I loved Fellini and especially this film and Roma. I saw this movie at least twenty times back in the 1980s. I have to admit, however, that I loved it because I misundersood. as do most people. The way most people see this film, and the way I saw it the first night I caught it, is contrary to what Fellini meant the film to be.
The film we tend to see is a tender and moving recreation of life through a child's eyes very similar to Meet Me in St. Louis. You have the ineffectual father, the knowing mother, the same sorts of spectacle (Here the Grand Hotel and a passing Ocean liner take the place of the world's fair). We also have a similar story structure of vignettes tied together in the loosest possible way by a narrative that follows through the seasons beginning in the spring.
As we follow through, the film relies heavily on dramatic irony. The characters are all engrossed in their immediate concerns while we in the theatre know we are watching a world that has been swept away by modernity. This is all the more poignant because we can see that the characters all think they are the latest modern things themselves.
You can even match some scenes up. The shots of the youngest of the two sons in Amarcord going to school through the fog are very similar to the scenes of young Tootie out on Halloween in Meet Me in St. Louis. The younger children are always up to mischief and the older children are always playing withfire sex but always to no real intent.
The primary difference between the two movies is, or ought to be, that the Italian film is pessimistic and the American one is very optimistic. And little wonder. The audience for Amarcord knows that all this childish innocence was swept away by fascism and the horror of war. The audience for Meet Me in Saint Louis saw a world that had been swept away by progress and prosperity. Neither audience would look back on the changes with unmixed feelings but the gap is obvious.
Or it ought to be. Everyone who ever saw Amarcord came away enchanted. Part of the reason for this is that Fellini was hugely influenced by American culture and he couldn't resist the wonder of the movies. There is one enchanting scene after another in Amarcord. My favourite, and I'm far from alone in this, is when the young boys visit the Grand Hotel after it is closed for the season. They stand on the terrace where the elegant couples danced just a few months before and peer in.
There is also a scene where the boys are having a snowball fight and the local nobleman's peacock has escaped. There is a wonderful fantasy scene of the town beauty and visiting royalty. And it just goes on and on.
But Fellini's intention was to show that the Catholic church infantilized Italians, leaving them unable to grow beyond childish understandings of politics and sex. And that is the problem. Fellini was dodging responsibility here. He sees fascism as something that happened to Italians as opposed to seeing it as something they did.
You often find Germans remembering the Nazi period in similar fashion. You might think that the Nazis and the fascists were an alien force who occupied Germany and Italy against the will of the locals and that the only fault of the people was not being strong enough to resist it.
This is most evident in Amarcord in a sequence in which the protagonist's father, a communist, taunts the fascists and they track him down and force him to drink a glass of castor oil leading to the obvious consequences and his humiliation in front of his son.
This is the usual trick of intellectuals with romantic notions about the one of the most destructive and hateful ideologies ever conceived by humanity; communists are presented as well-meaning people who were innocent in the face of evil. In fact, the Italian communists used the rise of fascism and the second world war as an opportunity to ruthlessly eliminate ... wait for it ... not their fascist opponents but their rivals on the left, the anarchists. (The anarchists were no better and were just as eager to eliminate the communists only they lost just like the Bloods lost to the Crips.)
In retrospect, communists like to argue that they at least saw the danger of fascism. In fact, communists in the 1930s spent their time trying to convince everyone that the real danger was FDR.
Teh real problem is that Fellini never grew up. He never stopped being the enchanted child. He was a bitter enchanted child but an enchanted child nonetheless.
The film we tend to see is a tender and moving recreation of life through a child's eyes very similar to Meet Me in St. Louis. You have the ineffectual father, the knowing mother, the same sorts of spectacle (Here the Grand Hotel and a passing Ocean liner take the place of the world's fair). We also have a similar story structure of vignettes tied together in the loosest possible way by a narrative that follows through the seasons beginning in the spring.
As we follow through, the film relies heavily on dramatic irony. The characters are all engrossed in their immediate concerns while we in the theatre know we are watching a world that has been swept away by modernity. This is all the more poignant because we can see that the characters all think they are the latest modern things themselves.
You can even match some scenes up. The shots of the youngest of the two sons in Amarcord going to school through the fog are very similar to the scenes of young Tootie out on Halloween in Meet Me in St. Louis. The younger children are always up to mischief and the older children are always playing with
The primary difference between the two movies is, or ought to be, that the Italian film is pessimistic and the American one is very optimistic. And little wonder. The audience for Amarcord knows that all this childish innocence was swept away by fascism and the horror of war. The audience for Meet Me in Saint Louis saw a world that had been swept away by progress and prosperity. Neither audience would look back on the changes with unmixed feelings but the gap is obvious.
Or it ought to be. Everyone who ever saw Amarcord came away enchanted. Part of the reason for this is that Fellini was hugely influenced by American culture and he couldn't resist the wonder of the movies. There is one enchanting scene after another in Amarcord. My favourite, and I'm far from alone in this, is when the young boys visit the Grand Hotel after it is closed for the season. They stand on the terrace where the elegant couples danced just a few months before and peer in.
There is also a scene where the boys are having a snowball fight and the local nobleman's peacock has escaped. There is a wonderful fantasy scene of the town beauty and visiting royalty. And it just goes on and on.
But Fellini's intention was to show that the Catholic church infantilized Italians, leaving them unable to grow beyond childish understandings of politics and sex. And that is the problem. Fellini was dodging responsibility here. He sees fascism as something that happened to Italians as opposed to seeing it as something they did.
You often find Germans remembering the Nazi period in similar fashion. You might think that the Nazis and the fascists were an alien force who occupied Germany and Italy against the will of the locals and that the only fault of the people was not being strong enough to resist it.
This is most evident in Amarcord in a sequence in which the protagonist's father, a communist, taunts the fascists and they track him down and force him to drink a glass of castor oil leading to the obvious consequences and his humiliation in front of his son.
This is the usual trick of intellectuals with romantic notions about the one of the most destructive and hateful ideologies ever conceived by humanity; communists are presented as well-meaning people who were innocent in the face of evil. In fact, the Italian communists used the rise of fascism and the second world war as an opportunity to ruthlessly eliminate ... wait for it ... not their fascist opponents but their rivals on the left, the anarchists. (The anarchists were no better and were just as eager to eliminate the communists only they lost just like the Bloods lost to the Crips.)
In retrospect, communists like to argue that they at least saw the danger of fascism. In fact, communists in the 1930s spent their time trying to convince everyone that the real danger was FDR.
Teh real problem is that Fellini never grew up. He never stopped being the enchanted child. He was a bitter enchanted child but an enchanted child nonetheless.
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