IRS - INTERNATIONAL REVIEWS AND SCORES ®
Marcello Mastroianni on the set of 8 1/2 by Gideon Bachmann Rights reserved
87 IRScore
Based
on 47 critic reviews
90 ST LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • Harper Barnes
TOP TEN BEST FILMS OF 2003 - TRUTH IS, DOCUMENTARY HAS LOTS TO SAY
Near the end of 8 1/2, the semi-autobiographical
masterpiece by the late Federico Fellini, a film director played by Marcello Mastroianni despairs at his failures
as an artist and as a man. "I have nothing at all to say," the
director mourns, "but I want to say it anyway." Scenes from 8
1/2 are woven throughout the dense texture of the stunning new documentary Fellini: I'm a Born Liar, and the little
speech about having nothing to say is replayed near the end of the documentary
as part of a summation. The Mastroianni character's resemblances to Fellini range from the
wide-brimmed, low-crowned black hat both wear to the ever-recurring and
ever-futile hope that the latest film, and the latest infidelity with a
beautiful actress (the two seem inseparable), will somehow save the director's
soul - without destroying the marriage that is the bedrock of his life. Did the prolific Italian director, one of the greatest filmmakers of the
second half of the 20th century, really believe that he had nothing to say? The
answer can be found, at least in part, by paying attention to something Fellini
says in this intellectually daunting documentary and that is repeated in the
title: "I'm a born liar." Of course, Fellini had something to say, but the only way he knew how to
say it was to tell a story, and no good story is ever really true. As writer Italo
Calvino says in the film, a great narrative artist "tells that
piece of truth hidden at the bottom of every lie." This remarkable, mind-stirring documentary directed by Damian
Pettigrew deals at length with such philosophical and psychological
questions, but always in a Felliniesque way. That is to say, it tells a story,
one that is visually rich and emotionally compelling and charged with one of
the great director's favorite concepts - "expectation," the sense
that something new and marvelous will come along every few minutes. Pettigrew taped 10 hours of interviews with the Italian master toward the
end of his career. As Fellini, who died in 1993, talks about his childhood and
youth in the town of Rimini, on the Adriatic
Sea, Pettigrew intersperses images from Fellini's other movies but
he keeps returning to 8 1/2 from 1963, when Fellini was in his early
40s. He follows a similar pattern as he traces the rest of Fellini's life and
work, always circling back to 8 1/2. (He seldom tells us what film we
are watching.) And he also shows us what the settings look like today. A number of friends and associates of Fellini are interviewed. They are not
identified except in an on-screen list at the beginning of the movie, which
some viewers may find confusing, but in general we can figure out who they are
- a childhood friend, a longtime cinematographer and set director, other film
artists. Fellini: A Born Liar is a complex and sometimes obscure movie, and it demands a
certain basic knowledge of Fellini's films - it's a work of art on its own, and
a world away from the standard, straightforward 50-minute public-television
documentary. But it's a must for anyone who appreciates the director's unique
vision and loves his magical blend of romanticism, surrealism and never-ending
search for the truth (and the faith) at the bottom of life's absurd lie . (25 July 2003)
90 THE NEW YORKER • David Denby
Illustration by Zohar Lozar based on images from I'm a Born Liar All Rights Reserved
In the superb documentary fantasia Fellini: I’m a Born Liar (playing
at Film Forum through May 7th), Federico Fellini directs an erotic scene from Fellini
Satyricon (1969), shaping the performances
of three beautiful young actors with his hands, caressing the air as he croons
instructions to first one and then another. His control of the scene is
remarkable, but it makes you laugh, too, because in so much of the surrounding
interview material the director describes himself as a kind of medium through
