's career achieved new levels of eccentricity and brilliance with this remarkable, controversial, extremely loose adaptation of Petronius's classical Roman satire, written during the reign of Nero. An episodic barrage of sexual licentiousness, godless violence, and eye-catching grotesquerie, Fellini Satyricon follows the exploits of two pansexual young men — the handsome scholar Encolpius and his vulgar, insatiably lusty friend Ascyltus — as they move through a landscape of free-form pagan excess. Creating apparent chaos with exquisite control, Fellini constructs a weird old world that feels like science fiction.
130 minutes
Color
Color
Monaural
in Italian
2:35:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2015/2020
Director/Writers
From the book by Gaius Petronius Arbiter.
Story and screenplay by Federico Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi.
Fellini was 49 when he directed Fellini Satyricon.
Other Fellini films in the Collection:
#0000C/#189: The White Sheik (1952)
#0000C/#246: I Viteloni (1953)
#0000C/#219: La Strada (1954)
#0000C: Il Bidone (1955)
#0000C/#49: Nights Of Cabiria (1957)
#0000C/#733: La Dolce Vita (1960)
#0000C/#140: 8½ (1963)
#0000C/#149: Juliet Of The Spirits (1965)
#0000C/#848: Roma (1972)
#0000C/#4: Amarcord (1973)
#0000C/#50: And The Ship Sails On (1983)
#0000C: Intervista (1987)
The Film
Story and screenplay by Federico Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi.
Fellini was 49 when he directed Fellini Satyricon.
Other Fellini films in the Collection:
#0000C/#189: The White Sheik (1952)
#0000C/#246: I Viteloni (1953)
#0000C/#219: La Strada (1954)
#0000C: Il Bidone (1955)
#0000C/#49: Nights Of Cabiria (1957)
#0000C/#733: La Dolce Vita (1960)
#0000C/#140: 8½ (1963)
#0000C/#149: Juliet Of The Spirits (1965)
#0000C/#848: Roma (1972)
#0000C/#4: Amarcord (1973)
#0000C/#50: And The Ship Sails On (1983)
#0000C: Intervista (1987)
The Film
Cast:
Encolpius (spider) (Martin Potter)
Ascyltus (spider) (Hiram Keller)
Fortunata (Magali Noël)
Scintilla (Danica la Loggia)
The suicides (Lucia Bosé) (Joseph Wheeler)
The emperor (Tanya Lopert)
The slave girl (Hylette Adolphe)
The thief (Gordon Mitchell)
The proconsul (Marcello di Folco)
Arianna (Elise Mainardi)
The captain (Carlo Giordana)
**
Greek and Roman names and terms you’ll encounter:
**
The ad compaign: “Before Christ, After Fellini,” was not entirely accurate. Scholars date Petronius’s satire to the time of Nero (37-68 C.E.) “Before Christianity, After Fellini,” might have been better, but lacks pizzazz.
The term Felliniesque just doesn’t cut it here.
This film posits an entire relatively unknown universe, full of faces, costumes, masks — and perhaps most importantly — behavior that seem totally alien to our modern society.
And it all works. Episodic in nature, Fellini lifted some Petronius intact — Trimalchio’s feast, the widow and the soldier, etc. Other scenes emerge purely from Fellini’s outrageous imagination.
A masterpiece requiring several viewings (and perhaps some research) to experience the film’s true grandeur.
**
Check out the Buddy Hackett look-alike with the hand-clappers at 0:26:42!
Film Rating (0-60):
The Booklets
#0000C only:
56
The ExtrasThe Booklets
#0000C only:
Eighty-two page booklet featuring an essay by David Forgacs.
154-page booklet featuring an introduction by Bilge Ebiri and essays by Michael Almereyda (Primary Sources); Colm Tóibin (Imagined Homes); Carol Morley (Life on Earth); Stephanie Zacharek (Tough Love); and Kogonada (There is No End).
