Roma [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Federico Fellini

Overview

Fellini's Roma is a virtually plotless autobiographical tribute to Rome, Italy, featuring narration by Fellini himself and a mixture of real-life footage and fictional set pieces. It flows from episode to episode, beginning with the director's early years arriving in Rome in 1931 during the time of Mussolini. Played by Stefano Mayore as a child, he visits the city with classmates and becomes infatuated. Played by Peter Gonzales at age 18, the young Fellini moves in to a tenement building and explores the wild characters living in neighborhood. The events that follow switch between the past and contemporary times, including a story line that involves a 1970s film crew making a movie about Rome. He also incorporates segments of Roman history and problems in the government, including an improvised speech from Gore Vidal. Throughout this journey there are visits to an outdoor restaurant, a movie theater, a music hall, and a brothel. In one famously surreal segment, groups of clergymen gather together for a Catholic fashion show spectacle. After a visit to a street festival and some on-camera interviews, the film concludes with shots of motorcycles driving by the Colosseum.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/13/2016
UPC:	0715515190817
Original Release:	1972
Rating:	R
Source:	THE CRITERION COLLECTION, INC
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	2:00:00
Sales rank:	13,536

Special Features

2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; Audio Commentary featuring Frank Burke, author of Fellini's Films; Deleted Scenes; New interview with filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino on the lasting influence of Director Federico Fellini; New interview with poet and Fellini friend Valerio Magrelli; Images from the Felliniana archive of collector Don Young; Trailer; Plus: An essay by film scholar David Forgacs

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Federico Fellini	Himself
Peter Gonzales	Fellini at 18
Stefano Majore	Fellini as a Child
Pia De Doses	Princess
Renato Giovanneli	Cardinal Ottaviani
Fiona Florence	Young Prostitute
Marne Maitland	Guide
Anna Magnani	Herself - Interview?e
Gore Vidal	Himself - Interview?
Galliano Sbarra	Music Hall Compere
Alvaro Vitali	Tap Dancer Imitating Fred Astaire
Angela De Leo	(uncredited)
Elisa Mainardi	Pharmacist's wife / Cinema spectator
Mario Del Vago	Actor
John Francis Lane	Himself - Interview?
Libero Frissi	(uncredited)
Sbarra Adami	(uncredited)
Bireno	(uncredited)
Paule Rout	Actor
Paola Natale	Actor
Marcelle Ginette Bron	Actor
Gudrun Mardou Khiess	(uncredited)
Giovanni Serboli	(uncredited)
Dante Cleri	Cinema Spectator with Family
Mimmo Poli	Roman Eating in Terrace
Norma Giacchero	Reporter Interviewing Fellini
Alberto Sordi	Himself - Interview?
Marcello Mastroianni	Himself
Cassandra Peterson	Actor
Nino Rota	Composer

Technical Credits

Federico Fellini

Bernardino Zapponi

Federico Fellini	Screenwriter
Bernardino Zapponi	Screenwriter
Adriano Pischiutta	Special Effects
Turi Vasile	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Fellini's Roma is precisely the kind of cinematic valentine to the Eternal City that only Federico Fellini could create. Fellini's personal journey through the city of his 1930s youth and the freak show, traffic-clogged 1970s present, Roma fondly lingers over the Felliniesque carnival of characters populating family dinners, theater audiences, brothels, and street parties. Fellini himself appears on film orchestrating the contemporary crew. Accurately summed up on camera by Gore Vidal as "the city of illusions," Fellini turns Rome's Catholic ritualism into an opulent ecclesiastical fashion show, while the subway construction sequence and the final, nocturnal tour of the ruins via motorcycle find surreal beauty in the potentially destructive juxtaposition of ancient and modern Rome. Reportedly disdained by Romans, Roma was nevertheless greeted by critics as a welcome return to the nostalgia and astute commentary of such early masterworks as I Vitelloniand La Dolce Vita. Fellini would merge nostalgia and surrealist fantasy even more fruitfully in Amarcord. Anna Magnani's cameo as herself, urging Fellini to go home and go to sleep, was her final screen appearance. Cameos by Marcello Mastroianni and Alberto Sordi were cut from the English language version.