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Amarcord
Original movie poster
Directed by	Federico Fellini
Produced by	Franco Cristaldi
Written by	Federico Fellini Tonino Guerra
Starring	Magali Noel Bruno Zanin Pupella Maggio Armando Brancia
Music by	Nino Rota
Cinematography	Giuseppe Rotunno
Distributed by	New World Pictures
Release date(s)	December 18, 1973 September 19, 1974
Running time	127 min.
Language	Italian
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Amarcord (1973), directed by Federico Fellini, is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale that combines poignancy with bawdy comedy. It tells the story of a wild cast of characters in Fellini's home town of Rimini in 1930s Fascist pre-World War II Italy. Amarcord (a m'arcòrd) is Romagnolo for "I remember". ^[1] Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Image File history File links Amarcord. ... Federico Fellini (January 20, 1920 – October 31, 1993) was one of the most influential and widely revered film-makers of the 20th century. ... Federico Fellini (January 20, 1920 – October 31, 1993) was one of the most influential and widely revered film-makers of the 20th century. ... Tonino Guerra - Italian screenwriter who has collaborated with some of the most prominent writers of the world. ... Magali Noël is the stagename of Magali Noëlle Guiffray, a French actress and singer, born in 1932 in Ä°zmir, Turkey. ... Nino Rota (December 3, 1911 – April 10, 1979) was an Italian composer best known for his work on film scores, notably The Godfather series and the films of Federico Fellini. ... Giuseppe Rotunno, sometimes credited as Peppino Rotunno is a noted Italian cinematographer. ... New World Pictures logo from the late 1980s; New Worlds other divisions used similar logos New World Communications was a major television production company and television station owner in the United States from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Italy. ... is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... is the 262nd day of the year (263rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... Federico Fellini (January 20, 1920 – October 31, 1993) was one of the most influential and widely revered film-makers of the 20th century. ... For other uses, see Coming of Age (disambiguation). ... Rimini is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and capital city of the Province of Rimini. ... The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known as the World Depression. ... Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, was the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The Emiliano-Romagnolo language is spoken by about 2 million people in the Emilia-Romagna region of northwestern Italy. ...

Amarcord won the Oscar as "Best Foreign Language Film".

Synopsis

Fellini's great talent as a caricaturist allows him to recreate his hometown of Rimini, its colourful inhabitants, and its collective rituals during the 1920s under fascism. Hardly a glamorous portrait as it depicts an ugly period of Italian history - the time of Fellini's adolescence - with the caustic perspicacity of a Brueghel and the surreal opulence of a Jerome Bosch. Brueghel or Bruegel (Pronounced in Dutch) was the name of several Dutch/Flemish painters from the same family line: Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. ... Hieronymus Bosch, (latinized; also Jeroen Bosch or his real name Jeroen van Aken) (c. ...

Partly told through the eyes of the teenaged protagonist, Titta (a composite of Fellini himself and his childhood friend, Luigi "Titta" Benzi), Amarcord captures a backward community still living under Victorian emotions where unemployed teenagers dream about exotic beauties at the Grand Hotel, marry their high school sweethearts under Mussolini's staring eyes, fantasize about La Gradisca and Volpina (the town's object of lust and its nymphomaniac respectively), and row out onto the Adriatic to hail the passage of the Rex, a transatlantic steamer incarnating the technological prowess of Il Duce's regime. Fellini skewers Mussolini's ludicrous posturings and those of a Catholic Church that "imprisoned Italians in a perpetual adolescence" ^[2] by mocking himself and his fellow villagers in wildly comic scenes that underline their incapacity to adopt genuine moral responsibility or outgrow foolish sexual fantasies. “Adolescent” redirects here. ... Benito Mussolini created a fascist state through the use of propaganda, total control of the media and disassembly of the working democratic government. ...

Amarcord is a bildungsroman (coming-of-age tale), the cinematic equivalent of a young man's rite of passage into maturity: Titta's sentimental education is therefore emblematic of Italy's "lapse of conscience." Fellini's inspired indictment is all the more commendable for his vehement refusal to accept a revisionist justification of fascism. For other uses, see Coming of Age (disambiguation). ...

Famous scenes

One the film's many memorable sequences is that between Titta (Bruno Zanin) and the town's large and buxom tobacconist (played by Maria Antonietta Beluzzi). One day, after she laughs at him for trying to weasel a cigarette, he catches her interest by boasting that he can lift her. She dares him to try and is aroused when he succeeds. Setting her back down, he goes to sit breathlessly in a corner. She then locks the shop's iron shutter and exposes a breast, overwhelming small Titta by her sheer size. With Felliniesque irony, Titta's awkward efforts end with him being accidentally suffocated by the very objects of his desire. Losing all interest, she slaps him on the face for his naiveté and sends him away after giving him the cigarette for free. A tobacconist is someone licensed to sell tobacco in various forms as well as smoking supplies. ... Maria Antonietta Beluzzi (1930-1997) was an Italian born actress who appeared in a number of Italian films, but who was probably best known for her role as the tobacconist in Federico Fellinis Amarcord. ...

Another famous sequence is with Titta's Uncle Teo (played by Ciccio Ingrassia). Confined to an insane asylum, he is visited by the entire family one Sunday afternoon. Having obtained permission for the day's outing, the eccentric but usually well-behaved Uncle Teo escapes into a tree shouting, "Voglio una donna!" ("I want a woman!"). His brother Aurelio (Titta's father played by Armando Brancia) tries to persuade him to climb down but is frightened off with stones that Teo has gathered earlier while walking in the fields. At wit's end, the family is saved when a dwarf nun and two asylum orderlies finally arrive on the scene: marching up the ladder, the nun reprimands Uncle Teo who quietly agrees to come down to earth again. He is taken back to the asylum. His brother Aurelio tells one of the orderlies concluding, "We are all mad at times."

References

Damian Pettigrew (born in Quebec) is a Canadian filmmaker and multimedia artist, best known for his cinematic portraits of Balthus and Federico Fellini. ...

External links

• Amarcord at the Internet Movie Database
• Criterion Collection essay by Peter Bondanella
• DVD review of Amarcord at Alternative Film Guide

v • d • e Cinema of Italy

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