Fellini: Auteurism and Italian National Cinema(s)

The history of Italian national cinemas is highly informed by the conceptualisation of Italian Neo-realism as a post-war movement. It attempted to envision a coherent image of Italy that is grounded by the specificity of its ideological message as well as its particular modes of representation. However, shifts in the post-war climate with events such as the onset of the economic miracle in the 1960s threatened to disrupt the homogeneity of a certain national cinematic movement. This is the period in which Federico Fellini rose out of the ashes of Neo-realism to construct a brand of cinema that is informed by the specificity of individualism rather than a shared national consciousness. Fellini became a director that is championed globally as an auteur. Thus, the national identity of Italy is restructured from a national cinematic movement into the currency of the individual artist that is much in line with America’s liberal economy. In this essay, I shall conduct an auteurist study of Fellini and determine its applicability in the articulation of Italian national cinema. Firstly, I shall outline the various thematic concerns and stylistic strategies utilised by Fellini in relation to La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8 ½ (1963). Secondly, I shall explain how aspects of these themes reflect upon the economical and cultural climate it is situated within. It is my aim to demonstrate that formal and structured modes of articulating Italian cinema are necessary in the process of national building. But the homogeneity of such representations is not in line with the ever-shifting cultural landscape. As neorealism failed to attain hegemony as a mode of discourse, so will auteurism lose its currency in the study of Italian national cinemas. To conclude I shall assert that Fellini’s thematic concerns are to be conceptualised as a juncture of dissonance, a destruction of the persistence of the past towards the creative reshaping of the Italian cinema industry.

What is most apparent, upon viewing of a Fellini film, is a brazen spectacular display that bursts out of the colossal scope of its filmic settings. This visual style that is commonly associated with baroque, or what Stubbs refers to as “the style of excess,” assaults the spectator with “images of life that are highly charged with movements, contrasts, textures, colors, and, above all, surprises” (2006, p. 20). A compelling example in La Dolca Vita is the party sequence, a heavily utilised setting in Fellini’s films, that takes place in the roman dome as part of Sylvia’s promotional visit to Rome. The wideness of this semi-indoor space is emphasised through the composition of many layers of characters and objects within a vast depth of field. Once this is established, the camera zooms into Marcello’s narrative in his pursuit of Sylvia on the dancefloor. He showers her with flattering pickup lines, exalting her as a symbol that encompasses every aspect of humanity. With Sylvia being exactly that, Marcello is unable to catch her attention as her focus is on the sensational openness of the setting as signified through her absorption in the music. The surprise entrance of Frankie Stout, an actor with the likeness of a satyr, serves as a catalyst that further fragments Marcello’s narrative in favour of an excursion in Fellini’s spectacular style. As Hatab states, “The ‘negative’ posture, burlesque, and fringe realm of the satytrs can be said to have functioned as an inversion/deforming of human norms that brought both a comic and an exploratory effect” (2004, p. 214). Thus, the civilised slow-dance between Marcello and Sylvia breaks up and moves into a free-form dance that explores the space of the setting to the frantic beat of rock n’ roll.  In the process, many characters that were prior in the background join in the dance and receive attention from the camera. The sequence explodes into a kaleidoscope of individualistic human caricatures that beams with celebratory and comic energy. Stubbs likens this style to “the comic grotesque tradition” in which irregularity and contrast are the strategies utilised to draw attention to a vast array of characters (2006, p. 25-27). For example, in the scene above, there is Sylvia the blond bombshell, Stout the satyr, negros in the jazz band, rock n’ rollers, women in aristocratic attire, waiters in roman costumes, a chinese woman on the dancefloor. Even the drunk and immobile Robin is drawing a caricature of Sylvia’s manager, adding a mostauche as the finishing touch.

In contrast to the Roman dome, a signifier of Rome’s historical past that is stagnant and eroding in its fixity, is the spectacular and energetic representation of a global clutter of characters that are constantly in movement. As Degli-Esposti states, Fellini’s “distortions, alterations of forms, and lack of symmetry” are characteristics that opposes “the utopic perfection of Renaissance aesthetic production” in favour of “a sense of nonfixity and state of becoming” (p. 158). It also constructs a nihilistic portrait of Rome in which the older order of fixity such as Catholicism and Nationalism give way to a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure and a merging of cultures within a globalised Italy. La Dolce Vita opens with a statue of Christ literally uprooted by a helicopter that represents the transnational machinics of the industrial revolution. The sacred aura of Catholicism is demystified even further during the sequence in which two children simulate the sighting of Mother Mary in an overblown media spectacle.  Marcello’s narrative that revolves around the superficial and sensational tabloid culture set off during Italy’s economic miracle sees him moving from party after party in increasing hedonistic abandon. Bondanella states that Fellini emphasises on “a kind of animalistic and vital energy” that overrides the “corruption and decadence” in his representations of the changing cultural landscape of Italy (2002, p. 83). This goes in line with Rosenthal’s assertion that Fellini’s spectacle that consists of “the most peripheral bit player to the central character” communicates Fellini’s belief that “preserves the integrity of the individual and reasserts his own wonder at the diversity of human form and temperament” (1976, p. 67-68). Thus, with the death of God and the cultural confusion of Italy comes a humanistic spectacle of individuals that are, in Pasolini’s words, “so full of the joy of being” that it paradoxically represents the “most absolute product of Catholicism” (1993, p. 106-107).