which a given movie passes, a mere craftsman in the service of ineffable
visions. His actual practice, as we see from the many scenes of him at work, is
consciously to mold every breath of air in the movie, to dominate, terrify,
seduce, and to dream and suffer for everyone. And some of Fellini’s
collaborators confirm this mania. This Franco-Italian-Scottish co-production
directed by Damian Pettigrew, is an extraordinarily controlled piece of film in
its own right. The interviews, recorded in the year before the director’s
death, are often eloquent – Fellini’s long sentences actually take you
somewhere – and Pettigrew and his colleagues provide a surrounding texture of
film excerpts and freshly shot footage that has the density of one of the
Maestro’s own movies, without the excess. Pettigrew uses a gliding camera to capture the actual look of
Fellini’s hometown, the bedraggled seaport of Rimini, and other locations that
the director recast as revery. The movie has periods of mystery and quiet and,
throughout, an over-all atmosphere of uncanny poignance. The most delicious
episode: Terence Stamp re-creating Fellini’s accent and
manner as the director gives him profane instructions for a scene in the 1968
short film Toby Dammit. Stamp’s outrageous bit of mimicry may be his
greatest achievement as an actor. (4 Nov 2003)
90 NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL • Michael J. Agovino
DIRECTING THE DIRECTOR: A DOCUMENTARIAN LOOKS AT FELLINI'S LIFE, ART AND LIES
Damian Pettigrew first met Federico Fellini over a plate of pasta -
spaghetti aglio e olio, al dente with a sprinkle of black pepper. The
year was 1983, and Fellini was playing host - and chef - to his friend Italo
Calvino in his office above the soundstage at Cinecittà
Studios in Rome. Pettigrew, a fledging Canadian filmmaker, had been making a documentary
about Calvino. But the conversation kept drifting back to Fellini - so much so
that Calvino finally said, "I've got a surprise for you, let's go,"
and led him straight to the director. "There he was, chopping the
garlic," says Pettigrew, on the phone from Cannes, where Fellini was given
a lavish retrospective. "I've never forgotten it." When Pettigrew
politely inquired whether he could have access for a documentary, Fellini said
that Damian - or "Damiano," as he called him - was too young, but to
stay in touch. "And he was true to his word," says Pettigrew. In 1991
Fellini gave the filmmaker 10 hours over two years in what would be his last
series of filmed interviews. Those interviews have resulted in the dreamy
documentary Fellini: I'm a Born Liar, a surprise hit in the United
States that's now making its way around Europe. It's a singular piece of work in many ways. For one, it's about a director
but very much by a director. In addition to hearing from Fellini and others,
Pettigrew - who has made documentaries on Calvino, Alberto
Moravia, Eugene Ionesco and Balthus
- deftly manipulates a carefully wrought collage of film clips. And the Fellini
before us is not what you'd expect in a documentary about someone who has an
adjective named after him. There's no yelling or carrying on, hand gestures are
minimal (for an Italian, at least), emotions are in check. Of course, Fellini
was not well, suffering from arteriosclerosis.
(His wife, the luminous Giulietta Masina, was dying of cancer at the time and
is not in the film.) Fellini died the following year after suffering a massive
heart attack - as the perfectly apocryphal story goes - while eating a chunk of
Gorgonzola. For the 35 minutes that Fellini is on camera, he's a quiet, pensive
intellectual, at peace and seemingly prepared for death. That equanimity and
sense of surprise wasn't easy to extract, says Pettigrew, who now lives in
Paris. Before taking on Fellini, he watched nearly every interview ever done
with him - and was disappointed by what he found. "There's nothing in them
about spintaneity as the secret of life, nothing about the protective qualities
of art," he says. "So that's what I decided to look at in the film.
Let's give the public the Fellini that we don't know... You had to push him.
