All language subtitles for Fellini.Racconta.Passeggiate.Nella.Memoria.2000.1080p.BluRay.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX].eng

Your first love?

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I'm still waiting for it.

No, let me think about that.

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Who was my first love?

Do you mean
from a sentimental point of view?

Or my first erotic or sexual experience?

Both, if they were different things.

FELLINI'S STORY 3
WALKS DOWN MEMORY LANE

I don't think I put this in my films,

so it should be quite an original contact

with that area of my memories.

Maybe my first love was a —

Or at least the first apparition

that provoked unknown turmoil within me,

different from the feelings
caused by chocolate

or Christmas or the puppet theater —

In other words, a different emotion.

I think I felt it for a lay sister

who worked in the San Vincenzo
nursery school, run by nuns.

Please, don't be surprised
by this rather incredible precocity.

It's the truth. She was a girl...

who wasn't a nun yet.
She was probably waiting to become one.

She wore a long black apron,

and perhaps she wasn't
wearing anything under it.

She had a young and fresh body
that was expanding.

She often caught hold of me
and pulled my head against her tummy.

I could feel the soft and elastic bulging
of her breasts.

I had no clue

which part of the body they were.

She gave off an intense smell
of potato peel,

as she also helped the nuns
in the kitchen.

So she would press my head
against her chest.

I remember that,

along with the intense smell
of salads and sardines,

I could feel a different form of turmoil.

A sort of tickle, a sort of dizziness.

Even today, the smell of potato peel

evokes a slight erotic rapture in me.

The province where I lived, in Rimini,

Chaplin's films were the most relevant,
even at the box office.

Therefore, they were usually screened
around Christmas.

So Charlot appeared in my childhood
alongside the panettone,

the Christmas star, snow,
Father Christmas.

Even this way of appearing

associated him
with something mythical and eternal.

He belonged among the great myths,
and that's how I've always envisioned him.

We awaited his films and accepted them
like natural events,

like snow during the winter
or the seaside in summertime.

He was accepted like baby Jesus.

I remember a story about a school teacher
who was a big fan of Charlot's.

I owe him the first explanations

and analytical interpretations on Chaplin.

He assigned an essay, and a girl won.

I think a panettone was the award.

In her essay,
baby Jesus welcomed Charlot in his cradle,

offering to share with him
the Bethlehem cradle.

The teacher read her essay aloud.

Thus, also due to these chaotic memories,
the figure of Charlot

goes beyond cinema.

I associate him with cinema
because of the smoke, the dark, the heat

and the smell of disinfectant they used
to spray in the Fulgor theater in Rimini.

So I associate him with cinema
as a sort of padded and warm lair,

a kind of amniotic sac
where we'd chaotically seek refuge.

Listen well, men and women of Italy!

The hour marked by destiny...

reverberates in the sky of our homeland.

My memories of the war
consist of declarations of war.

Nobody was around.

The streets were empty.
Many were in Piazza Venezia,

and the rest were at home.

I went to the janitor's quarters,
to listen to the radio.

I remember the janitor had a pregnant dog.

So he was uncertain
whether he should listen to Mussolini,

who was inviting the people
to take up arms,

or if he should tend to his dog,
who was moaning in a fruit basket.

The dog was heavily pregnant,

and gave birth to four or five
very wet puppies.

I remember Mussolini's voice
declaring that we would win...

and the janitor and his daughters
carrying these drenched puppies.

I wanted to be a reporter, not a writer.

I didn't want to be a reporter
because of reading the newspapers.

As a kid, I only read
Corriere dei Piccoli and L'Avventuroso,

which were mostly illustrated.

No. I wanted to be a reporter
because I loved Fred MacMurray,

an American actor
who usually played the reporter,

and who would enter newsrooms
by throwing his hat

and always hitting the coat rack.

I think that gesture,

my admiration for that panning shot

following MacMurray's hat from the doorway

all the way to the coat rack
on the opposite side of the room,

ended up defining my career as a director.

Ready! Let's go!

Let's rehearse, please.

One year as a reporter
would be very good for anyone,

because it's a great school.

It's a school of discipline,
order, selection.

I remember an experience
that was like an exam for me.

There was a newspaper in Rome
called Il Piccolo.

It came out at noon, and the director
had a smoky gray monocle.

It made him look like a character
out of Chester Gould's comics.

He looked like a criminal
straight out of Dick Tracy.

