Our Favorite Films: “Amarcord”

by Lana Petelle

Amarcord is composed of fragments from Fellini’s childhood memories as a young boy from a mid-class family in his home town, Rimini, in Rome during the early 1930’s. The film is laid out almost as if it was the film version of his most personal memoirs. Each different sequence of events serves as a different chapter, a different memory, and a different dream. It is a coming-of-age tale mixed with all the wonderful make believe elements that supplement our childhood.

Amarcord could not be put into just one category; its bittersweet characters are both humorous and melancholic, the stories are filled with nostalgia as the on-screen narrators brings neorealist style contrasted by the mélange of dreams.

And even though Amarcord lacks a conventional plot, all of these aspects together form that “something” that makes Amarcord such a fun film. It is not a story, but a feeling. It is not a narrative, but a mixture of sights and sounds that resonate within us all. 

The opening scene of the film begins with a very nostalgic/traditional tone, as the town gathers around and rejoices the coming of spring with a gigantic bon fire in the town square. This launches the film’s drive but the illusion is immediately broken when our first on screen narrator looks directly at the camera: an old man walking through the streets of the now empty town.

This is our first narrator of the film (out of a total of 3). The fact the characters in the films know they’re part of a film, gives the feeling that this could have been someone Fellini knew as a boy and his monologue is therefore not just directed at the audience but at Fellini himself. These moments, where the film jumps from realism to fantasy occur a number of times throughout the film, and allow the audience members to interpret it as they wish, the same way they would interpret a piece of abstract art, or a dream.

Fellini’s Amarcord plays with the viewer’s imagination and in turn we can easily assume that Fellini was doing the same while making the film. Scenes and characters are exaggerated, almost as if it was exactly the way Fellini would have remembered it as a young child.

The characters are portrayed through a childlike sense of wonder the same way we admire family members like our crazy aunt when we are young children. By the time we reach a more perceptive age we realize our fun, crazy aunt who always passed out on the couch was actually a broke alcoholic. For example when the main character Tita’s mad uncle climbs up a tree and begins to yell “i want a women” we think to ourselves “sure this is possible” and it very well could have been but there is a certain exaggeration the the sequence, from the absurdity of the uncle’s demands, to the over-sized tree.

A similar example would be the town whore (a recurring character in Fellini’s 8 1/2) who could have been portrayed as a common whore, but the actresses execution is flamboyant if nothing more, giving her a magically clean aura one does not tend to associate with prostitutes. The way she touches her body at all times as if always trying to arouse anyone who passes by and the excitement it brings her. Its the small things like these that give the film the dream-like fantasy it is so well known for.

One of the most memorable scenes in the movie when Tita finds himself alone with the very voluptuous tobacco shop owner, and manages to arouse her by displaying his strength. She is impressed so she exposes herself to him and begs him to cores her. Ironically, Tita, under the weight of the voluptuous woman, becomes suffocated by her body… the thing he desired most. 

These characters bring color to the film. There is Gradisca, the most desired woman in Rimini. And then there’s Titas’s classic Italian family. A group of idiosyncratic misfits living together with their mad uncle and their buffoonish grandfather. These wonderful characters are all filtered through a child’s imaginations, and portrayed as extravagant larger-than-life versions of themselves. But these exaggerated characteristics that separate it from other Italian Neorealist films, are exactly what make it so endearing. The film is a perfect example of personal filmmaking done right. The film is fun, entertaining, and emotional, yet there is always a certain detachment from the audience. The idea that Fellini enjoyed his films more than anyone is still prevalent, but that won’t stop anyone else, who’s willing to watch something extraordinarily unconventional, to enjoy it as well.