'Quit f---ing around. I'm really serious, Federico, for God's sake.' There were
times he got p---ed off and I wondered if he'd continue." The prodding and vetting, was worth it. Fellini ruminates about everything
from religion and death to art and memory. He discusses the process of
filmmaking: "The instant when I begin to work - when I become a filmmaker
- someone takes over. A mysterious invader, an invader that I don't know... He
directs everything for me. But it's someone else, not me, with whom I co-exist,
someone I don't know, or know only by hearsay." And he offers this
fabulist little anti-sound bite, from which Pettigrew takes his title:
"I'm a born liar. For me the things that are most real are invented." The Fellini close-ups are buttressed by experts and behind-the-scenes from
his classics (8 1/2 with Marcello Mastroianni as
Fellini's alter-ego memorably decked out in a toga; And the Ship Sails On, Amarcord
- Pettigrew's favorites); his grandiose miscues (Fellini's Casanova, Satyricon, Roma) and visits to the present-day
locations of those films, labeled only in the final credits. Also included are
interviews with Donald ("Donaldino") Sutherland, who says Fellini
tormented his actors and crew, that it was "an intricate part of his
process"; Terence Stamp, whose hilariously vulgar story
can't be printed here; Roberto Benigni, who says working with Fellini
was the first time he was treated "like a real actor, or better, an
actress!" - and Calvino, who was collaborating with Fellini on a project
based on the writer's beloved Italian Folktales that never got off the
ground. ("They would have made an absolutely gigantic film,"
Pettigrew says. "It would have been one of the treasures of the
world.") What comes through most clearly in Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
is how he treated his art - and how it shaped him. It's not a bio, or a
tell-all. That would be another film, and one not quite as satisfying.
"Fellini was a huge narcissist, hugely generous in other ways, a
contradictory man," says Pettigrew. "There are a lot of nasty things
we can say about Fellini because he had a diva personality, but he really was a
genius. He's someone who stayed true to his vision, and never compromised that
vision. And I have great respect for that." How can you not? (23 June 2003)
90 THE BOSTON GLOBE • Wesley Morris, Pulitzer Prize for
film criticism
BORN LIAR FINDS THE TRUTH BEHIND FELLINI'S GENIUS
Not long into Fellini: I'm a Born Liar, the often revelatory
documentary containing the last interviews of Federico Fellini, we learn that
when the now-deceased master happened upon one of his films, he couldn't recall
who the devil made it. That sounds a bit like Michael Jordan happening
upon his highlight reel and denying that the gent flying toward the hoop is
him. With Fellini, it's somehow less disingenuous. Over a 43-year career,
his movies were his dreams. I'm a Born Liar is Fellini trying to get to the bottom of himself. And as anyone
knows who's seen 8 1/2, Amarcord, Satyricon or Roma,
that well is so deep as to be bottomless. For anyone who hasn't, there's
still much to behold, and most of the Fellini catalog awaits, upon exiting the
Brattle. Over the course of his lifetime, Fellini dismissed
psychoanalysis, choosing instead to recreate onscreen the trippy particulars of
his slumbers: the phantasmagoric sex carnivals, the grotesquerie, the madonnas,
the whores. Director Damian Pettigrew, a Canadian-born Parisian, met Fellini 20 years
ago in Rome, while interviewing the writer Italo Calvino, who brought him along
for homemade spaghetti at Fellini's place near the legendary Cinecittà soundstages. In the years before Fellini's 1993 death, Pettigrew seduced the
director into talking at length on film about his work. Pettigrew
surrounds his epicurean subject with haunted landscape shots and equally
enlightening testimonials from erstwhile members of Fellini's casts and crews,
folks who often found themselves perplexed and infuriated by the task of
unloading the contents of Fellini's head onto celluloid. He was particularly
rough on actors, whose inability to fully bring his vision to life drove him to
exasperation. For proof, there's Donald Sutherland characterizing his time
on the set of 1976's woozy Casanova as "hell on
earth." Or Terence Stamp, who offers a rousing impersonation of the
director explaining how to be on acid for a role in the 1968 Euro
auteurs-do-Poe collection Spirits of the Dead. Even Fellini's
mythic on-camera stand-in, Marcello Mastroianni, gave him doubts. Pettigrew has
included some scintillating footage of the director wondering aloud why he ever
hired the screen legend in the first place. But I'm a Born Liar is only loosely concerned with
behind-the-scenes gossip and is squarely focused on the nature of Fellini's
insatiability. How he and his collaborators accomplished what they did remains
