This was the first Fellini film I ever saw as a young impressionable teen curious about international cinema — and the promise of sex. What I watched that day was undoubtedly a cropped-and-chopped print muddled by woefully incomplete subtitles, broadcast on proto-cable, probably ON TV.
I had no appreciation for its keen insights, no sense for its sentimental sensibility, no understanding of its politics; who would at that age? Having by then read ‘Our Town,’ whose narrator conceit ‘Amarcord’ borrows, I could at least suss out structure: here is a year in the life of a seaside Italian village, its traditions and rituals, taskmasters and troublemakers, lovable loons and lusty lovers — or would-be ones, in the case of horny adolescent Titta, as close as this gallery of funny faces has to a central character. My focus back then was on every frame featuring the radiant Gradisca (frequent Fellini muse Magali Noël as the town’s hips-swiveling bombshell) and Titta’s over-aroused encounter with the tobacconist (Maria Antonietta Beluzzi, who surely would have inspired Rubens). There are, of course, far more delights to discover within the maestro’s fantastical memories, as there are throughout his singular filmography. But I’m glad this came first for me. At the time I’d fallen under the spell of another adorable village picture, Bill Forsyth’s ‘Local Hero’; this felt like that, plus it had what you see here: Nino Rota’s indelibly dreamy score, brilliantly evoking classic Hollywood yet conjuring a whimsy all its own. I was primed for more. The best possible gateway into Fellini’s world.
#SoundtrackSunday 014:
‘Amarcord’
Polydor, 1973/74; this pressing Cam Sugar/Decca, 2021
d: Federico Fellini