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Federico
Fellini
Fellini,
Federico (1920-1993), Italian
film director. Born and brought
up in the small seaside resort of
Rimini on the Adriatic Coast,
Fellini moved to Rome in 1939
where he made a living as a
journalist and caricaturist.
Entering the Italian film
industry as a scriptwriter and
assistant director in the early
years of Neo-Realism, he was
co-director (with Alberto
Lattuada) on Luci del
Varietà (1951; Variety
Lights) before progressing to
sole direction with the comedy Lo
Sceicco Bianco (The White Sheik)
in 1952.
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International
recognition came with La Strada (1954) and
The Nights of Cabiria (1957), both of
which starred his wife, Giulietta Masina,
as (respectively) a waif-like circus
performer brutalized by the troupe's
leader (Anthony Quinn) and a naive but
spunky prostitute. The huge commercial
success of La Dolce Vita (1960) gave him
the freedom to make Otto e Mezzo (1963;
8½), a film about the creative
dilemmas of a film director, still
regarded by many as his masterpiece.
Having
thoroughly shaken off the legacy of
Neo-Realism, Fellini began a series of
highly personal explorations of his
experiences and fantasies. Fellini's Roma
(1972) was a satire on his adoptive home,
while in Amarcord (1973) he returned to
his adolescence in his native Rimini.
Nostalgia for the remembered past and an
increasing distaste for aspects of the
modern world (from the women's movement to
a culture dominated by television) provide
the impetus for his later films, including
Prova d'Orchestra (1979; The Orchestra
Rehearsal), La Città delle Donne
(1980; City of Women), La Nave Va (1983;
And the Ship Sails On), Ginger e Fred
(1985), and Intervista (1987), but his
creativity and his ability to merge
personal obsession with reflections on the
nature of cinema remained
undiminished.
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