My Fellini Class

I am finally done! I finished my last day of finals, papers due and assignments due on Monday and now I finally have my degree! Convocation to happen in June. I took a directed studies class on the work of Federico Fellini. I wanted to see more Fellini films and asked one of my professors if I could do a class on his work and she said sure. She handed me a stack of DVDs to watch and a three hundred page book to read and said "I wish that I HAD to watch Fellini films". I was really looking forward to it. I will categorize them as I saw them.

Loved it...

La Dolce Vita (1960)
La Strada (1954)
I Vitellone (1953)
Nights of Cabiria (1957)
Amarcord (1973)

Liked it...

8 1/2 (1963)
The White Sheik (1952)
Ginger and Fred (1986)
And the Ship Sails On (1983)

Wasn't so crazy about...

Il Bidone (1955)
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
Roma (1972)
Orchestral Rehearsal (1978)
City of Women (1980)


I suppose I should add that I warmed up to Juliet of the Spirits and 8 1/2 after watching it a few more times. I think I prefer his earlier work like I Vitelloni and Nights of Cabiria, but I also LOVE Amarcord. I love the imagery in Fellini's work. I love seeing his stories about provincial Italy. My prof thinks that he's a fatalist. We disagree about Nights of Cabiria. She thinks Cabiria will stay a victim forever and I think that the fact that she feels she deserves better is a good transformation.

My final paper was on Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalesque and chronotope, and the grotesque characters in Fellini's films and how he uses them to parody himself and his hometown. For this thesis I looked at La Strada, 8 1/2, Amarcord and Ginger and Fred. I won't bore you with all ten pages. I'm happy I took the class and I'll post again on some of his films more in depth, but for now, I'm burned out on school and thinking and look forward to being able to go to the theaters again. I will write more in the next couple days.

More ramblings to come......