forever out of reach. We simply have their fruits -- these surreally orgiastic
dream-books; movies that, for ill and naught, functioned according to their own
sensory and non-narrative logics. (Long time New Yorker critic
Pauline Kael, who threw in her towel on Fellini in his later going, refused to
sit through the second half of Casanova. She was bored, she
boasted.) Many a genius and many a hack had attempted what Fellini was up to, and
this movie suggests why few succeeded to his extent: they just weren't as
deeply committed to profligacy. Fritz Lang tried once with Metropolis and,
with Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola did, too, and it nearly
killed him. Orson Welles's numerous attempts put him out of business. And
Terrence Malick's visionary obesity has produced a rather svelte body of work. For Fellini, life was just a second-hand experience compared
to the movies he wanted to make, the fantasy always more powerful than the real
thing. Roberto Benigni, with the boom of a cannon, tells us of Fellini's
dislike of Freud. And Pettigrew's movie functions nicely as a posthumous couch
trip, with Fellini explaining the soulful puppetry of his art without pulling
the curtain up far enough to let you catch him pulling the strings. (15 July 2003)
90 THE NEW YORK TIMES • A. O. Scott
NYT Critics'
Pick PUTTING
FELLINI IN FRONT OF THE LENS: A THRILLING MASTER CLASS IN CINEMA AESTHETICS
At one point in Fellini: I'm a Born Liar, Donald
Sutherland recalls a deleted scene from Fellini's Casanova in which, as he
puts it, ''Fellini makes love with a man.'' The actor does not correct his slip
-- it is Casanova, the character played by Mr. Sutherland, not the director,
who is amorously engaged -- which is almost as telling as his having committed
it in the first place. In addition to being, by his own admission, a fabricator
of untruths, Federico Fellini was a consummate narcissist. His movies,
neo-realist or phantasmagorical, black-and-white or color, grand or merely
grandiose, were at bottom all about himself. This is not meant as criticism. In the long interview that takes up most of
this fascinating new documentary, Fellini recounts a dream, in which Picasso
serves him an omelet, and reflects on the affinity between them, which is less
a matter of artistic style than of temperament. Speaking in 1993, a few months
before his death, Fellini is not so much indulging in vanity as placing himself
in appropriate company. In a posthumous appreciation in The New Yorker, Clive
James wrote that Fellini's ''individuality resided in his being able
to see what was universal about himself,'' and that his ability to reflect his
country and his personality through the bright lens of his art made him ''one
of the great men of the modern world.'' There are those who would quarrel with that assessment, and who might even
deny that Fellini should be counted among the great postwar Italian filmmakers.
I am not one of them, and neither, from what I gather, is Damian Pettigrew, the
director of Fellini: I'm a Born Liar, which opens today at Film Forum.
Mr. Pettigrew's affection for Fellini and his films animates this documentary
and limits its appeal. Aficionados will be enthralled by the master's ramblings
and ruminations, thrilled at behind-the-scenes glimpses of his working methods
and delighted to sample snippets of his movies, ones famous and obscure. But for skeptics and novices, the experience will be less satisfying:
familiarity with Fellini's life and his oeuvre is assumed. There is no
biography beyond the restatement of some well-known facts: he grew up in
Rimini, the Italian seaside resort, and was married for many years to Giulietta
Masina, who starred in many of his pictures. The film clips and
interview subjects seem to have been selected haphazardly, and are identified
only at the end. Mr. Sutherland and Roberto
Benigni may be easy to recognize, but even the most passionate
devotees of Italian cinema may find it hard to identify Fellini's off-camera
collaborators -- like the screenwriter Tullio
Pinelli or the cinematographer Giuseppe
Rotunno -- by sight. Their contributions are nonetheless fascinating, and Fellini: I'm a Born
Liar is best understood not as a biography but as a kind of master class, a
seminar in aesthetics conducted by Fellini, with ample and intelligent
footnotes supplied by Mr. Pettigrew. Fellini, impish and eloquent, tends to
explain his art either through abstractions or discussions of technique. The
art itself, however, is peerlessly, magically sensual, and when we hear him
talk about memory, dreams, sexuality and fear it is helpful to see how these
ideas have taken shape in his movies. In addition to scenes from Fellini's movies, Mr. Pettigrew
revisits some of the locations where they were shot, as if to show the
alchemical transformation that Fellini's camera visited on his native landscape.
