FELLINI'S ROMA Movie Review

Roma

Fellini's Roma, a heartfelt series of vignettes about the city the maestro loves, was promoted in 1972 as Fellini's “documentary” about the city, but with a few fantasy sequences thrown into the mix. I've always had trouble defining the term “documentary” anyway, but to assume that Federico Fellini was going to present us with cinema vérité—whatever the hell that really means—is a howler. If Fellini points a camera at Gore Vidal when he's blathering on at his most obnoxious and unctuous, does that mean we're no longer watching a film by Fellini? No siree, but as Fellini's Roma goes on, you get the feeling that the director himself wanted to make sure we knew it was his show. Hence the joyously subversive ecclesiastical fashion show that Fellini stages here, which detractors and fans alike still can't stop talking about. Fellini's Roma is as wildly uneven as anyone's imagination is likely to be in different settings and at different times of the day. You feel guilt for going out to the lobby during an irritating moment, because a second later you'll want to rush back for fear of missing something. The something that you'll be missing is the companionship of this dear, irreplaceable genius as he asks us to look at pictures of his trip. They're some pictures, and it was some trip, but the film nevertheless has the same modest, strangely endearing combination of warmth and tediousness as does sitting in a living room at a friend's house seeing narrated slides of a vacation—some will be excruciatingly, picture-post-card boring, some will be spontaneous, unexpected, and surprisingly touching. All things considered, you feel privileged to have been invited. Cameos, in addition to Mr. Vidal, include Anna Magnani and Marcello Mastroianni.

NEXT STOP … Love in the City, Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember

1972 (R) 128m/C FR IT Peter Gonzales, Britta Barnes, Pia de Doses, Fiona Florence, Marne Maitland, Renato Giovannoli; Cameos: Gore Vidal, Anna Magnani, Marcello Mastroianni; D: Federico Fellini; W: Federico Fellini; C: Giuseppe Rotunno; M: Nino Rota; V: Federico Fellini. VHS, LV, Letterbox MGM, FCT