If you enjoy a strong plot, full-bodied characters, or great scripting, then put that cassette back on the shelf right now and grab the next box over. I mean it! No, it doesn't matter what's in the next box over. Just grab it! No matter what it is, it's bound to have more plot, more sympathetic characters, and a better script than Fellini's Roma. Really! You've been warned!

Now, on the other hand, if your voyeuristic tendencies compel you to stare at people who exemplify the wonders that centuries of inbreeding can work on a gene pool, here's a safe way to indulge in your passion without risking offended stares or a quick right hook to your lovely nose. Where Fellini manages to come up with entire casts that exhibit evolution at its strangest has always been a curiosity to me. Other than, perhaps, Joseph Vilsmaier (Brother of Sleep), few directors can surpass Fellini at assembling such masses of marvelous mutants for our viewing pleasure.

The Plot

I wouldn't go so far as to say that any of Fellini's films are particularly plot-driven, so his fans will find this film only slightly more plotless than his others. For those of you, however, who ruthlessly demand a tight story for your viewing pleasure (or any story at all, for that matter), you might end up feeling just a tad cheated with this one.

For your benefit, dear readers, I have struggled long and hard to catch hold of a few tenuous threads from which to weave for you some semblance of a story here:

Fellini spends a few moments recalling his tender (albeit bizarre) boyhood memories when Rome first beckoned to him with her siren's call. (Having previously viewed Amarcord may account for the fact that these memories meant anything to me at all. Technically, I'm cheating here, since Fellini filmed Roma [1972] prior to Amarcord [1974].)

Next thing you know, Federico is now 18 and on a bus headed to Rome where he will install himself in the boarding house from hell and go on to become a great film-maker who creates visually stunning, self-indulgent oeuvres filled with the grotesquery and beauty that inhabit his memories and engender his unabashed passion for Rome, the eternal city.

That's it. That's the plot, or what there is of one. Exciting stuff, huh?

The script

In an interview on the Sundance Channel, Giuseppe Rotunno (the cinematographer) remarked that Fellini never wanted him to read the scripts they were filming, and actually became enraged when he discovered that Rotunno was, in fact, reading the script. Fellini feared that this might influence Rotunno to film differently. Rotunno just shrugged this off, noting that Fellini's scripts were always in a constant state of flux anyway and only served as vague guidelines at best.

This is not difficult to believe, since there is no scripting magic here, folks. The dialogue varies between grossly uncouth insults and abuse delivered in shouts to painfully pretentious philosophizing. Some little part of the blame may lie in the subtitles (which are awful translations into American slang), but the lion's share of the blame is that it's just bad dialogue, even in Italian. Consider, if you will, the following brief episode in which we have Gore Vidal playing himself (badly) and delivering one of the clumsiest, most pretentious summations of the wonder that is Rome that you may ever encounter. (I cannot take personal credit for the seemingly missing parts or grammatical/typographical errors—this is an exact transcription of his badly dubbed and even more poorly subtitled soliloquy):

Film-makers: There! It's Gore Vidal, the American writer. Let's ask him. Good evening, Mr. Vidal, mind if we disturb you for just two minutes?

Vidal: Well. You ask me why an American writer would want to live in Rome. First of all because I like the Romans. They don't give a damn whether you're dead or alive. They're neutral, like the cats! Rome is the city of illusions. Not only by chance you have here the Church, the government, the cinema. They each produce illusions, like you do and I do. We're getting closer and closer to the end of the world because of too people too many cars, poisons, and what better city than Rome which has been reborn so often? What place could be more peaceful . . . to wait or the end from pollution and over-population? It's the ideal city for waiting to see if it all . . . will really come to an end or not.—At the end!

Boy, does that bit of profundity just shake up your world or what?!

As far as the script goes, I consider it more or less just an extension of the soundtrack. The words here, like the music, seem to serve more to evoke an overall impressionistic feel than to deliver any specific information.

Speaking of the soundtrack, Nino Rota (who has worked with Fellini often: Satyricon, 8 1/2, Amarcord) created a score by which I am now most fearfully possessed. Several parts of his original score have insinuated themselves into my brain so tenaciously that I fear they may never leave. It's not quite so terrible a burden to bear as that grating tune that marks one as a survivor of Disneyland's It's a Small World, but it is starting to get to me. Be forewarned!

The Characters

Well, there are lots of them. So I guess if numbers compensate for lack of development, that may help. But the only true character in this film is Fellini himself, both as portrayed by the charmingly soft-spoken, good-looking, genteel Peter Gonzales, and as the unseen Fellini who shares with us his vision of Rome through his film-maker eyes.

In this, more than in any other Fellini film I've seen, the characters qualify as special effects. They are raw and uncouth, garish and ghoulish, an impressionistic freak show of the teeming life of Rome. How odd that Fellini sees people in this light but portrays himself more favorably. That's one of those things that make me go "Hmmmm."

The Vision

This is Fellini's vision, but it is realized by the phenomenal cinematography of Giuseppe Rotunno, an absolute master of light and shadow, of pacing and framing. Even if you've not seen other Fellini films on which Rotunno has worked (Amarcord, Satyricon), you're bound to have seen his work with other directors since he has quite an impressive American filmography, too, including: Sabrina, Wolf, Regarding Henry, and Popeye (and, yes, I know everyone hated Popeye, but ya gotta admit, the cinematographer wasn't the problem). Rotunno is also near and dear to my heart as the cinematographer of The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen.

For me, what Rotunno does with a camera makes up for all the lack of plot, script, and character development in what is otherwise a purely self-indulgent exercise in film-making. Fellini's vision of humanity is grotesque and frightening (despite his protestations to being in love with Rome and Romans), but I can still recommend this film to cinematography buffs as sheer delight in the hands of Rotunno—just wait 'til you see the ecclesiastical fashion show, wow!

I don't recommend this film to the casual viewer or to those so rash as to expect a plot in their films. But for die-hard Fellini fans and lovers of incredible cinematography or just your average voyeuristic viewer, this film is well worth watching.

And depending upon whether I am or am not recommending it, it can have as many stars as you like—anything but 3, since this film runs the gamut from great to terrible, but is anything but average.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age