Fellini: the Early Films

Praised by some as one of the great visionaries of the cinema and condemned by others as the betrayer of Italian Neo-Realism, Fellini has the satisfaction of knowing that critics are not indifferent to his work. Since 1949, he has created some of the most extraordinary images of the modern cinema and, although the charge of self-indulgence is accurate, his skill and imagination allow his indulgences to be both fascinating and memorable.

Many of Fellini's films are suggestively autobiographical, yet this is somewhat misleading since he enjoys making up preposterous stories about himself. Fellini was born in 1920 in the small provincial town of Rimini on the Adriatic sea coast. He was educated at a series of strict Catholic schools and claims to recall little except for their oppressive discipline. As a child, he ran off and joined a circus, an environment which he found more stimulating than provincial life. Dragged back to school, Fellini submerged himself in the only subjects which interested him: drawing and art history. His skills as a cartoonist proved profitable after the liberation of Rome in 1945, when he made his living in the Italian capital by selling caricatures to American servicemen. By this time, he also wrote satiric stories for several Roman magazines, and it was on the basis of these tales that he was invited by Roberto Rossellini to collaborate on the screenplay of Rossellini's film Rome: Open City (Italy 1945). Fellini's first film, Variety Lights (Italy 1949), was co-directed by Alberto Lattuada due to Fellini's own doubts about his ability to make a film on his own. The theme and visual texture of Variety Lights clearly identifies it, however, as a Fellini film and the storyline is loosely based on his own experiences as a traveling actor in the late 1930s.

Checcho, the self-proclaimed impresario of the film, and his troupe of performers have convinced themselves that they are bringing great musical acts to the rustics in the countryside, but the film's harsh photography betrays their tawdriness and ineptitude. As in Fellini's later films, the conflict between illusion and reality cannot be resolved, and Checcho blindly continues in spite of the well deserved indifference he receives. Like the men in I Vitelloni (Italy 1953) and Zampano in La Strada (Italy 1954), Checcho discovers his own inability to change. He ultimately comes to a limited realization of the inadequate nature of his own ambition but he is incapable of changing his character.

Even when a change does take place, as in The White Sheik (Italy 1952), it is not necessarily a progressive step. In The White Sheik, the wife finally gives up her romantic illusions, yet the film has already shown that the reality she accepts is no better. Reality is tedious and oppressive, and Fellini constantly suggests that even a ludicrous fantasy figure like the White Sheik is, in its own way, a needed salve to soothe the pains of real life. Even the fumetti, an Italian comic book composed of photographic images, has its place, and even though the White Sheik is a farcical, foolish figure, it is the image and not the person that matters. Likewise, the husband in The White Sheik is enveloped in his own fantasy. While the wife wishes to flee from the banality of provincial life, the husband completely embraces it. It was from this kind of life that the youthful Fellini attempted to flee when he joined the circus, and it is not surprising that his films contain a circus-like atmosphere. Unlike the wife in The White Sheik, Fellini will not compromise.


Another important motif in Fellini's films is the need to believe in miracles even if they remain unfulfilled. The prostitute in Nights of Cabiria (Italy 1957) prays for a miracle to happen: for her life to change and to find a man who truly loves her. Just when she thinks she has found such a man, she discovers that he only wants to steal her money. Throughout the film, Cabiria waits for the miracle that will never arrive, yet in the film's finale it is obvious that she will continue hoping for the impossible. Nights of Cabiria is a study of faith and survival, and Cabiria, in her own small way, is one of Fellini's most tragically heroic figures. She will continue to struggle and believe, even though the reality of her life totally argues against it.

While Nights of Cabiria presents a minor triumph of faith, La Dolce Vita (Italy 1959) offers the end of faith and visually explores the ultimate corruption of both reality and illusion. The opening shot of the film shows a statue of Christ being flown by helicopter over modern Rome. The final shot of the film shows a horribly mutated fish that has washed ashore. The film is bracketed by these two symbols of Christianity and La Dolce Vita delineates a progression from its satiric opening image to its final vision of total decadence and grotesqueness. Marcello, the central figure of La Dolce Vita, wanders aimlessly through a world that has seemingly come to a dead end. Like Cabiria, Marcello secretly hopes for the miracle that will change his life but unlike Cabiria, he cannot bring himself to truly believe in it. Empty, disillusioned, and completely alienated, Marcello is a modern man who finds it impossible to return to the innocence he longs for. More than any of Fellini's previous characters, Marcello realizes the problem but is the least capable of responding to it.