''I'm a sort of magician,'' Fellini remarks -- and also, he suggests, a
puppeteer, a scientist, a painter and a deity." After seeing this film,
you may not be content to take him at his word. Luckily, though, his films
supply the proof. (22 July 2003)
90 CINEASTE MAGAZINE • Peter Bondanella There is no question that Pettigrew’s
film on Fellini represents the most detailed and lengthy conversation with him
ever recorded… few viewers of this fascinating documentary will remain
untouched.
90 BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE • Wade Major There should be a separate term for films
that are nonfiction but clearly not intended to be objective documentaries. For
without such a category, it's impossible to do proper justice to Fellini:
I'm a Born Liar, probably the best such film ever made. Producer/director Damian Pettigrew's loving tribute to the famous Italian
filmmaker is unabashedly personal and subjective -- Pettigrew knew Fellini
rather well, and uses his insights as a starting point from which to create a
collage of impressions about the man, culled through interviews with Fellini's
many friends and collaborators. At 105 minutes, the film manages to be amazingly comprehensive as a
portrait but even more useful as a roadmap to Fellini's soul. It's as
uplifting, moving, entertaining and dazzling as a Fellini film itself, brimming
with treasured clips and priceless anecdotes. Is this the real Fellini? It
doesn't matter. This is the Fellini that his friends and collaborators knew.
The Fellini whose soul is bared in each and every film he made. The Fellini the
world came to know through his work. And now, thanks to Pettigrew, they can get
to know him through his friends.
90 FILM COMMENT • Michael Rowin Haunting imagery and attention to physical presence… Fellini:
I'm a Born Liar is a documentary featuring not just footage from the late
director's final interview and revealing insights about his life and work from
collaborators such as Donald Sutherland and Terence
Stamp, but also evocative tracking shots through locales made famous
in La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2, a simple tactic that renders these
environments both reminiscent and more palpable…
90 THE NEW REPUBLIC • Stanley Kauffmann
The more one looks at and listens to Fellini the man, the more one realizes
that most of the films are exponents of the man… One rare and unexpected treat
is a short visit with Italo Calvino whose writing meant much to
Fellini. But it is Fellini’s face that is peculiarly welcome, the face that –
in a probably fantasizing but pertinent way – endorses his films…
A wild introduction for the uninitiated and an affirmation for
the Fellini fan. In other words, here's a fitting tribute to the born liar…
90 SAM PHILIP'S TOP 10 • Sam Philips # 1 FELLINI : I'M A BORN LIAR - “Sam Phillips’s TOP 10 choices are a kind of
inner soundtrack and cinema…”
90 REEL MOVIE CRITIC.COM • Lee Shoquist A real cinematic treat. Not a biography in any traditional sense, this is a
film about the process of making movies, told beautifully from a myriad of
perspectives: director, actor, cinematographer, writer and more.