A contemplative moment of disillusionment often follows from an immersion in spectacle in Fellini’s films. Stubbs notes that party sequences that “builds up to a frantic pitch” eventually “winds down to the separateness and loneliness of the participants” (1975, p. 99). The slowed down pace of such sequences sees the entrance of symbols that seem to provide some metaphorical rational to his films. Many critics approach such symbols with the binary of purity and decadence. For example, Burke sees Paola’s presence at the end of La Dolce Vita as a symbol of purity that “emphasize[s] the need for transformation from physical existence to spiritual life” (1966, p. 106). Marcello’s inability to hear her voice signifies that he has sunken so deep into hedonism that he is unable to transcend from the sweet life to the good life. However such readings are reductive because in practice, Fellini’s utilises symbols in a playful manner to create a mood of ambiguity, or as Bennett put it, as a “deliberate Fellini joke, designed to bait the humorless, jargon-chewing, symbol-seeking critics” (1964, p. 738). Paola can easily be seen as a devil in disguise, much like the angel that tempts Jesus away from the cross in Scorcesse’s Last Temptation of the Christ (1988). In this circumstance, Paola symbolises the false hope of transcendence that is ephemeral and death-like in contrast to an ever-shifting reality. Therefore, Fellini’s utilises symbols, not as a disillusionment of moral failings, but as a disillusionment of fixed signification, which is as dead as the monstrous fish lying on the beach. Fellini’s symbols point towards a dynamic “signifying process” in which “signs take on or change their significations” and “breaks the inertia of language-habits and offers the linguist a unique opportunity to study the becoming of the signification of signs” (Kristeva, 1988, p. 28). In Fellini’s own words, “Neo-realism does not express itself in what we show but in how we show it”  (cited in Pecori, 1978, p.5). Thus, an honest and truthful cinematic representation that draws from neo-realism points towards the process of signification of symbols that enables subjective significations to resonate in relation to the specificity of the individual.

Fellini’s films are often loosely constructed in relation to autobiographical anecdotes that are revisited in the present through excursions into his memories and dreams. This is explicitly and self-reflexively portrayed in 8 ½, as Guido, the director modelled after Fellini himself, revisits his memories in an attempt at gaining certainty of his life to be able to finish up his film in a truthful way. An apparent theme is the sense of childlike wonder in experiencing magical and sexual situations. Maurice, a Jungian archetype of the mage that “holds the keys to the initiatory gates at the thresholds of sacred space and time,” serves as a catalyst towards the recollection of a particular block in Guido’s memory (Moore & Gillette, 1993, p. 133). In revealing the words ‘Asa Nisi Masa’ as Guido’s unspoken thought, Guido moves into the memory of himself as a child under the care of his grandmother. This takes place in a dreamy interior with many white cloths and contrasting shadows. As the lights go out, a girl frantically tells an amused Guido about the enchanted painting on the bedroom wall and recites the spell ‘Asa Nisi Masa’. This evokes a sense of mystery and nostalgia. In another sequence, the movement and physique of a woman walking down a hill acts as a catalyst towards Guido’s remembrance of his first sexual encounter. In this memory, he visits the prostitute Saraghina. Her grotesque yet graceful features and her huge figure in contrast to a small Guido positions her as a potent figure of sexual excess that exposes Guido to the unknown territory of adult sexuality. This sense of childhood wonder is offset by memories of authoritative structures and figures. Following the Saraghina episode comes a recollection of his catholic institution in which he experiences a series of punishments and humiliations for his sinful excursion with a prostitute. Thus, part of Fellini’s memory is concerned with the moralistic order in a reflection of Italy’s Catholic origins. To a certain extent, it serves to preserve the spectacular aura of ‘sinful’ indulgence, as indicated by Guido’s return visit to Saraghina. In the filmic present, which takes place in the Economic Miracle, ‘sinful’ indulgence becomes second nature as Catholicism loses its hegemony. Though Marcello and Guido exists in such a hedonistic and energetic cultural landscape, the spectacular aura of childhood memories are rendered into indifference through adulthood and jadedness. However, access to child-like lenses is granted through the defamiliarising and dynamic energy of “the director’s camera, as Fellini transforms this fresco of decadence into a vibrant portrait that intrigues the spectator without necessarily drawing him or her into that evanescent world” (Bondnella, 2002, p. 90).

