Word: fellinis
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Federico Fellini's Casanova is a fantastic puppet-show. Loosely structured on Casanova's autobiography, the film relates his amorous adventures in an anecdotal style similar to that of Fellini's earlier film, Roma. Episodes succeed each other in a vaguely chronological order, but there is no plot, no continuum of theme, no development of character or emotions. One woman is followed by another woman, and another woman, one court, another court, one spectacle, another spectacle, another spectacle. One fuck, another fuck, another fuck...
Huzzahs for Nash, Fellini's Roma for Clive...
...with De Laurentiis' instincts. They have served him well for 57 years. The son of a Neapolitan pasta manufacturer, he quit school at 13 to work as a salesman for his father, gravitated to movies first as an actor, then-quite quickly-as a producer. Eventually he produced Fellini's first two international hits, La Strada and Nights of Cabiria, stealing a portion of the latter's negative to prevent the director's including a long monologue that De Laurentiis was convinced slowed the picture down...
Last week Venice glowed eerily under the chill night sky over Cinecitta studios as Fellini filmed the movie's final scene. On a set as large as a football field (cost: $500,000), the city lay frozen -its Grand Canal solid ice (constructed from sheets of white plastic), the Rialto Bridge sagging under layers of snow. The scene represents the dying Casanova's final thoughts about the city of his youth. On signal from the director ("Go, Donald"), Casanova moves slowly across the ice, his black cloak fanned open by the night wind. He pauses, kneels down...
Suddenly the mechanical doll (Italian Ballerina Leda Lojodice) materializes before him, and the two dance across the ice in a final pirouette to the game of life. Watching the scene unfold, Fellini's assistant director, Gerald Morin, smiled softly. "So this is what Fellini thinks it all comes down to-a vacuous man dancing with a mechanical doll. Only a middle-aged man growing cynical could make such a statement. How sad. How honest...