THE WEEK’S FILM PICK: Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
90 POPMATTERS • Jonathan Kiefer
It is easy to revere Federico Fellini, who died 10 years ago and will be
accordingly lionized with a huge retrospective at Cannes this year. The event
should also demonstrate that it is easy to watch his films, which flow like
dreams, with their own internal logic. The right way to make a documentary on Fellini, therefore, is to fantasize
a little about the persona, rather than to seek the "truth" of the
man. A well-proportioned mixture of "truth" and "fantasy"
occurs in Fellini's films, so much so that it soon becomes obvious that a
documentary can't contain him, or entirely capture him, considering Fellini's
own resistance to "truths" about himself. Damian Pettigrew was wise
not to try; with Fellini: I'm a Born Liar, he delivers an attentive
appreciation of the old ringmaster, whom he's perfectly willing to remain
opaque. Pettigrew dutifully collects comments from people who knew and worked with
the director, and returns to a few of his films' most iconic locations for a
then-and-now comparison -- rather a clever technique, as it passes off a
romantic pilgrimage in the guise of clinical examination. As accent, Pettigrew
adds sensual close-ups of film stock being manipulated, an exhibition of
stunning and iconic images from Fellini's finished works, and just the
appropriate aural flourishes: a gust of wind and a few bars of inimitable music
by Nino
Rota, Fellini's longtime composer. But Pettigrew's approach seems to proceed from the theory that it would
have been a shame not to build something from the long interview Fellini
granted him shortly before the maestro died. Pettigrew places this interview at
the core of his documentary, with the understanding that any Fellini interview
is at best a web of yarns. The director's digressions about his background and
techniques, while vivid and loquacious, are notoriously unreliable. Fellini: I'm a Born Liar is lyrical and visceral; it serves the lore of Fellini, not the scholarly
research. It glimpses his soul and style. Fellini was as famous for his leg
pulling as he was for his filmmaking, and this tendency gave life and joy to
his best work, which, as he describes it, is "a quest for the most
authentic part of oneself." Part of what made the director a genius and a
bane to his usually jealous dissenters was his rare gift for making movies that
were both interesting and entirely about himself. Many read like stylishly
narrated memories, deeply lived in, embellished at will, cherished. Regardless of his cinematic skill, this capacity for relentless
self-exploration alone qualifies Fellini for inclusion in the canon of great
modern artists. So it's no surprise when, with a strangely plausible hybrid of
humility and vanity, he recounts the story of a dream in which Picasso made him
an omelet. What a great image -- the abstract artwork of food preparation, the
nourishment, and service, taken from the master. Portent and iconic and
amusingly weird, it lodges itself in your imagination so firmly that the fact
of having been dreamed doesn't make it any less authentic. Pettigrew assumes an audience of people who would similarly dream of
brunching with Fellini. On our behalf, he assumes more than familiarity with
the films. Clips are neither identified nor, in several cases, given any
context. The result, almost certainly not intended as a survey or a
deconstruction, is a kind of internal dialogue of a movie, which poses a series
of affectionately rhetorical questions for those already in the know. Like:
"Remember the dreamed opening of 8 1/2 -- the cutting, the
selection of shots, the precise balance of clarity and mystery -- could it be
more perfect?" That film, about the impotent agony a movie director endures while
conceiving and birthing his film, covers some of the same ground as Pettigrew's
project, and its inclusion here only reinforces the vital relationship between
memory and creativity. "You come into this life with the unique goal of
narrating it to others," Fellini intones. For many that would seem like an
audacious claim, but Fellini put it into recurrent practice. For all the headiness, of course, it helps to include some of the humdrum.
So what of Fellini's specific work habits? Famously, the maestro was often a
cranky taskmaster with actors. "Puppets are happy to be puppets if the
puppeteer is good," he says, not at all defensively. For perspective on
this, Pettigrew supplies liberal doses of interviews with Donald
Sutherland and Terence Stamp; Sutherland, who played the
title role in Fellini's Casanova, displays by turns admiration for and
hostility toward the director's methods. And he delivers his comments with
perfect, actorly diction. It's such an eerily exaggerated tone -- the
extemporaneous thoughts so carefully enunciated -- that it evokes listening to
the dubbed dialogue in Fellini's films: a controlled, unreal reality, a
"truth" apart from facts. When he gets rolling, Stamp is a marvelous raconteur in his own right --
particularly when recalling the English stage actor's first foray into Fellini's
rather ribald world. It's hard to know how much Stamp exaggerates, but it's
easy to see that exaggeration is the real fun of his story, and that seems like
the central lesson learned from the director himself. Given this emergent portrait, it doesn't seem so hard to
believe that Fellini was, as he says, "unable to cope with what they call
a normal existence," or that he knew he'd never be a doctor or a cardinal.
To a certain breed of young artist, that must seem as reassuring as having
Picasso make you an omelet.
