Amarkord (film)

Location and time

The picture is largely autobiographical, based on the director’s memories of his own childhood and carries a significant charge of nostalgia. The scene is a provincial Italian town (the director’s hometown, nowadays extremely popular among Russian tourists in Rimini , served as the basis for it, however, no full-scale shooting was made here); action time - 30s of the XX century, the era of fascism .

Movie Structure

The film does not have a clear plot. Rather, it is a kaleidoscope of episodes - sometimes lyrical, sometimes comical, or even obscene. The focus is on one modest family: Titt's boy, his parents, his grandfather, his crazy uncle Theo. Colorful scenes from school life unfold before the viewer (episodes with a Greek teacher and a mathematics teacher are especially known here), from family life (including a trip to nature with the participation of Uncle Theo, during which he suddenly climbs a tree and from there unsuccessfully calls out: “ I want a woman! ”). The seasons are changing, but the love of the townspeople (and passionate Titt) for the beautiful Gradisk, dreaming of her Gary Cooper , and in the process, sometimes “serving” visiting celebrities (her nickname is “Gradisca”, literally: “help yourself,” is connected just with one such adventure). But everything comes to an end, and the film ends with the wedding of Gradiska, which, as it were, sums up the “time of desires”.

Collective Unconscious

Some episodes with the Titt’s family are almost unconnected and are, as it were, generated by the “ collective unconscious ” of the city (for example, a scene with a harem who arrived here and completely amazed the locals, or an equally famous episode with a magnificent ocean liner, the arrival of which the townspeople expect as manna from heaven - for they are a symbol of a dream, a flight from dull everyday life).

Anti-Fascist Theme

Amarkord is Fellini's most politically sharpened film. This is due in part to the era in which it was created (the seventies of the twentieth century, the heyday of political cinema), and partly to the duration of the painting. Amarkord has distinctly anti-fascist episodes (a scene with the recording of The International , which suddenly spreads around the city and infuriates black shirts ). Although Fellini himself admitted that he did not plan to tell political episodes of any episode of the film, and the Nazis are shown in the film only as an indispensable attribute of that time. However, the thick brownish puffs of dust and smoke that tumbled down on the townspeople from the hole from which Mussolini appears in the Nazi episode is a perfectly understandable metaphor illustrating Fellini's attitude to the subject.

Corporate Identity

In Amarcord there are episodes that have become textbook, embodying the corporate identity of Federico Fellini. Such, for example, is the appearance of a peacock spreading its magnificent tail in the snow, or a scene in the fog where a silent white buffalo meets a frightened boy. These high-poetry shots are not endowed with any narrative function, but they, in contrast to the "spicy" episodes, organize the magical world of memory, reconstructed in Amarkord.

Tonino Guerra as a co-author

A very interesting question is the degree of participation of a prominent Italian writer Tonino Guerra in the creation of the film. Here's how he answered this question:

—I have always been interested in who is more in Amarcord: Fellini or Guerra?
- This is a wrong question. Guerra is what is written on paper, and Fellini is what is "written" on the canvas of the screen. [one]

The name of the film consists of several parts. “Amarcord” ([a m'arcòrd]) is a variation of the Italian phrase “Io mi ricordo”, meaning “I remember,” spoken in a dialect distributed in Rimini. In addition, the title contains the roots of the Italian words “love”, “bitter” and “thread”, thus, a free reading of the name may be “threads of bitter love connecting the author with the past”.

Among the most famous episodes of the picture is a scene in a tobacco shop, where the main character, young Titta, enters after closing in search of a cigarette. The owner of the store is a very passionate person with an immense bust. Both are embraced by desire. In the end, the angry merchant literally sticks her chest in the boy's mouth, so that he almost suffocates. The episode described in the Soviet box office was subjected to extremely awkward, leaving the viewer in complete bewilderment reduction. On this occasion, Fellini had a conversation with a cultural official who called on the maestro to give permission for the bill. “Are you embarrassed by her breasts?” Fellini asked sarcastically. Another episode embarrassing Soviet censorship was completely cut out. We are talking about collective masturbation, which the boys arrange in an old car. There is an effect reminiscent of the dynamo . The whole car is shaking; it seems he is about to move. Regarding this episode, Andrei Konchalovsky wrote in his book Low Truths: “For each of them, the source of sensual pleasure is a female person. I do not know if the great Federico had a certain metaphor in his plan, it begs itself. In essence, these boys are artists, creators, for a creative act is nothing more than the stimulation of fantasy through imagination. ”

As in several other Fellini films, Nino Rota became a full co-author of Amarcord. S. T. Richter in his diary noted his impressions of this music: “How talented, how easy it is written and how much charm! It is a pity that this composer limited himself only to trifles ” ^[1] .