He had a huge hat
and a long scarf down to his feet,

wore gaiters and a big camel-hair coat.

He would come in at 11:30 p.m.,
always with a different showgirl.

He represented a total fascination.

He was the king. The man you wanted to be.

One day, this man,
who evidently didn't like me much,

told me, "It's raining.
You need to write an article —

Write me an 80-line article

entitled Welcome, Sweet Rain."

My girlfriend was waiting outside.

The newsroom was near the Triton Fountain,
and we were supposed to go to the movies,

to see Lost Horizon with Ronald Colman.

I'd already missed the film four times.

I tried to make up an excuse.
I said, "I came in at 6:00 a.m.

Yesterday I went to the printing press."

"Welcome, Sweet Rain. Eighty lines!"

We were two bums. We had no money.

We used to eat
in a latteria in Via Frattina,

and the cook had become fond of us.

We ordered spaghetti, and she would hide
two steaks and two eggs under the pasta.

Me and Federico Fellini used to go
for long walks in the evening.

We spoke of our dreams and ambitions.

I dreamt of becoming a great actor.

He would always say,

"Alberto, I can guarantee that one day
I'll be a great director."

Sordi worked as a voice actor
on the radio.

He was trying to become a comedian,
with almost no success at all.

He claimed his strength were impressions.

He would ask the audience for silence

because his impressions
were difficult to pull off.

And then he'd imitate an airplane,
a chicken, "Chirp! Chirp!"

Exactly like that!

The audience didn't know what to do.
They were indifferent and felt insulted.

When I requested Sordi again,
for I vitelloni,

everyone tried to discourage me,

because of his failure as a comedian
and the flop of The White Sheik.

They claimed that Sordi not only failed
to attract an audience, but repelled it.

Indeed, the opening credits
of the first twenty copies,

as well as the early posters,
didn't include his name.

In the end, they allowed me to cast him,

as long as I collaborated
in denying his presence.

Everything they'll tell you

is probably a lie
if you didn't hear it from me.

Do you know why?
Because probably it came from him.

You must know that,
besides being a great director,

Federico Fellini is also a huge liar.

Perhaps the greatest liar in the world.

But Federico's head is this big!

We would chat, and I got the impression
Amidei didn't trust Rossellini much.

"Why aren't you making a film,
instead of two short ones?

We could do it, with the story
of the priest, plus some kids."

So we worked for a week in my house,

in the kitchen
because there was no heating,

me and Amidei wrote this script
for Rome, Open City.

But we didn't really believe
in what we were doing.

When we wrote Rome, Open City...

SCREENWRITER

...me and Federico didn't get along.

I used to go to his place in the evenings.

He lived with an aunt
in a street off Viale Liegi.

It was an old house, with an old dog.

We'd work in the kitchen
because it was cold.

We didn't get along.

Federico had lived...

the period of German occupation

in a different way
than I and many others had.

He was very bitter.
And that made me even more bitter.

Then we started shooting Rome, Open City
and he never came on set.

He wasn't interested.
I couldn't understand.

I don't know.
I thought he was an unresponsive man

when dealing with certain issues.

We didn't spend much time together.

Almost none at all.

Then, suddenly, one day —

I was at a film distribution company,
called Fincine,

I'd just finished
working on Domenica d'agosto, with Emmer.

I met Federico on the stairs, and he asked
if I wanted to watch The White Sheik.

I went to see this film about fumetti.

I was expecting a minor film,

directed with the level of experience
of a rookie director.

I was wrong.

How did you discover
your desire to direct?

"The desire to direct." I like that.

I didn't really discover it.

I thought I was not at all well suited
to become a director.

I thought I wasn't right for the job.

I actually didn't feel any desire
to become a director.

So did you find it easy or difficult
to take the step to your major debut?

As I was saying,

it all happened
because of the rashness of a producer.

His name was Rovere,

and he stumbled across a script
I had written with Pinelli.

Antonioni was supposed to direct it.

Antonioni had refused to direct the film
at the last minute, as he didn't like it.

I, on the other hand,
had defended the script relentlessly,

to ensure that my final installment
would be paid.

So the producer said,
"Why don't you make it then?"

He asked me just as I was saying
it was the best script in the world...

so I was caught off guard and didn't say,
"I'm just a screenwriter."

So I basically found myself forced
to become a director,

and something mysterious happened.

I'm never able to explain it
in a satisfactory way,

so I tend to trace it back
to the comforting concepts

of predestination or a calling,

of a green traffic light allowing me
to access the main road.

