A Companion To Federico Fellini

A groundbreaking academic treatment of Fellini, provides new, expansive, and diverse perspectives on his films and influence The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Federico Fellini presents new methodologies and fresh insights for encountering, appreciating, and contextualizing the director’s films in the 21st century. A milestone in Fellini scholarship, this volume provides contributions by leading scholars, intellectuals, and filmmakers, as well as insights from collaborators and associates of the Italian director. Scholarly yet readable essays explore the fundamental aspects of Fellini’s works while addressing their contemporary relevance in contexts ranging from politics and the environment to gender, race, and sexual orientation. As the centennial of Federico Fellini’s birth in approaches in 2020, this timely work provides new readings of Fellini’s films and illustrates Fellini’s importance as a filmmaker, artist,and major cultural figure. The text explores topics such as Fellini’s early cinematic experience, recurring themes and patterns in his films, his collaborations and influences, and his unique forms of cinematic expression. In a series of “Short Takes” sections, contributors look at specific films that have particular significance or personal relevance. Destined to become the standard research tool for Fellini studies, this volume: Offers new theoretical frameworks, encounters, critiques, and interpretations of Fellini’s work Discusses Fellini’s creativity outside of filmmaking, such as his graphic art and his Book of Dreams published after his death. Examines Fellini’s influence on artists not only in the English-speaking world but in places such as Turkey, Japan, South Asia, Russia, Cuba, North Africa. Demonstrates the interrelationship between Fellini’s work and visual art, literature, fashion, marketing, and many other dimensions of both popular and high culture. Features personal testimonies from family, friends and associates of Fellini such as Francesca Fabbri Fellini, Gianfranco Angelucci, Valeria Ciangottini, and Lina Wertmüller Includes an extensive appendix of freely accessible archival resources on Fellini’s work The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Federico Fellini is an indispensable resource for students, instructors, and scholars of Fellini, Italian cinema, cinema and art history, and all areas of film and media studies.

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Written by leading figures in the field, A Companion to Italian Cinema re-maps Italian cinema studies, employing new perspectives on traditional issues, and fresh theoretical approaches to the exciting history and field of Italian cinema. Offers new approaches to Italian cinema, whose importance in the post-war period was unrivalled Presents a theory based approach to historical and archival material Includes work by both established and more recent scholars, with new takes on traditional critical issues, and new theoretical approaches to the exciting history and field of Italian cinema Covers recent issues such as feminism, stardom, queer cinema, immigration and postcolonialism, self-reflexivity and postmodernism, popular genre cinema, and digitalization A comprehensive collection of essays addressing the prominent films, directors and cinematic forms of Italian cinema, which will become a standard resource for academic and non-academic purposes alike

Federico Fellini is one of the most beloved and revered filmmakers of the twentieth century, having entertained audiences worldwide with his ability to breathe life into imagery normally confined to human memory and emotion. His insights into the world of dreams have contributed to his many famous cinematic creations, including La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and La Strada. A unique combination of memory, fantasy, and desire, this illustrated volume is a personal diary of Fellini's private visions and nighttime fantasies. Fellini, winner of four Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, kept notebooks filled with unique sketches and notes from his dreams from the 1960s onward. This collection delves into his cinematic genius as it is captured in widely detailed caricatures and personal writings. This dream diary exhibits Fellini's deeply personal taste for the bizarre and the irrational. His sketches focus on the profound struggle of the soul and are tinged with humor, empathy, and insight. Fellini's Book of Dreams is an intriguing source of never-before-published writings and drawings, which reveal the master filmmaker's personal vision and his infinite imagination.

Written by leading figures in the field, A Companion to Italian Cinema re-maps Italian cinema studies, employing new perspectives on traditional issues, and fresh theoretical approaches to the exciting history and field of Italian cinema. Offers new approaches to Italian cinema, whose importance in the post-war period was unrivalled Presents a theory based approach to historical and archival material Includes work by both established and more recent scholars, with new takes on traditional critical issues, and new theoretical approaches to the exciting history and field of Italian cinema Covers recent issues such as feminism, stardom, queer cinema, immigration and postcolonialism, self-reflexivity and postmodernism, popular genre cinema, and digitalization A comprehensive collection of essays addressing the prominent films, directors and cinematic forms of Italian cinema, which will become a standard resource for academic and non-academic purposes alike

Examines the cinematic vision of the renowned Italian filmmaker.

This major artistic biography of Federico Fellini shows how his exuberant imagination has been shaped by popular culture, literature, and his encounter with the ideas of C. G. Jung, especially Jungian dream interpretation. Covering Fellini's entire career, the book links his mature accomplishments to his first employment as a cartoonist, gagman, and sketch-artist during the Fascist era and his development as a leading neo-realist scriptwriter. Peter Bondanella thoroughly explores key Fellinian themes to reveal the director's growth not only as an artistic master of the visual image but also as an astute interpreter of culture and politics. Throughout the book Bondanella draws on a new archive of several dozen manuscripts, obtained from Fellini and his scriptwriters. These previously unexamined documents allow a comprehensive treatment of Fellini's important part in the rise of Italian neorealism and the even more decisive role that he played in the evolution of Italian cinema beyond neorealism in the 1950s. By probing Fellini's recurring themes, Bondanella reinterprets the visual qualities of the director's body of work--and also discloses in the films a critical and intellectual vitality often hidden by Fellini's reputation as a storyteller and entertainer. After two chapters on Fellini's precinematic career, the book covers all the films to date in analytical chapters arranged by topic: Fellini and his growth beyond his neorealist apprenticeship, dreams and metacinema, literature and cinema, Fellini and politics, Fellini and the image of women, and La voce della luna and the cinema of poetry.

Federico Fellini's distinct style delighted generations of film viewers and inspired filmmakers and artists around the world. In Fellini's Films and Commercials, renowned Fellini scholar Frank Burke presents a film-by-film analysis of the famed director's cinematic output from a theoretical perspective. He explores Fellini's movement from relatively classic filmmaking to modernist reflexivity, and then to "postmodern reproduction." Burke moves from analysis of stories told from a relatively "objective" standpoint, to increased concentration on Fellini-as-author and on the cinematic apparatus, to Fellini's dismantling of authorship and the cinematic apparatus, to his postmodern signifying strategies. Grounded in poststructuralist approaches to texts and signification, Burke shows that Fellini is profoundly readable, if extremely complex. Revisiting Burke's 1996 monograph, this revised and updated edition includes a new preface and an additional chapter on the filmmaker's work on commercials. Elegantly written and thoroughly researched, this book is essential reading for any Fellini fan or scholar.