Rewards

• 1975 - Oscar
  • Best Foreign Film
• 1974 - David di Donatello Award
  • Best Director - Federico Fellini
  • Best movie
• 1974 - US National Film Critics Award
  • Best Foreign Film

Nominations

• 1976 - Academy Award
  • Best Director - Federico Fellini
  • Best Screenplay - Federico Fellini , Tonino Guerra
• 1975 - Golden Globe Award
  • Best Foreign Film

Fellini approved the then unprofessional actor, the twenty-two-year-old Bruno Zanin. Meanwhile, in accordance with the scenario, we are talking about "a teenager of about fifteen." So there is some tension between the type of artist and his function. Perhaps Fellini did this consciously, thereby emphasizing the distance between the time of the narration and the time of the narrator (this kind of cinematic technique was brought to its extreme expression in the film by Carlos Saura's “Cousin of Angelica”).

• Magali Noel (Gradiska)
• Bruno Zanin (Titta)
• Pupella Madjo (Miranda Biondi, Titt's mother)
• Armando Brancha (Aurelio Biondi, Titt's father)
• Stefano Proyetti (Oliva, Titt's brother)
• Giuseppe Janigro (Titta's grandfather)
• Nandino Orpheus (Uncle Titta)
• Ciccio Ingrassia (Theo, crazy uncle Titta)
• Carla Mora (Gina, maid)
• Josiana Tanzilli (Chanterelle)
• Domenico Pertica (blind accordionist)
• Gianfilippo Carcano (cure)
• Dina Adorni (math teacher)
• Armando Villella (Greek teacher)
• Maria Antonietta Beluzzi (Tabachnitsa)

Eros Ramazzotti at Amarcord

The nine-year-old Eros Ramazzotti starred in the snowball scene (at that time he lived in a suburb of Rome , near the movie town of Chinechitt , where the shooting took place).

Amarkord by George Danelia

Here is what director Georgy Danelia said in an interview with Itogi magazine:

... There is one prize that is especially dear, of which I am proud. He was given to me by Tonino Guerra and Federico Fellini. It is called Amarkord, and I am its sole owner. Here is a story. When our great director Sergei Parajanov was in prison, he made foil medals from the caps of milk bottles. He gave one of these to Tonino Guerre, and he cast it in silver and brought it to Fellini as a souvenir to the hospital. Fellini, as it turned out, watched several times, “ Do not worry! ”, Guerra said so that I would be awarded a medal for this film. [2]

Ukrainian version

In March 2008, the Ukrainian director Alexander Belozub staged a performance on the stage of the Kiev Ivan Franko Theater, where he transformed the events of Amarcord in a fanciful manner ( [3] ).

The influence of Amarkord on the development of cinema turned out to be very significant (it can be clearly seen, for example, in the paintings of Emir Kusturitsa and the film “The Tree of Desire ” by Tengiz Abuladze ), but not always productive. According to critic Mikhail Trofimenkov ,

Amarkord " rendered a disservice to world cinema. Under his influence, small Amarkords about barefoot childhood and the awakening of desires proliferated everywhere ” ^[2] .

The motorcyclist from Amarkord became a quote for the motorcyclist Savransky in Kazakov’s Pokrovsky Gates. The technological, rude and destructive future, seeking a way out in a provincial city, in Kazakov’s “Pokrovsky Gates” has changed and took shape. It has become more understandable and closer to us as spectators. But he began in the motorcyclist "Amarkorda"

• " Amarkord " (English) on the Internet Movie Database  
• Variety show lights on allmovie  
• Amarcord on the allmovie website  
• Amarkord , a story by Federico Fellini and Tonino Guerra, which served as the basis for writing the script for the film.
• B. G. Zaslavsky, O. B. Zaslavsky. Carnival guises of a totalitarian psyche. Amarkord Federico Fellini
• Review by Sergey Kudryavtsev
• (Fr.) Detailed review of the film
• (Eng.) (German) Detailed filmography, a fragment of reviews
• Fellini F. I remember. - M .: Vagrius. - 2002. ISBN 5-264-00733-0
• Zingerman B.I. Antifascist film F. Fellini. - In the book: Art and Society. Politicalization trends in contemporary Western art. - M., 1978, p. 166-182.