90 LITTLE GOLDEN GUY.COM • Brian Barney Commentary from actors who worked with the late director,
scenes from his films and an interview with Fellini himself conducted by the
documentary's director enhance this inspiring narrative…
90 NITRATE ONLINE • Gregory Avery
Avoiding a didactic approach, Pettigrew layers in the material…
and the results are dazzling… Perhaps best enjoyed as a fabulous tale told by
an expert and highly adept con man…
An actual prior-to-death interview with
the uber-passionate filmmaker may be the height of Damian Pettigrew's doc,
though word has it that the real appeal is Terence Stamp (who worked with him
on the phantasmagoric Toby Dammit segment of the Poe trilogy film Spirits
of the Dead / Histoires extraordinaires) and his
cracking good impersonation of the man…
90 DVD VERDICT • Mark Van Hook Essential viewing for all Fellini fans, as well as those
wanting to gain further knowledge of the Maestro's strange and fascinating
career…
90 THE SEATTLE TIMES • Moira MacDonald
AN IMPRESSIONISTIC WORK A worthy and often exquisite tribute to memory and art, to
truth and contradiction… This is a loving tribute, but not a fawning one – it
presents an often-contradictory, maddening artist… Fellini: I'm a
Born Liar is an impressionistic work, documenting a master’s philosophy in
strokes of light and dark. At the end, a set of empty camera tracks extends
toward the sea and that 8 1/2 beach, into the endless horizon; it’s a
beautiful, silent moment, both false and true at once…
90 SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN • David Fear, Rolling Stone Magazine
intimate peek behind the curtain is priceless
Documentaries on filmmakers tend to stick to a well-trod path: unearth the
cracked, yellowing photos or grainy home-movie footage of the director as
child, insert scholarly interviews of admirers waxing nostalgic, heap on the
gravitas voice-overs and paint-by-numbers narration. What's most interesting
about Canadian Damian Pettigrew's documentary on the late, great maestro
Federico Fellini is how it manages to stick to the vérité-tribute template and
simultaneously succeed in flipping the old workhouse script. The subject's formative years are only obliquely referenced as a camera
glides through Fellini's hometown of Rimini, Italy, no omniscient tenor-voiced
tour guide explains his career peaks and valleys, and even as plentiful
talking-head footage pops up between the film clips, the lack of identification
intertitles during interviews provides little academic reference (most viewers
will recognize Donald Sutherland and Terence Stamp, who does a wicked
impersonation of Fellini directing him with "you've been up all night
drinking whiskey, doing cocaine, and fucking"; the interview subjects come
off as anonymous faces minus their famous names). Yet the film's diary-like
montage of the master at work, first-person testaments to his legendary
narcissism that are both deifying and damning, and the Fellini-on-Fellini
confessional Pettigrew filmed three months before the filmmaker's death
couldn't toe the tributary line more. Assuming you already know the basics of the man and the myth,
FELLINI: I'M A BORN LIAR's stream-of-conscious journey is full of personal
delights that will have fans dripping puddles of drool onto the theater floor -
what Fellini-phile wouldn't want to see him barking orders at
wife-actress-cherub Giulietta Masina or his on-screen alter-ego, Marcello
Mastroianni? I'd be a liar if I said this was a great introduction to one of
the most significant seventh art-ists of the last 50 years. For devotees
who need no primer, however, this intimate peek behind the curtain is
priceless.
