Hey there, I am a new listener who’s been actively checking in each week since you did “Nights of Cabiria.” Thanks for your dedication to this ambitious project. I am not a Fellini expert or film scholar, but I’ve seen all his work … except for “Ginger and Fred” and “The Voice of the Moon,” both of which I’ve actually just tracked down on Blu-ray and am excitedly waiting to arrive. There’s one aspect of his aesthetic that I’m waiting for you to start commenting on, which really kicks into gear with “Juliet of the Spirits” — his interest in artifice for its own sake. His delight in rendering scenes that are obviously fake. (Think of the shrubs around Juliet’s house. Or the highway passing the Coliseum in “Roma” — Italian audiences would instantly recognize that as fake.) He is not trying to “fool” us (as we willingly agree to be fooled in the movie house), he is saying: This is a movie. Yes, there’s a metafictional element that you’ve mentioned, which in part is meant to make us unsure if what we’re seeing is real or not, but I don’t think it fully encapsulates it. This period of his work is in love with cinema and constantly reminding you that you’re watching cinema. (By the time we get to “Intervista,” the love letter is to Cinecitta Studios, specifically.) There’s so much to talk about with respect to the relationship of this later perspective to the Neo-realist stuff. Thinking of “La Dolce Vita” as a transitional piece, while he did shoot at several key locations for that, much of what we see, including Via Veneto, was created at the studio. And it indeed passes for on-location. Compare this to the ocean in “Casanova,” when we get to it. (I won’t spoil it but it’s pretty clear what material is used, and it ‘aint water.) I don’t have the master answer to what Fellini’s work “means,” but part of it is exploring outrageous situations and taking delight in what a filmmaker can do for filmmaking’s sake. Anyway thanks again, you’re going to inspire some re-watches for me as we progress through the ‘70s here. Cheers.
