Amarcord

Director: Federico Fellini Federico Fellini

Overview

Federico Fellini's warmly nostalgic memory piece examines daily life in the Italian village of Rimini during the reign of Mussolini, and won the 1974 Academy Award as Best Foreign Film. The film's greatest asset is its ability to be sweet without being cloying, due in great part to Danilo Donati's surrealistic art direction and to the frequently bawdy injections of sex and politics by screenwriters Fellini and Tonino Guerra. Fellini clearly has deep affection for the people of this seaside village, warts and all, and communicates it through episodic visual anecdotes which are seen as if through the mists of a favorite dream, playfully scored by Nino Rota and lovingly photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/08/2011
UPC:	0715515068314
Original Release:	1973
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Time:	2:03:00
Sales rank:	15,422

Special Features

Restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; Audio commentary by film scholars Peter Brunette and Frank Burke; Fellini's Homecoming, a 45-minute documentary on the complicated relationship between the celebrated director, his hometown, and his past; Video interview with star Magali Noël; Federico Fellini's drawings of characters in the film; "Felliniana," a presentation of ephemera devoted to Amarcord, from the collection of Don Young; Archival studio interviews with Fellini and his friends and familt, by longtime radio film critic Gideon Bachmann; Restoration demonstration; Deleted scene; American release trailer; Plus: a booklet featuring an essay by scholar Sam Rohdie and Fellini's 1967 essay "My Rimini"

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Bruno Zanin	Titta
Pupella Maggio	Titta's Mother
Armando Brancia	Titta's Father
Magali Noël	Gradisca
Ciccio Ingrassia	Uncle Teo
Nando Orfei	Pataca
Luigi Rossi	Lawyer
Ferruccio Brembilla	Fascist Leader
Marco Misul	Philosophy Teacher
Fernando Vona	Candela
Domenico Pertica	Blindman
Gianfilipo Carcano	Don Baravelli
Josiane Tanzilli	Volpina
Maria Antonietta Beluzzi	Tobacconist
Giuseppe Ianigro	Titta's Grandfather
Gennaro Ombra	Bisein
Alvaro Vitali	Naso
Mario Liberati	"Ronald Coleman" - Theater Owner
Franco Magno	Zeus

Technical Credits

Federico Fellini

Tonino Guerra

Federico Fellini	Director,Screenwriter
Franco Cristaldi	Producer
Danilo Donati	Costumes/Costume Designer,Production Designer
Tonino Guerra	Screenwriter
Ruggero Mastroianni	Editor
Nino Rota	Score Composer
Giuseppe Rotunno	Cinematographer
Carlo Savina	Musical Direction/Supervision

Editorial Reviews

"Amarcord" is the phonetic translation of the Italian words "Mi Ricordo" (I remember) as pronounced in the dialect of Emilia-Romagna, the birthplace of director Federico Fellini and the setting of this wonderful film. Little surprise, then, that it is a poignant and bawdy semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale, with an ethereal, dreamlike quality that combines sharply drawn memories with vividly engaging fantasy. Like William Wordsworth, Fellini implies that the child is father to the man, and Amarcord is a both a lament for and an homage to his hometown. Employing a picaresque style, Fellini expertly weaves the tales of a wild menagerie of characters in pre-WW II Italy. No mere sentimentalist, he also tackles the prickly issue of the emergence of Fascism. The film takes careful aim at fanatics, while conserving its empathy for the lost, questing, confused, and lonely individuals in its midst. The family at the center of it all, loosely based on Fellini's own, is a well-drawn melange of coarse, pathetic, colorful, clever, and cranky characters. While Fellini does not choose nostalgic sepia tones, he does shoot much of the film in muted colors that seem slightly out-of-focus, as if he were attempting to transport us into a dreamlike state. Blending scenes of pathos and humor, vulgar carnal desire and transcendent magical illumination (the peacock's standing in the newly fallen snow, spreading its magnificent plumage is this film's signature image), Amarcord won the lion's share of 1974's Best Foreign Film awards, including the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, the Golden Globe, and the Academy Award, and it remains a triumph of personal filmmaking.

All Movie Guide - Dan Jardine