Sunday 20 March 2011

Federico Fellini Studies


Richard Dyer talks about his research project at the International Research Institute for Cultural Technologies and Media Philosophy (IKKM) Weimar. Period of fellowship: February 2009 – July 2009. Also see Richard Dyer's IKKM-Site.
“What is a movie, in the beginning? A suspicion, a hypothetic[al] story, a shadow of ideas, blurred feelings. And, still, [from that] first impalpable contact, it already seems to be itself, complete, vital, pure.” (Federico Fellini, Fazer um filme (“Making a Movie”). Rio de Janeiro: Editora Civilização Brasileira, 2000., 204 and 205, translated by Marcelo Moreira Santos and cited by him in 'Cinema and Pragmatism: a Reflection on the Signic Genesis in Cinematographic Art', Signs, Vol. 3, 2009: pp. 30-40)
“The movie tells its worlds, its stories, its characters, through images. Its expression is figurative, like [that] of dreams. (...) The movie tries to reproduce a world, an environment, in a vital manner. It tries to remain in this dimension, trying to recreate the emotion, the enchantment, the surprise.” (Fellini, cited in op. cit. 139 and 154)
Inspired by the video, above, of the sublime Richard Dyer talking about "The Wind in Fellini" in simply one of the best Film Studies lectures currently available on the internet, Film Studies For Free today brings you some choice links to openly accessible, and high quality, studies of and further viewing on the work of director Federico Fellini, and of his collaborators, like Nino Rota (the subject of a wonderful new book by Dyer).

Just so you know, FSFF is off on a trip shortly and will be back, joyously labouring away to track down such wondrous links as these below, in just over a week. See ye efter!

          2 comments:

          Ari S. said...

          great material, thanks

          Evelyn said...

          This is great. Does Dyer mention that in the clip he plays at the end, the sound of wind is accompanied by the sound of the tolling bell (= church, calling worshipers to church, but also death?) and on the cut to the next scene, it's swallowed up by a full peel of Church bells. I think this backs up his idea about the link to spirituality - ties the wind to the notion of salvation rather than desolation (since wind by itself is a lonely sound, a sense of wind across deserted spaces),