I did nothing, except claim
that was a great script,

thus causing Rovere to invite me
to take care of it myself.

I must say that the day —

I have no memory
of the preparation for that film.

I entered a sort of trance, a limbo.

I can't remember a thing.
I don't even know who prepared it for me.

I was unable —

Yes, another thing that led me to think
I could never be a director

was the need to make

a hundred decisions every hour.

Directors must be able to say,
"Keep this. Get rid of that.

I don't like that green, use turquoise.
Give him a mustache. Make him bald. Cut."

He's constantly solicited by people

who go to him with fabrics,
pieces of wood, extras, pages,

and ask him to make a series of choices.

"Three days or two days?"

"Are we shooting in Piazza del Popolo
or in Piazza Flaminio?"

It's a continuous series of decisions.

My nature tends towards
a serene panoramic balance,

where nothing is thrown out,
but nothing is chosen definitively.

So it was the opposite of my nature.

Instead, I discovered
that I can make many continuous decisions.

I found out I had a talent
for what would become my life.

It must have been a talent,
because I had no technical knowledge,

I was unaware of the language
of camera lenses.

The cinematographers even made fun of me.

Aldo Tonti, who was a funny guy,

would force me to look through
a spot where I couldn't see a thing,

a knob, low down on the camera.

I wasn't brave enough
to say I couldn't see a thing,

so I pretended to give orders.

It was a button. The lens was above it.

That should tell you
how well prepared I was.

You said directors
need to constantly make decisions.

Isn't this ultimately a great game
as well?

A great game?
I consider myself very lucky...

because I was allowed to do

exactly what I subconsciously wanted to.

There must be a certain inclination,
temperament.

You can interpret it in many ways,

such as identifying with an archetype,

but clearly, the day the motorboat took me

to the large raft

where the whole troupe
was already at work,

waiting for the director,

well, from the moment I was helped
off the motorboat by the main operator,

I was already yelling orders at people.

I sat down and waiting for me on that raft
was the perennial image of the director,

an indefinable figure that falls somewhere
between the boss and the jester.

If I must admit a debt of gratitude
towards Rossellini,

this would be it:
He showed me that cinema can be made

with the same lightheartedness,
the same...

deeply personal participation...

with which a painter prepares a picture.

He'll try out various hues on the canvas,
until he finds the right one.

Or like a writer prepares a book:

with the same embarrassed
and restless confidence

one has with his own neuroses,
with his own self.

The whole organizational, logistic,

almost military aspect of cinema
was left aside.

Even the technical side,

which can often be paralyzing
for a rookie director,

didn't exist in Rossellini.

Or at least, it wasn't highlighted.

This way of making cinema
was extremely private,

extremely individual,

as if he was telling his friends...

the stories of specific characters.

You even acted in Il miracolo,
starring Anna Magnani.

I did it as a favor to Roberto.

He was scared of being left alone
with Anna Magnani!

You chose Federico Fellini
as Saint Joseph.

Was it a joke, or were you seeking
to exploit his histrionic qualities?

No, it was —
The idea for the script was his.

We're friends, and we thought
it would be fun to make it that way.

I made him dye his hair blonde.

We went to a ladies' hairdresser
in Naples, so he could go blonde.

He could no longer walk on the street.
People called him Rita Hayworth!

He was such a typically dark guy.
He looked awful as a blonde.

A few years ago, I met Chaplin in Paris,

with Roberto Rossellini,
who insisted on introducing us.

I felt shy, I'd prefer —

It's better not to meet your heroes.

I felt terribly embarrassed.

La strada had been successful in Paris,

so I was hoping to meet him
in a situation involving my film,

but in any case
I ended up in front of him.

We were in a nightclub.

It was dark, Rossellini
was pushing me from behind,

and I caught sight of a rosy face
with silver hair

and that look.

Chaplin had a curious gaze,
the same as many professional clowns

and certain soothsayers:

I think they call it
"strabismus of Venus."

It's a divergent strabismus.

One of his eyes looked
into an unknown direction,

making his interlocutor
feel slightly awkward.

It's a typical physiological feature,

a personality trait of certain artists,
and even some soothsayers.

You're trying to see if I have it too.
I had a really bad case,

but an operation realigned it.

I remember he gave me his little hand.

It was tiny. He was a very petit man.

He gave me his childlike hand,
and I held it like the hand of a pope.