Forgács:
“When Fellini Satyricon was released in 1969, it was unlike any other film ever made about ancient Rome. Fellini called it, in complete seriousness, a work of science fiction. What he meant was that it jettisoned all the images of classical antiquity piled up from school textbooks and epic movies and looked anew at the people of the first-century Rome as if they were beings from another planet.”
#747 only: Sixteen-page panel-poster featuring an essay by film scholar Michael Wood.
Wood:
“It isn’t all horror and darkness. Tullio Kezich found it ‘sickly and claustrophobic,’ but this feels like a small piece of the story. There is too much life in the film for this morbid sense to prevail, too much energy in the rapid, busy gestures and the lurid makeup. Helen Morales says Petronius’s Satyricon is all about ‘parody and death,’ and this is very much the note Fellini strikes. Though not quite parody, perhaps; more like travesty. Petronius is ironic and oblique throughout, but we don’t feel that his characters are dressing up, as Fellini’s are. This is a film about disguise, about people becoming caricatures of themselves, talking like imitations of their own worst performances, running into comic-book versions of their nightmares. It is about death too, as the novel is, but death itself is travestied in the film. Disguise and mockery are the vivid methods by which the director and his characters diligently fail to keep it at bay. Where are we? On the run, or walking along a wall.”
#0000C/#747:
Commentary
From 2014 featuring an adaptation of Eileen Lanouette Hughes's 1971 memoir On the Set of "Fellini Satyricon": A Behind-the Scenes Diary.
From 2014 featuring an adaptation of Eileen Lanouette Hughes's 1971 memoir On the Set of "Fellini Satyricon": A Behind-the Scenes Diary.
Excellent commentary, as Hughes reads the sections of her book that coincide with the particular scene on the screen at that moment. She was “the American writer” — with complete access — who Fellini invited to sit on his lap, and, it sounds like, tried to get her to shed her clothing and join in on the fun. (It appears she declined.)
She describes a moment when a young actress shows up on the set for her scenes, and Fellini coyly tries to seduce her:
“Would you like some LSD; how ‘bout some mescaline — or some pot?”
Ciao, Federico!
Gideon Bachmann's documentary shot on the set of Fellini Satyricon.
Bachmann also had “complete access.” Half the time, Fellini seems overjoyed to have someone documenting his work, and the other half, playfully cursing Bachmann and his ever-intrusive camera.
This doc shows Fellini at work — the “doing” that the director describes as the only true aspect of filmmaking worth a damn — and the constant fighting, bickering, nagging, and, at times, totally uncontrolled rage, with which Fellini says he needs to make the film good.
At one point, he screams and berates a young actress:
“We’ve done this 20 times! Can’t you do anything right? I told you to turn and you just stood there like a fucking statue! Why are you so stupid?” etc.
In the next scene, we see her in tears, and telling Fellini that he’s a brute, he doesn’t know to talk to lady, etc. Fellini tries to apologize, but words fail him. I’m sorry, it’s just the way I am, I take it all back, etc.
Once he’s back in his chair, he resumes his natural state of grumpiness and soon finds another target to make miserable.
At one point, he demands an associate take a seasick-inducing 5-hour ferry ride to join him at the set — not because he needs him for any work, but simply wants him “at his side.”
Archival interviews
With Fellini.
Interview 1
Interview 1
From 2014 about Fellini's adaptation of Petronius's work, featuring interviews with classicists Luca Canali, a consultant on the film, and Joanna Paul.
Canali is an ornery old scholar, but Paul has actual pertinent info. Good extra.
Interview 2
Interview 2
From 2014 with photographer Mary Ellen Mark about her experiences on the set and her iconic photographs of Fellini and his film.
Another young woman (at the time) who had “complete access.” It is obvious what a talent she was/is …
Presentation
Of Fellini Satyricon ephemera from the “Felliniani” archive of collector of Don Young.
Trailer
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