This section contains 599 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |
Urban chaos is used as spectacle in Fellini's Roma, an ambivalent celebration of decay. The opulent rotting city of the film is indeed his own, with extras painted up as voracious citizens, and mock excavations, and a high-camp ecclesiastical fashion show that is also meant to be some sort of glittering, satirical comment on the old aristocracy, though it's hard to know exactly what the point is. Roma is an imperial gesture at documentary—a document about the city of Fellini's imagination, an autobiographical fantasy in which he plays ringmaster to the Roman circus…. The usual critical encomium "No one but Fellini could have made this movie" is certainly appropriate…. [Who] but Fellini would construct in a studio parts of the motorway circling Rome, in order to stage a traffic jam that would be a miracle of lashing rains and stalled cars under darkly beautiful skies? And in...
This section contains 599 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |