Fellini Rough Draft 2

Fellini’s Fairytales Screenwriting Patterns in Fellini’s Films

Federico Fellini was a world renowned Italian filmmaker and scriptwriter who was distinctively known for his recurring patterns within each of his films. He was creative, inventive, different, and daring. He created different worlds through his stories and unknowingly created a hidden sisterhood behind his fairytales. The story lines, characters, morals, and even endings are all connected. As a filmmaker he makes you think deeper into the movie and dive into it’s deeper meaning. For some they may just be another normal film, just a simple piece of artwork; but for others they are all a beautiful masterpiece, its just up to the audience to dive into Fellini’s mind and find it. Most audiences would find Fellini extremely confusing and hard to understand, especially because of the way in which he ends his films. Instead of tying up any loose ends, or creating closure for the audience like any other filmmaker, he goes on his own different path creating confusing endings. Initially, one would think his confusing endings are pointless and ruin the whole film giving it no purpose; when in reality it does the complete opposite. His confusing and sporadic endings work the audience intellectually making them think and discover a moral for his story rather than just easily handing it to them. One of the major Fellini elements in his endings is “the final smile” in which he portrays a character looking off into the distance smiling in the last shot of his films. This “final smile” as most call it was so innocent and pure symbolizing hope for the future. Sometimes it is a random character and other times it was a main character, but either way it left a huge impact. This final smile is demonstrated in his 1953 comedy Il Vitelloni. This film follows a group of lazy un

driven twenty year olds living off their parents, with no hope for a greater future than what they are living now. We follow the boys through their immature pranks and acts quickly realizing they are perfectly content with their way of life and have no intention of changing that. In the end of the film, one of the boys, Moraldo hops onto a train. As the audience, we don’t know what his intentions are, where his mind is, or even where he is going. Is he going to do something else immature? Or is he getting away from it all? We don’t know..until we see a young boy. A young boy suddenly appears into the screen and looks up at Moraldo so innocently and smiles up at him. No words are said, but with this simple and pure gesture we are able to see that Moraldo is escaping the negative town and heading out to a better and mature life. The final smile in Il Vitelloni leaves us with optimism for Moraldo’s future. Two other Fellini films that demonstrate this act of a “final smile” for its endings are Nights of Cabiria and La Dolce Vita. The 1957 drama Nights of Cabiria uses the main character Cabiria for the final rather than a random character. We follow her desperate journey to find love but continuously gets her heart broken. At the end of the film, we see her get completely destroyed and betrayed by a man that she thought she was going to marry. Just when we expect her to give up in defeat she looks right into the camera and smiles confidently and beautifully out into the distance. Once again no words are said, and we are able to see that she has hope for the future and has no intention on giving up on her will to find love. The 1967 comedy drama La Dolce Vita takes the audience through an episodic series of events of a journalist named Marcello searching in Rome for a life of happiness and love in which he never achieves. We follow his ups and downs with both that of women and his partying and begin to worry about him but it isn’t until the final scene that we are reassured that he is going to be okay. And how does Fellini do that reassuring? Through the use of the “final smile”

yet again. We see Marcello straggling along the beach with the rest of his drunken friends after a night of partying. He is suddenly called by a young and beautiful girl; they attempt to exchange words but it cannot be understood. We then see Marcello walk away hand in hand with a woman from the party, and just when we think that he is yet again doomed the camera goes back to the young girl. She is staring into the distance at Marcello waving him off with a smile of content, letting us all know that Marcello is going to be okay. As an audience we feel some type of connection with the young girl and if she believes Marcello is going to be okay in the future then we can walk away with a smile as well believing the same. Contradicting his endings with the final smile symbolizing hope, another typical Fellini ending is a scene with the character on the ground in desperation symbolizing hopelessness. I love the two different spectrum of endings because each are so powerful and leave a strong message despite being polar opposite in emotions. Unlike the final smile ending, Fellini will usually put the main character as the one demonstrating this act of desperation. In this specific ending Fellini will show the character on the ground completely vulnerable in his emotions. Whether he is crying, screaming, or bowing his head, one can almost feel the pain of this character themselves. This act of lying on the ground symbolizes the desperation the character feels and the lack of hope they have for the future. One example of this final act of desperation is in 1954 film La Strada. Watching this film we follow the journey of two street performers and their toxic relationship. The young naive girl Gelsomina falls under the emotional and mental abuse of the aggressive strongman Zampano. Zampano mistreats her throughout the film taking advantage of her loyalty and respect for him. We grow a certain hatred for him being that he shows no remorse for his actions. By the end of the film the two have finally split paths and years later Zampano gets word that Gesomina

has passed away. It isn’t until this final moment and scene that we feel for Zampano and see emotion begin to pour out. He lays on the beach in defeat and breaks down and cries; it is here that we finally receive closure as an audience and we can see that he has remorse for his actions and is truly sorry for all that he had done to Gesomina. Another example of this final act of desperation is in Fellini’s 1955 film Il Bidone. The film goes on to tell the story of a group of robbers who pull pranks and steal money from others all under the lead of a man named Augusto. They cheat people out of their money dressing up and pretending to be things they are not. They go on throughout the film without feeling any guilt taking advantage of all those around them even the poor and homeless. As a viewer one would almost come to think Augusto doesn’t even have a heart the way he mindlessly steals from the less fortunate. Just like Zampano we begin to grow a deep hatred for his character and foresee no change for him. Then our minds are changed once again with the final scene. He did a robbery with other men in order to help his daughter with whom he never sees. The men that he normally robs with are offended that he gave the money elsewhere instead of splitting it and beat him. They rob whatever is left on him and leave him beaten and alone. He lies there on the ground suffering in pain. He is defeated and worthless but in some distorted way we know he is okay with that pain because he betrayed his friends for an even better reason...his daughter. Just like common endings Fellini is famous for his different types of morals discovered in his films. He focuses on inner conflicts within characters that need to be addressed and changed. He would put emphasis on or dramatize certain aspects of his films to make the moral clear and open the audience’s eyes to the issue. One theme that Fellini really stressed was the “mask vs. face” theme demonstrating the moral that everyone isn’t always who you make them out to be and that there is value in ordinary people.

I saw this moral being demonstrated in the first Fellini film that I ever watched, Lo Sciecco Bianco. In this film Wanda, newlywed to her husband Ivan becomes infatuated with “The White Sheik” who is the star of a soap opera show. Instead of being in the cliche honeymoon stage with Ivan she does the opposite and chases after this soap opera star. She dreams about him, stares of pictures of him, and fantasizes a life with him. Wanda has never met the White Sheik, all she knows of him is his character in the show and how he is displayed in pictures. Knowing this little about him she willingly risks the happiness of her new marriage and sneaks off to find this amazing man that she has made the White Sheik to be. She leaves her husband unhappy and worried to selfishly try to find what she thought would cause her happiness. Once she finds the White Sheik she quickly realizes he is nothing what she makes him out to be. He is rude and aggressive, and acts like a pig when it comes to females. He tried pursuing Wanda despite having a wife, and the cast just leaves her once they head to Rome. Wanda realizes the truth behind the White Sheik and how he is nothing like what she made him out to be. He may have seemed great through a television screen or pictures but he will never love her or give her the happiness that Ivan does. This teaches us the moral of appreciating what you have and finding the beauty rather than making something up to be what it is not for that in itself can cause you unhappiness. I saw another example of this moral being demonstrated in The Nights of Cabiria. Cabiria, a prostitute desperate for love runs into a movie star and becomes starstruck and infatuated with him just like Wanda. She is amazed with his glamorous lifestyle, in both his appearance, and his house, and immediately puts him on a pedestal. It isn’t until that she actually engages in conversation with him inside his house and gets to know him past all his fame that she sees he isn’t all she made him out to be. He informs her that a life of fame isn’t all that it

seems, and soon after their conversation his girlfriend walks in the room and he hides Cabiria as if he was ashamed. It is in that moment that Cabiria realizes that this famous movie star that she looked up to is just like all the men that have broken her heart in the past. This shows us that you can’t judge a book by its cover, you have to read some of it’s pages first. Cabiria would have continued on admiring this man if she hadn’t actually sat down and engaged in conversation stripping him away of the “social mask” that he was wearing. Another theme that Fellini focuses on is that of travel. A majority of his films highlight the theme of traveling a long journey. This presents the moral that “life is a journey” and just like an open road, it goes on. This is my favorite message or moral of his. Fellini usually has his character live a life on the road traveling to different cities. Almost all of his films contain this theme, and he really relays it through his camera use and location. Through the scenes showing the characters facing a challenge he shot them walking alone and wandering long desolate streets. Fellini would emphasize on scenes driving in cars, walking on empty long streets, wandering through empty areas, and would use locations that had wide and desolate landscape. We see these these type of shot sequences in his films such as La Strada, Il Bidone, or Le Notte di Cabiria. The most prevalent sisterhood between Fellini’s films are his portrayal of characters. He has mastered a specific way of representing his females and males. He displays a recurring continuity of certain portrayals of women; some being those of an angelic and naive aura and then those portrayed dramatically voluptuous and over the top. For the male characters he displays them either as the playboy womanizer type or the one who has a self realization and changes. He even shows a recurring theme with both men and women together, always displaying a struggling romantic relationship.

His infamous womanizer characters can be found in many of his films. Those that stood out to me were Fausto in Il Vitelloni, Roberto in Il Bidone, and Marcello in La Dolce Vita. Fausto is an immature character in his twenties who doesn’t want to grow up and settle down. He constantly chases after multiple woman even after knowing that he is expecting a baby with another woman that he is forced into marrying. Fausto won’t outgrow his habits, and even goes as far as to pursue and sleep with his boss’s wife. Fausto is childish and immature character that clearly wasn’t ready to grow up and give up a life of multiple woman when he was expected to. Roberto in Il Bidone was just an older “classier” version of Fausto. Roberto symbolized the high class womanizer of that time period. Even though Roberto was busy robbing multiple people, he always had time to chase after woman. He would dress up and attend all of these fancy parties and gatherings going from one woman to another. Whispering in their ears, complimenting them, and even dancing with them. He wasn’t ashamed of who he was, he loved being looked at as a man with multiple females. As a viewer you can see how content he is with his lifestyle with the permanent smile he has plastered on his face each time he approaches another woman. Unlike Fausto, Roberto is a grown man who freely chooses this lifestyle. The last playboy type male character is Marcello in La Dolce Vita. Marcello is a women driven journalist who like Roberto, attends all these extravagant parties and gatherings seeking out beautiful and elegant women. He lives for chasing women and charming that with his wit and handsome looks forgetting the fact that he has a sick wife at home waiting for him. Despite being married Marcello becomes infatuated and tries pursuing a beautiful actress, hits on waitresses questioning if they have boyfriends, and even professes his love and gets proposed to by another beautiful woman that he has a continuous affair with. Marcello is just a lost and disrespectful character. Even with all of his woman he carries on with he still has the nerve to go home to his

wife and tell her he loves her and that no one will love her more than him. But with the final smile ending as an audience we can only hope that he is walking on to a changed life. Another typical male character in Fellini’s films is the “changing character”; one that has a self realization and changes his way of life for the better. Both Augusto in Il Bidone, Moraldo in Il Vitelloni are two characters that when through this change. Augusto was the head of a group of robbers. He robbed people of their money and treasures even taking advantage of the crippled and homeless. He seemed heartless and deceitful, and his actions were almost hard to watch. Augusto showed no remorse for what he was doing to others, and throughout the film we saw no hope for a change of heart. It isn’t until he runs into his daughter that he never sees that he has his self realization. She informs him that she needs financial help in order to continue her education and Augusto realizes he needs to step up. He betrays his partners and goes in on another robbery in order to help her. Because of his actions he is beaten and robbed by his partners when they find out. Although he did perform a last act of robbery he did it for his daughter and as a viewer we can see in his face that he was embarrassed by his life choices and wanted to do something to make her happy. For someone who had no care for any other person he came in contact with or took advantage of, we finally saw Augusto do something for someone else rather than himself. Moraldo goes through a life change for the better as well. Moraldo and his friends are the typical lazy up to no good twenty year olds. They hang around town chasing girls and pulling pranks never thinking about a job or their future. Unlike his friends, Moraldo sees that he needs to break free, and begins dreaming of ways to escape his lifestyle. He realizes that his friends are childish and immature and that they aren’t going to amount to anything. He finally takes action

and in the final scene he boards a train and looks ahead to a promising future he has always imagined for himself and looks behind at the town and lifestyle that he is breaking free from. When portraying females, Fellini was known for his two polar opposite characters; the naive and angelic girl and the big and voluptuous woman. In Fellini’s films he would frequently have a female character that was innocent, honest, and naive. This female weather a main character or a small role symbolized hope and purity. They always shined light on the plot and would draw the audience in. The audience always rooted for this character and feel some type of connection with them. Examples of these Fellini angels are Gesomenia in La Strada, Iris, Augusto’s daughter, and the crippled girl in Il Bidone, Paola in La Dolce Vita, Gradisca in Amarcord, the little girl in Le Tentazioni di Antonio. The second type of female character that Fellini commonly portrayed was the big and voluptuous woman. This character was usually over the top in every aspect from her breasts, to her height, to the way she acted, all the way to the way in which she spoke. This character was always loud and obnoxious and way to “friendly”. These females usually were big in both height and weight with large breasts and bottoms, yet always wore exceptionally small clothing making them appear even bigger. As a viewer you are almost intimidated by these female characters. Examples of these frightening women are the tobacco worker in Amarcord, the woman on the billboard in Le Tentazioni di Antonio, the women in the restaurant hitting on Roberto in Il Bidone, Fellini even shows a recurring pattern in his portrayal of men and women together in a relationship. He rarely shows a successful and happy marriage or relationship, they are always struggling in some unhealthy manner. It is unclear if he uses these fictional relationships to

demonstrate what his own personal marriage is like but Fellini always displays a toxic relationship between a man and woman in his films. In Il Bidone we see Picasso and his wife

• the struggling relationship: -Picasso & wife / Fausto & wife / Mangello & fiance