Another reoccurring autobiographical theme concerns Fellini’s estranged relationship with his father. In La Dolce Vita, Marcello approaches his father’s surprise visit with much enthusiasm. But it is not without certain awkwardness in their communication. Marcello’s intention in reuniting with his father is cut short as his father suffers a mild heart attack and insists on taking the last train home. In 8 ½. Guido meets his deceased father in a dream that takes place at his father’s burial site. Guido is unable to strike conversation as his father talks coldly about the condition of his grave and expressing some disappointment at his son’s lack of productivity. Thus, the father-son enigma in Fellini’s films comes in the form of “repeated presentations of derailed closure, of an attempt at reconciliation that always ends in a riddle of impossibility” (Papio, 1997, p. 404). The lack of communication, understanding and the inability to live up to the father’s expectations is, in a Freudian sense, a failed Oedipal order that is represented as a site of despair and contestation in Fellini’s films. However, in denying reconciliation, Fellini rejects the fantasy or totalising view of a phallic order under psychoanalysis that “subjects the unconscious to arborescent structures, hierarchical graphs, recapitulatory memories” and the image of the father (Deleuze & Guattari, 2008, p. 19). This explains his fascination with Jungian psychology in contrast to Freudian doctrine as he explains, “Freud wants to explain to us what we are; Jung accompanies us to the door of the unknowable and lets us see and understand by ourselves” (Fellini, 1988, p. 165). Thus, Fellini’s utilisation of memories and dreams are not exploited for utopian fantasies in certainty of structure. Rather, such sequences conjure at times, mystery and magic that brings back the wonderful and creative aura of a child’s sensibility, and at others, a sense of disorder and lack of fixity.

The decentred subject is a major theme in Fellini’s films. Fellini states that his motive in making 8 ½ is to create a portrait of a man “in which all the possibilities of his being happened—their levels, story after story, like in a building whose façade is crumbling” (cited in Burke, 1966, p. 156). Richardson draws a reference to TS Elliot in relation to this thematic, emphasising that both artists utilise an “aesthetic of disparity” that “does not emphasize narrative smoothness or continuity” (1978, p. 111). In 8 ½, narrative and subject, which comment on Italy’s national identity in the past, are decentred as memories and dreams intertwine with reality. Drawing from Deluze’s conception of the time-image, Martin-Jones asserts that Guido’s excursions into the many layers of his memory does not serve to inform the present, but “provides a number of not necessarily true pasts that enter into virtual circuits with the present, to create a memory of the future” (2006, p. 63). In contrast to the movement-image that recollects the past in order to inform the subject’s action in the present, is the time-image that opens up “the labyrinthine whole of time that is created when” the linearity of memory is ungrounded, “and the subject’s sensory-motor continuum suspended” (ibid, p. 62). It his hard to tell what is reality and what is memory in 8 ½ as Guido moves through the many layers of his memory. There is not a single recollection sequence in which he returns back to the apparent present as it always cuts straight to another episode.  Furthermore, there is a collapse between the distinction between actual and virtual memory. For example, the cardinal sequence that takes place in the steam bath is an assemblage of characters from his ‘present’, a doubling of the confession sequence that Guido experiences as a young boy and the other meeting with the Cardinal earlier in the narrative. In the concluding carousel sequence, characters from the many layers of his memory, including young Guido, appear within the same space with the adult Guido who directs them to move around a circle endlessly. This corresponds to Deleuze’s utilisation of Nietzsche’s eternal occurrence to illustrate the pureness of time in which “the straight line of time, as though drawn by its own length, re-forms a strange loop” that “leads into the formless” (1997, p. 91). Thus, the decentreing of subject and narrative in Fellini’s film is also the decentreing of the actuality of the past and present that points towards the openness of the future.