I even exaggerated in my devotion.

He gave me one of his ferocious,
cruel smiles, displaying all his teeth,

and in the shrill, mechanical voice
of an American banker,

he told me he'd seen La strada.

He asked me the cost of the film,
and how much I thought it would earn.

This plunged me
into a vertiginous bewilderment,

as I wasn't expecting it at all.

I didn't want to disappoint him,

and I wanted to prove I was as tough
as a cinematic pioneer,

so I invented
a series of very modest numbers,

both in terms of costs
and of box office forecasts.

He seemed very interested.

He asked how much my wife and I had made.

He surprised me,
but when I think back on it,

I think maybe he chose the most original,

funniest and least predictable way
for our meeting to take place.

He did well to ask those questions:

it avoided that form of reverence,

of complacent adulation,

that people inevitably tend to express
when meeting figures of his stature.

I never met him again.

The first film I ever saw?
By now it's become legendary,

as I quote it in each of my films.

It was Maciste in Hell.

I saw it while sitting on my father's lap,
at the Fulgor theater.

It was raining.

There was a smell
of the fabric of wet coats.

The screen was rather yellowish...

and this gigantic man appeared,

with a bear skin around his waist
and slightly intimidated

by the haughty gaze
of a big-chested Proserpina.

By waving her hands in a circle,
she lit a ring of flames

around the flabbergasted Maciste's feet.

Evidently, this image
truly struck a chord in me,

as I try to remake it in each of my films,

without ever managing to recreate
that original suggestion.

You take long periods of time
to conceive your films.

During production,
are you faithful to your plans,

or do you leave
a wide margin for creativity?

Creativity is a sort of disease.

You can't plan on getting the flu.
It just happens to you.

And it's the same with the calling,
the desire to make a film,

to tell a character's story.

It's not a question of planning,
but of receiving this inspiration

and allowing it to gradually invade
your own being.

You're not thinking about inspiration,
inspiration is thinking about you.

It's a fantasy, an intuition, a seduction.

I'm unable to say how it begins,

because it occurs differently
for each film.

There's a film that's been appearing
in my mind for fifteen years,

yet I never make it.

By now, it must be feeling insulted.

After 15 years, it came back,
maybe asking if it was finally its turn.

I promise to make it, once I work through
my backlog of commitments.

I ask it to wait. "I'll make it."
But then I never do.

I hope one day it makes itself!

Federico Fellini, are you the director
of your own existence?

I must be an awful director, in that case!

I'd really need an authentic auteur
to guide me.

That's the kind of question
where you either have a dazzling reply,

worthy of a fortune cookie,

or trying to construct one
is too laborious.

Plus, I'm doing this interview for free.

It's not worth the effort!

I'm probably my own director
when I'm working as a director.

That's what I was trying to say earlier.

It must've happened on the day
when I was late to that raft on the sea.

I'd never been a director before.

If I may be allowed to end things
on an image that is slightly ridiculous,

in its emblematic value,

I think a director was waiting for me
on that raft,

who suddenly took possession of my body,

and directed me
in all the films I've made,

and all the ones I hope to make,

because I'm currently
also an unemployed director,

looking
for an exceptionally wealthy producer.

No, the direction is right.

We should leave it.

There, of course.

Look, that film should be —

I don't want to give any ideas

to the restless Cavaliere Berlusconi.

He already has too many.

Yet, he should, and maybe will,

push a decree through parliament
authorizing him

to also put advertisements
in processions, military parades,

speeches by members
of parliament themselves,

and even religious functions.

Mass? Three ads!
If it's sung? Seven ads!

This may seem sacrilegious.

But isn't interrupting an artist's work
just as much of a sacrilege?

I guess now is the right time
to stop talking,

as they're signaling a commercial break.

Disappointments? Illusions?

Disappointments?

You ask unexpected questions.
I didn't prepare properly.

My first disappointments?

My first disappointment was a fist fight.

I didn't expect to fight like Maciste,
but at least like Gary Cooper

or one of the heroes I'd seen
in American movies.

There was this Avanguardista,

he must have been older than me,
as I was still part of the Balilla.

I considered him weaker than me,
more frail.

I was extremely thin,
but he seemed even thinner.

We were in competition...

for the affections of the same girl.

She was called Bianca and was attending
the second year of middle school.

So, in a moment of megalomania,
just like a bully,

I thought I could beat him.

I believed the clash
would end in my favor.

