Fellini's film has been called a mock documentary, an impressionistic look at the city of Rome and an autobiographical version of his journey from the a rural town in Italy to Rome as documented in I Vitelloni. Fellini's Roma is also a very indulgent and shapeless film.
There is lots of interesting stuff in this film. The photography of Giuseppe Rotunno and the art direction of Danilo Donati who also did the costumes are really good. The music by Nino Rota is very simple and elegant compared to the excessive overkill of most of the film. It's also got those odd ball faces that show up in most Fellini films.
There are good parts in the film but almost all of them go on too long. Scenes in a brothel and a vaudeville show never end. Plus, you have to sit there and watch a bunch of high strung Italians shout at each other.
A couple of high points in the film are the ecclesiastical fashion show, Fellini's unsubtle criciticism of the Catholic Church and an excavation of a Roman home buried under the city. The excavation scene is very well done and the fashion show while entertaining runs about 10 minutes longer than absolutely needed. But that's the way it goes throughout this film.
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| Il Maestro directs |
Fellini's color films seemed to bring out an extreme nature in him along with some fascinating surrealistic imagery. He lingers on things that are only of interest to him and he repeats the same jokes an character bits over and over. The trouble was that with the exception of Amarcord, his color films really weren't all that good
128 minutes.
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