Federico Fellini, awarded with five Oscars, including one for a career, is considered one of the greatest directors of all time. 2020 marks the centenary of its birth, with initiatives that dot it rubber/pvc boots and the whole world. But perhaps not everyone knows that Fellini was a complex and mysterious man, who sowed lies and secrets all along his path.
Liar Fellini
The great director was famous for his lies. So much so that there is a 2002 documentary film written and directed by Damian Pettigrew, based on Federico Fellini's latest confessions which is called "I'm a big liar". He sowed any conversation of real things mixed with his inventions, often used in subtle ironic lines. Like a good liar, he said of himself that he was of "shameless sincerity". Alberto Sordi, who knew him well, replied by saying that "Fellini is the greatest liar he has ever known". While Paolo Villaggio said "Like all great storytellers, he was an immense ballista".
To understand how much he mixed each of his conversations with lies, just remember a famous episode. A reporter had been asking him for an interview for months. Each time he invented a different excuse, each time more brazen. The two met by chance in Via Veneto: "But Federico, did you tell me that you were leaving for Hong Kong and instead you are here in Rome?". And the director immediately replied: "You are wrong: you are in Rome, I am in Hong Kong". On the other hand, it was Fellini who said: “the most real things for me are the ones I invented”. To better understand this aspect, it is fun to read the interview that Oriana Fallaci gave him.
Federico Fellini occultist
Perhaps not everyone knows that the great director consistently resorted to occultist practices and he frequented magicians and seers. One of these managed to unmask the author of the anonymous letters in which every clandestine meeting between her husband and Sandra Milo was revealed to Juliet. His acquaintance with Gustavo Rol is particularly known. The director told about him many prodigies, from telekinesis with which he moved objects from one room to another, to the time when he had replaced the heels of his shoes at a distance, to the time when he had materialized a hat in a box. But it was Fellini himself who recounted these prodigies. The same one who told lies. In fact, Paolo Villaggio declared that Fellini had invented Rol's prodigies ...
Unfinished Fellini
The great director was unable to do everything he wanted: there are many subjects that did not become films and some were not even torn from his imagination to become paper.
The most famous is undoubtedly the "Journey of G. Mastorna, called Fernet", which also Dino Buzzati collaborated with and which Vincenzo Mollica called "the most famous unrealized film in the world". But it will become a Milo comic Manara. Fellini took a trip to Mexico in 1985, chasing the places of Castaneda. And indeed it was a journey full of strange episodes. He would have liked to draw a film from that experience, entitled “Journey to Tulun”. But the film never saw light.
Federico and Juliet
The relationship between the director and Giulietta Masina it was decidedly unusual and deserves books and books. They met in 1942, married in 1943. They had an only child, who died a month after birth. “Not having had children”, Masina said, “made us become the son and daughter of the other, so destiny willed”. They stayed together for half a century. Fellini inserted mysterious elements that told the strange story of Juliet both in the Strada and in Giulietta degli Spiriti and in other films. But the director didn't stop falling in love with other women. Like Anna Giovannini, the pharmacist who was the hidden passion for more than 30 years, with whom he had no problem being seen around. OR Sandra Millo, who was his mistress for 17 years. But all this did not put an end to the love that bound Juliet and Federico.
Federico Fellini from Romagna
It is always remembered that Fellini was from Romagna, or rather from Rimini. On the other hand, he won the Oscar for a Romagna expression such as "Amarcord". And anyone who knows that land knows that the director has managed more than anyone else to embody its deepest spirit. In reality, Fellini left Romagna at the age of 19 and ended up crystallizing a youthful memory that drifted further and further away from reality. It could be said that Fellini's Romagna was more Romagna than the real one. Again on the assumption that lies, the fruit of his imagination, remained the most real things… Fellini's magic.