That wasn't the case.
He hit me unexpectedly,

and caused me to fall to the ground.

I think that event was very painful.

It was a disappointment with myself,
and that's the worst kind.

Were there any more?

I don't think I'm generally the type
who feels disappointment.

Not because I have a form of skepticism
towards other people,

but I don't have a tendency
to nurture false hopes.

So disappointment
isn't generally a common thing for me.

- What was your first book?
- The first book I read?

I'm not sure.

The first book I remember reading
is Pinocchio.

I didn't just read it a first time,

but I read it many times,
and still do now.

It's always a very fascinating read.

Not just because of personal memories,

but because it's a book
that, over the course of time,

has acquired
an almost oracular prerogative.

When you open it,

it can almost answer
your doubts and perplexities.

Who's that with Maurizio?

Maurizio?

Fellini, I met this lady near the station.
I thought we could test her for Brunelda.

- Morning.
- Brunelda? That's an idea.

Excuse us, ma'am.
Perhaps we're too brash.

It must have seemed like a kidnapping.

Take some photos of her.

Maurizio, Brunelda is blonde, you know.

- Are we shooting here, chief?
- Yes, that's right.

- It's decided then?
- Like there wasn't anyplace easier.

I invented some casting auditions

for Kafka's Amerika, as an excuse

to show what an operational
casting studio is like,

what auditions are like,

what we mean by photogenic.

In other words, to have a chat
with a series of convincing examples.

Why did you feel the need to invoke
Kafka and his novel Amerika?

"Invoke" is a good way to define
this relationship

with a protective and inspiring genius.

I was struck by the fact
that Kafka wrote Amerika

without ever seeing America.

He may have seen some photos,
some daguerreotypes

or maybe an early cinematic documentary.

One of those very early films.

And yet, he wrote a book
in which America...

alienation, crowds, cities, cars,

and this sensation of losing oneself
in a boundless planet

are expressed in a miraculous way.

I was often invited
to make films in America

and, rather disgracefully,
I always backed out at the last second.

So I always felt remorseful
for being afraid of actually living there,

and trying to narrate the infinite
and continuous seductions

of a country like America,

that looks like a set
built specifically for me.

It's like something out of a circus,
or science fiction.

Those cities, like New York,

seem to blend the ancient past,
Nineveh or Babylon,

with a Martian city.

So it's a very seductive place,
from a figurative point of view.

So, recently, I had told
an American producer

that I could narrate some
of my impressions of America,

maybe drawing initial inspiration
from a book.

Maybe a story by Chandler or Hammett.

Under the condition
that we would rebuild everything

in the comfortable environment
of my "clinic." I mean Cinecittà.

We were very close
to reaching an agreement,

even if the Americans couldn't understand

why I would want to rebuild New York
in Rome,

given that the city exists,

and is well-known
for being photogenic for cinema.

You only need a few scenic elements

to recreate the atmosphere
of an American street.

It'll still cost a fortune.

Kafka's sense of humor, in all his works,

is an aspect
that is never sufficiently highlighted.

People tend to forget a confession...

by Kafka himself, which was later repeated
by his biographer, Max Brod.

When Kafka would read pages
from The Trial,

or even The Metamorphosis, to his friends,

he would laugh so hard that he cried.

It was probably an unsettling laughter,
like when we laugh in our dreams,

a silent, echoless laugh.

Often, when we dream
of dreadful situations,

we catch ourselves laughing quietly.

Dreams

are the unspeakable
and magical key to Kafka,

and he presents such bizarre
and terrible situations,

that we can smile at them:

it denotes an awareness

that something irreparable
is happening within us,

and our previous failure to notice

gives rise to comedy.

It's the same comedy
we find in Chaplin's films.

We know what awaits him
around the street corner:

two huge policemen.

But Charlot,
walking like an English gentleman,

proceeds with certainty
towards the lurking disaster.

Amerika often narrates...

this atmosphere
of Pinocchio-like disasters.

That's it. It's a book that has
a lot in common with Pinocchio.

Can I ask anything?

Then you must explain, once and for all,

why I'm here.

Why am I here?

Why did you make me come into the world?

Why did you make me come into the world?

There's no use in hiding it!

Here, we are all employed

in this farce that is life!

Well, if there's an employment,
there must be a contract.

And contracts must be clear!

There you go! I want to know everything!

I want to know everything, you shit-face!

Turn the light off! Shoot!

They've shot the moon!

Why did I choose Cavazzoni's novel,
Il poema dei lunatici?

It took me back to my land.

I'm from Romagna.

It immediately crowded my mind

with memories of films
I would have liked to make,

even before Amarcord.

I had intended

to make a film entitled
Il silenzio dei campi,

but I found the title was better suited
for Bergman than for Fellini.

So I thought of another one,

which may sound irreverent,
but I'll say it quickly:

Ostia della Madonna.

It's quite a rough phrase,

but if well pronounced,
it sounds as nice as Rashomon.

It has the charm of syllables
rolling off the tongue.

This was a typical peasants' swear word.

I had always wanted to make a film

about the countryside, about peasants,

on the countryside
as an unknown dimension,

still inhabited by myths and legends.

It would have included some memories
from school, involving Greek myths...

and above all a series of memories

that still inhabit my mind

about when I would spend
a couple of months in the summer

at my paternal grandmother's house.

The somewhat fantastical life...

in that massive farmhouse,
the stables, the animals, the storms,

daytime, nights, stones, clouds.

I thought that entire irrational
and magical world

could act as incentive, as nourishment

for a film about the countryside
and memories of grandma Francesca.

A film that would portray a part of Italy

that our cinema has always ignored:
the Italy of peasants.

Angelo Rizzoli is one of those characters
who appeared at the right time in my life,

just like Giulietta, Roberto Rossellini

and many others who I met
at the perfect moment

to allow me to get to know
my own self better,

to allow me to grow.

The economic means...

the sense of respect

and the freedom

that Rizzoli granted me
when making my films

allowed me to gain greater knowledge...

of my craft, or my possibilities,

and to try to make films

with the same expressive freedom
writers enjoy in literature.

He respected my work.
Occasionally, he would suggest...

that I should make films...

more explicitly aimed
at meeting the taste of the public

as he interpreted it.

He'd say, "With that sweet face of yours,

why do you always make
such difficult stories?"

He wasn't happy
with the character in La dolce vita

who kills his children
and then commits suicide.

He would say, "Please admit
you didn't come up with that!"

I said I had.
Actually, I'd read it in the newspaper.

It was one of those many horrendous events
that happened and still happen today.

"No! I can't believe it!"

He wanted to be reassured
that his friend Federico

couldn't have conceived
that kind of atrocity.

He was strongly inclined

towards what we could define
as "good feelings."

Things such as innocence,
virginity, the triumph of good,

the Bersaglieri, the Carabinieri,
the Altar of the Fatherland, the flag

would generally move him in a sincere way.

Anything that tended to depict man
as a deeply good creature...

would win his approval
and total solidarity.

This was in contrast with his eyes:

they had yellowish flashes

and were sometimes as hard as a door knob.

He called you "the dear artist."

He called me 'the dear artist'?

Yes, but I don't think
he meant it ironically.

Nor do I think he was referring...

to an elite vocation.

He said it in the same way a pope
might have spoken of Michelangelo.

Please forgive my reductive comparisons.

Like a painter or a sculptor.

"Dear artist" means somebody
who practices a craft.

He was a fairy tale character.

It was like meeting Mickey Mouse
in flesh and blood.

TOPOLINO PRESENTS "LA STRADA"
A TRIBUTE TO FEDERICO FELLINI

This issue of Topolino
is a festive tribute to Federico Fellini,

who remembers his meeting
with Walt Disney in 1956,

the year of his Oscar for La strada.

He met us at the entrance
of his fantastic country, Disneyland,

while directing and leading a brass band.

They were playing marches by Nino Rota,
maybe in our honor.

He led us into Captain Nemo's submarine,

and into a spaceship
en route towards unknown galaxies.

He then bought us a drink in a saloon.

He insisted that we should carry two guns

with mother-of-pearl stocks
and long barrels.

"You never know" is what he said.

A few minutes later, someone kicked
the typical saloon doors open,

and four bandits came in.

It was an infernal fight.

Disney was shooting
and telling Giulietta to shoot too.

He was laying on the ground,
shielded behind a table.

In the end, everyone applauded,

while the four stuntmen,
after a series of thrilling somersaults,

lay dead on the floor.

Disney then got up.
He kissed Giulietta's hand, hugged me,

and said that he had seen La strada
multiple times.

Fellini then recounts the story
of the illustrated La strada as follows.

YES, AND I FIND IT GREAT!

QUIET! WE'RE SHOOTING!