So far, in discussing Fellini’s spectacular display, playful symbolism and the decentreing of narrative and subject through excursions in dreams and memories, I have positioned his key and formal concerns within an auteurist perspective. Neo-realism is concerned with articulating the negative effects of war rooted in Fascist history and critiquing bourgeois ideology towards an enlightenment of class-consciousness. Fellini’s cinema marks a departure from the unity and hegemony of neo-realism as a purist form of cinematic discourse in Italy through a personalised vision that stresses the complexity of the human condition. However, it is more conducive to position’s Fellini’s thematic differences as a creative rearticulation of neo-realism rather than as an opposition. As Burke states, the older generation of neo-realists and Fellini share a passionate and humanistic dedication to human solidarity (1966, p. 4). Rosenthal also links Fellini to neo-realism through his “direct style of observation” (1976, p. 12). Thus, Fellini’s greatest contribution to this trajectory of Italian national cinemas is his honest intentions in expanding the boundaries of reality into the psychological and spiritual depths of the human condition that “redeem[s] the world of appearances through a poetic or oneiric rendering of that world” (Restivo, 2002, p. 37). This brings to mind Badiou’s ethical framework:

Every absolutization of the power of a truth organizes an Evil. The Good is Good only to the extent that it does not aspire to render the world good. Its sole being lies in the situated advent of a singular truth (2002, p. 85).

It is farfetched to claim that the hegemonic currency of neo-realism is evil in its intentions as it primarily has its aims in political emancipation. However, its instrumental nature bears its head with the critical insistence of its values as the dominant mode of cinematic discourse in Italy. Fellini playfully acknowledges this in La Dolce Vita when a journalist asks Sylvia the audacious question of whether she thinks neo-realism is dead, in which an assistant automatically signals her to say no. Similarly, the numbing and overly rational criticisms by the cinematic ‘intellectual’ in 8 ½ delimit Guido’s creative potential. As the currency of neo-realism solidifies into stagnancy within a changing cultural climate, Fellini ethically moves into the complex channels of the individual’s psyche to communicate a subjective but truer reality. His motive in portraying a truthful subjective reality also enables him to achieve a strong sense of historical specificity. La Dolce Vita and 8 ½ reflect on the cultural and moral confusion of Italy within the economic miracle. He does this “without rigorous moralistic judgments,” enabling the spectator to experience the vibrancy of life in the absence of any absolute ideologies (Bondanella, 2002, p. 70).

Auteurism is a means of articulating national identity within the international art-film circuit. As Martin-Jones states, despite the deliberate destabalision of national identity through the utilisation of the time-image in 8 ½’s narrative, “the film is ultimately reterritorialised through the agency that it provide Fellini the auteur” (2006, p. 76). Fellini’s auteurist status corresponds to the influx of the American brand of individualism within the economic miracle that is also referred to as ‘Hollywood on the Tiber”. Within this climate is Italy’s alliance with the global phenomenon of American ideology that “enlisted high art and, equally important, the cult of the artist, as symbols of American individualism” (Burke, 1966, p. 8). Fellini is propagated as a modernist artist that communicates a rich and visual appealing paradigm of the complexity of the human condition. This complexity is explicit in its deterritorialision of the Italian national narrative within the specific trajectory of Italian cinema. However, within a global level, it becomes a means of transcending cultural specificity towards a universal product that is marketable to the global market as a marker of enlightened individualism. Thus, in the championing of Fellini as auteur, the articulation of Italian national identity moves away from an emphasis on cultural specificity to the global sentiments of the enlightened artist that paradoxically becomes an icon of Italian nationality.

Auteurism is a useful framework in understanding the articulation of Italian national cinemas within the specificity of the economic miracle. However, it is more productive to view Fellini’s thematic in relation to its destabalisation of national narratives, its destructive but creative potential in signalling towards the possibility of an open field of constructions in the future. Within a postmodern cultural climate, the currency of the auteur is destabalised by post-auteurism, in which “the auteur was killed off as creative artist and resurrected as merely one system of codes among many or as the radically dispersed effect of ideological gaps and contradictions” (Burke, 1989, p. 37). This movement serves to deterritorialise the reterritorialisations of auterism in the study of Italian national cinemas, bringing back Fellini’s thematic of dislocation back into the foreground. As such, Auteurism suffers a similar fate as neo-realism. All frameworks that conceptualises Italian national cinemas within the rigidity of a structure will eventually lose its currency due to the ever-shifting cultural field. Fellini is important in the sense that he self-reflexively highlights this inherent dissonance in the construction of national identity. However, as Brunetta says, “the progressive loss of that projectuality and tension” of national identity is “a common denominator that had accompanied for a long time the Italian authors of the postwar years” (cited in Gieri, 1995, p. 199). The need of articulating national identity is inherent to the construction of a nation. Fellini’s films are no exception. But he differs in the sense that his spectacular and celebratory display of cultural confusion points towards an active and affirmative articulation that meanders in multiple directions within the process.

References

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Filmography

8 ½, Federico Fellini, 1963

La Dolce Vita, Federico Fellini, 1960

Last Temptation of the Christ, The, Martin Scorsese, 1988