Amarcord

FELLINI’S AMARCORD (1974)
45TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENINGS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, AT 7 PM AT THREE LAEMMLE LOCATIONS

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series launch our Anniversary Classics Abroad program for 2019 with one of the most acclaimed foreign-language films of the 1970s, Federico Fellini’s boyhood-memory masterpiece, AMARCORD. Fellini collected his fourth and final directing Oscar nomination for the film, which won the Academy Award as the year’s best foreign language film. It was also named the best film of the year by the New York Film Critics, and Fellini was their choice for Best Director.

AMARCORD (the vernacular for “I remember” in Romagna) is an evocation of a year in the life of an Italian coastal town in the 1930s. It is not a literal recreation but more of a dreamlike memoir of a time filtered through sentimental, political, and erotic reminiscences of a bygone era. There is no central character, but an assortment of townspeople played by an ensemble cast. Among them are Titta (Bruno Zanin), a teenager who possibly could be the young Fellini; Titta’s father (Armando Brancia), a socialist construction foreman openly at odds with the fascist government; Gradisca (Magali Noel), the town hairdresser and femme fatale; Titta’s foul-mouthed grandfather (Guiseppe Lanigro); Titta’s crazy uncle (Ciccio Ingrassia); and The Lawyer (Luigi Rossi), the narrator and master-of-ceremonies. Fellini co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay with Tonino Guerra (La Notte, Blow-Up) and employed frequent collaborator Nino Rota to compose the score, with color cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno.

Critics of the day received the film rapturously. Time Out New York called the film “A funhouse tour through Fellini’s mind…he has mined his youth before but never with such jocularity and emotional force… [with] some of the most lyrical imagery the maestro has ever concocted.” Vincent Canby of The New York Times was equally impressed, writing, “it’s a film of exhilarating beauty…may possibly be Fellini’s most marvelous film.” Roger Ebert called it Fellini’s “last great film,” raving, “if ever there was a movie made entirely out of nostalgia and joy, by a filmmaker at the heedless height of his powers, that movie is Federico Fellini’s AMARCORD.”

"[Fellini's] most sentimental and unabashedly romantic film ... a moving and comical masterpiece." - Axel Anderson, Flavorpill

"What positions the film among Fellini's greatest are its punctuation points of mysterious beauty ... these are the moments that truly define Fellini's spectacle." - Lance Goldenberg, The Village Voice

"Real movie magic ... Influential on many cinematic reminiscences to come." - Nicolas Rapold, The L Magazine

"A fun-house tour through Fellini’s mind... he had mined his youth before but never with such jocularity and emotional force; it’s the memoir as a montage of dirty jokes, historical ironies, sentimental educations and some of the most lyrical imagery the maestro ever concocted." - David Fear, Time Out New York

"[A] splendid satire ... [Fellini] can't help giving the whole thing a whiff of richness and mystery." - Darrell Hartmann, Artforum

"Captures the great Italian director at the peak of his cinematic powers ... a massively enjoyable entertainment infused with more than a little wry wisdom, pathos and mystery." - Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

"Splendidly orchestrated chaos ... among Fellini's greatest." - Lance Goldenberg, LA Weekly

"A ravishing memory film in which reminiscence, rumor, legend, local history and male sexual fantasies flow into one another with the ease and grace for which Fellini was justly famous." - Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times

"[Grade: A] ... An unforgettable classic ... funny, bittersweet and profane." - James Verniere, The Boston Herald

Director: Federico Fellini

Writers: Federico Fellini & Tonino Guerra

Stars: Bruno Zanin, Armando Brancia, Magali Noel, Guiseppe Lanigro, Ciccio Ingrassia, Luigi Rossi