I would never have imagined

that I would be rewarded
with such a total form of satisfaction.

I find it as flattering
and prestigious as an honorary degree.

Here's what he has to say on Cavazzano.

I feel an almost psychic identification

with the great magician
and maestro's pencils.

And finally, a wish.

I imagine a Mickey Mouse Mastroianni
and a Minnie Anita Ekberg,

in a Disney Dolce Vita.

Yes, Sylvia. I'm coming too.

Go ahead, Federico.

Dear Marcello!

I'm your alter ego! How are you?

I am sincerely very happy

that I was invited to give you this award,

that rewards an enjoyable career,
that everyone...

He's not my alter ego. I'm his!

For La dolce vita,

I found Marcello to be better suited
for the role than Paul Newman,

who De Laurentiis wanted at all costs.

I thought that the role of this reporter,

lazy, apathetic, skeptic,

scared, neurotic, childish,

was perfect for Marcello's face.

I hope we'll have a chance
to work together again.

This is the wish that I have for us both!

Let's hope so!

I think back to our first meeting,
when he called me for La dolce vita.

I went to visit him in Fregene.
He was on the beach, under an umbrella.

He immediately said,

"The producer, De Laurentiis,
wants Paul Newman for the film.

But Paul Newman's too important,
he's too exceptional.

What I need is an ordinary face."

Who knows? Maybe he also felt some joy
in trying to hurt me.

The thing is, he didn't succeed at all.

I'd never thought of my face
or myself as being exceptional.

So it all went well.

What does being directed by Fellini
mean for an actor?

- Look out, I'm sitting right here!
- Yes.

Working with Fellini is fun.

It makes me happy.

Without being rhetorical,
that's the truth.

Between the first take on La dolce vita
and the last for Ginger and Fred,

has Fellini changed,
or is he still the same?

No, every time —

He has more hair now!

Every time I return
to working with Fellini,

I swear it feels like just a few months
since the last film,

while often many years
have actually gone by.

Marcello just summarized a sensation

that may be the best proof
of a collaboration.

Our work also has its difficult moments,

instances of discomfort, as in any job.

I'm not saying
work should have dramatic moments,

as some of my colleagues
would happily state,

but there should be moments of tension.

The fact that Marcello doesn't remember
long intervals between our films,

and that when he started working
on Ginger and Fred,

he felt he'd finished City of Women
just the day before,

are the best proof of a collaboration

that takes place under the sign
of friendship, congeniality, respect

and mutual trust.

I never worked to create
the foundation of a gratified wait,

expecting an award.

Each time,
I made the film I wanted to make,

in the way I knew best,

or even better, in the way
I thought the film wanted to be made.

I don't have a recipe or a system.

I don't set goals for myself.

Films come to me
as if they were already made.

I feel like a train
running a long a railway track.

The stations, the films in this case,
are ready.

All I need to do is get off,
be a little curious,

and discover what lies beyond the station.

If there's a Piazza.

I feel that, by following this path
and making the film,

that everything was prearranged.

Some RAI journalists asked
some of the main American personalities

to give their opinion about you.

The response was incredible.

The greatest figures in American cinema
expressed such admiration

and such joy about you being here
and receiving this award.

We somehow had the impression
that you are unaware

of the extent of the world's admiration

and respect for you.

It may seem that I am unaware,
because I'm a skillful deceiver.

It actually makes me a bit uncomfortable.

I'll try to blush. Is this color TV?

- Yes, of course.
- I haven't been able to blush for ages.

I was saying that it makes me happy.

It also makes me slightly uncomfortable.

I don't think it's easy
to identify yourself in the character

other people have projected on you
or wish you to be.

Stay back!

Why did you accept this Oscar?

I accepted it because I did everything
I could to achieve it today.

It was certainly a great satisfaction.

Of course.

And now,
I'm forced to make some good films!

He is also asked what has changed
since his first Oscar in 1956.

Fellini replies that something has
certainly changed.

First of all, his hair.

Does it upset you that "Felliniesque"
has become an adjective?

"From a narcissistic point of view,
I like it," he replies.

"I have to confess.
My dad wanted me to be an engineer.

My mother wanted me to be an archbishop.
But I did my best to become an adjective."

"Do you want to know what my films are?

At the risk of sounding grandiose,
I can say

that there is no difference
between my films and my life.

They're the same thing."

FELLINI'S STORY 3
STROLLS DOWN MEMORY LANE