Fellini - Satyricon
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Movie Reviews of Fellini - Satyricon
Movie Review: Rome before Christ. After Mind-Altering drugs.
Summary: 5 Stars
In the late 1960's Federico Fellini created one of the most beautiful and at the same time disturbing films ever made. Watching each frame is like gazing into a bizarre painting. I am honestly surprised that Salvador Dali didn't have anything to do with this film. It tells the epic tale of a Roman student's journey through a nightmarish landscape chock full of weird characters and even weirder events. With all the extras, costumes, and set designs, there is so much for the eyes here it is truly unbeleivable. The most disturbing thing I caught about the film is how characters will look into the camera in a frozen stare. It makes you feel as if you are right there. My favorite scene is when Encolpius battles the Minotaur, I don't think I will ever get that chanting out of my head. There is a constant undercurrent of humor that most viewers might not get at first, so you really need to read between the lines. The cinematography is nothing short of perfection thanks to Giuseppe Rotunno accompanied by an always eery music score by Nino Rota. The intense experience you get from this film is unlike anything in film history. Its just one of those great films that shakes you up and leaves you pondering it for hours, days, even years. Its influence can be seen in films like Terry Gilliam's "Time Bandits", "Brazil" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen"; as well as the Shakespeare adaptation "Titus" and even the more recent film "The Cell". I recommend Fellini Satyricon for fans of abstract or surreal art and set design who can see past the disturbing plot and appreciate a true masterpiece of cinema.Movie Review: The Ultimate Freak Show, done by the Master
Summary: 5 Stars
Fellini has a unique gift for visuals, and uses the human oddities the way a great master painter uses his paints; lavishly and always to great effect. When the movie was being cast, there were long, long lines of the most unusual and the most freakish people in Italy; this made for a fascinating spectacle and was in itself, a show. No one has Fellini's eye, and this is most evident in Satyricon, IMHO his best movie. The most striking and unusual image presented is the albino hermaphrodite; the fact that Fellini was even able to find this extreme human oddity is a feat in itself, and presents a truly unique and unforgettable image on the big screen. You literally cannot take you eyes off the screen for one second; you cannot afford to miss anything, all is pertinent, all is fascinating and all is integral to the "show" Fellini wanted to present and succeeds brilliantly. No circus, no sideshow in history can hold a candle to the ultimate showman and visual storyteller. Don't try to analyze; don't try to "read" into anything, just sit back and enjoy and allow the images to take you on an unforgettable journey. P.T. Barnum would be green with envy...or applaud wildly, or both. His images remain in your mind's eye for years afterwards, and that is the mark of the true artist and visionary.Movie Review: in hoc signo vinces
Summary: 5 Stars
Just received this in the mail. I'd been waiting for some time for this to be released on DVD, hoping it would improve on the video version. The print used for the DVD release is not the best print I have seen; the colors are slightly faded, though not as much as the VHS version, but still the LaserDisc version had a superior picture. The soundtrack has been cleaned up considerably, and the subtitles add more dialogue, and different takes on phrases than the VHS version. Still this is worth the investment; it is still a film unlike any I have ever seen. Great photographic composition by Giuseppe Rotunno, as well as Nino Rota's engaging score. (The guitar piece at the end, used in various spots as a "theme", may be one of the most haunting melodies Rota ever produced.) Notice how most every shot is set up as a veritable triptych by Rotunno; very smart use of widescreen format. And then there are the great Fellini moments: Dinner with Trimalchio, the dream-like episode on Lichas' slave ship, and the ending on the beach (a typical Fellini place to end a film) still leaves me hypnotized. Not for anyone wanting their Roman epics served up with sandals and spears (though there are plenty of those), this is a truly unique vision of ancient Rome.Movie Review: Fragments of beauty
Summary: 5 Stars
Just a few lines about a milestone of cinema (many others have written more and better about it than I do).The book of Satyricon by Petronius has come only in non-coherent fragments to our time, and for that, it's the only adequate form Fellini choose to make this film, and shouldn't be critisized or mistaken as confusing pretentiousness and extravaganza.
Of course, it's not a "realistic" depiction of ancient Rome - it would be rather ambitious for any director to reconstruct authentically one of the many "lost worlds" - "Barry Lyndon" is still one of the best movies trying this impossible task. It's a brilliant idea of Fellini to show us bizarre and exotic images obviously deriving from all kind of cultures to remind us what an abyss of time and change separates us from the literature of antiquity.
Finally, one of the messages of the movie is strongly political: the future belongs to youth and freedom, while the old and corrupted bourgeosie is even eating the dead for money.
Well, call it naiv, call it nostalgic, but I think every lover of good cinema should have seen this beautifully set movie, even if it's just for listen to sequences in latin and ancient-greek, spoken by italians and greeks of our time...!
Movie Review: work of visual art with deep human connection
Summary: 5 Stars
I am in love with this movie. It transports me through time; through moral hypocrisy; past the stifling atmosphere of the Victorian age and the modern religious zealots who want to bring us back to its horrors (that is, for women, gay men and all minorities and lower classes) and yet does not sugar coat the horrors of ancient Rome either. It is visually stunning!! The two young men who star are visions of ancient gods, and the divine Capucine, with almost no dialogue at all, manages to dominate every scene she is in. The scene of the married couple saying goodbye to their children and then committing suicide is breathtaking in its simplicity, visual coherence and human impact. The scene with Hiram Keller and the nymphomaniac was also vivid and magnificent. I know people have had a difficult time with this movie (I understand Pauline Kael hated it), but remember the ancient novel upon which it is based is a fragment and Fellini stayed true to his source. The sense of a painted wall permeates the whole film, with the audience being observed by the "painted figures" in return. I can't see this movie without having my dreams effected by it. It is a wonderful accomplishment.