90 FILMJERK.COM • Edward Havens
FAVORITE DOCUMENTARIES OF 2003 - FELLINI: I'M A BORN LIAR
90 EL NUEVO HERALD • Charles Cotayo Those who know Fellini's films will discover a fascinating introduction to his mind, heart, and spirit... El italiano Federico Fellini (1920-1993) fue posiblemente el
director más atrevido y original de su generación. Por supuesto que han
existido otros que también han contribuido al desarrollo del lenguaje
cinematográfico, pero pocos como Fellini han dejado huellas tan definidas en
las arenas del mar fílmico. El director italiano siempre sintió pasión por el
mar. Varios de sus filmes, como La Dolce Vita (1960), por nombrar una,
terminan junto al mar, como si el agua y el horizonte fueran un puente hacia lo
eterno. En este documental descubrimos mucho de lo que hizo a Fellini vibrar
como ser humano y como creador. El documental consiste de una serie de entrevistas
con Fellini, colaboradores como el fotógrafo Giuseppe Rotunno (Amarcord,
1973), el actor canadiense Donald Sutherland (Fellini's Casanova, 1976)
y admiradores como el autor italocubano Italo Calvino. La cinta está
complementada con escenas de algunas películas de Fellini — quien se compara a
un titiritero —, especialmente de su obra maestra, la semiautobiográfica 8 1⁄2
(1963), la cual muchos críticos consideran una de las 10 mejores películas de
todos los tiempos. Una secuencia muestra a Fellini dirigiendo una escena
sutilmente erótica de Satyricon (1969), en la que un ménage trois de
actores hace precisamente lo que él les indica, movimiento por movimiento.
Después vemos el producto final: un segmento impecablemente fluido sin
aparentes cortes, con la elegancia y la gracia de un ballet. Quienes desconocen
la filmografía de Fellini encontrarán aquí una fascinante introducción a su
mente, su corazón y su espíritu. Lo que el documental reafirma es que este
genio nació para lo que fue: un verdadero maestro del séptimo arte que aún hoy
día sigue influyendo a nuevas generaciones de cineastas.
The Italian Federico Fellini (1920-1993) was possibly the most
daring and original director of his generation. Of course there have been
others who have also contributed to the development of the cinematographic
language, but few like Fellini have left such definite traces in the sands of
the filmic sea. The Italian director always felt passion for the sea. Several
of his films, such as La Dolce Vita (1960), to name one, end by the sea, as if
the water and the horizon were a bridge to the eternal. In this documentary we
discover a lot of what made Fellini vibrate as a human being and as a creator.
The documentary consists of a series of interviews with Fellini, collaborators
such as the photographer Giuseppe Rotunno (Amarcord, 1973), the Canadian actor
Donald Sutherland (Fellini Casanova, 1976) and admirers like the
Italian-Italian author Italo Calvino. The film is complemented by scenes from
some films by Fellini - who is compared to a puppeteer -, especially from his
masterpiece, the semi-autobiographical 8 1/2 (1963), which many critics
consider one of the 10 best films of all the times. A sequence shows Fellini
directing a subtly erotic scene from Satyricon (1969), in which a ménage trois
of actors does precisely what he tells them, movement by movement. Then we see
the final product: an impeccably fluid segment with no apparent cuts, with the
elegance and grace of a ballet. Those who do not know Fellini's filmography
will find here a fascinating introduction to his mind, heart and spirit. What
the documentary reaffirms is that this genius was born for it: a true
master of the seventh art who still continues to influence new generations of
filmmakers.
88 TIME OUT NEW YORK • Andrew Lewis Conn A movie-length interview conducted with the director before
his death in 1993, punctuated by film clips and remarks from artistic
colleagues, FELLINI: I’M A BORN LIAR is a lovingly made tribute… Chockabloc
with luminous clips, especially from the overpoweringly beautiful 8 1/2,
one of the greatest films ever made…
88 DALLAS OBSERVER • Gregory Weinkauf
One comes away from FELLINI: A BORN LIAR
acutely aware of a man who spent his life grappling with the very concept of
women, whom he deemed collectively to be "the unknown planet…"
88 THE SEATTLE WEEKLY • Tim Appello
"An artist has a childish need to offend," says
Fellini. "I need an enemy!" We see him oppressing Donald
Sutherland (as Casanova), manipulating actors like a puppeteer –
physically pawing them, making them ape his words and gestures… When Terence
Stamp asked why Fellini added a little curlicue to his right eyebrow in Toby
Dammit, Fellini replied, "Eet’s like a question mark. You are always asking
a question." It also looks like an exaggeration of the unruly curlicue that
erupts from Fellini’s own inquisitive right eyebrow…
Built around a lengthy interview Federico Fellini gave several months
before his death in 1993, Damian Pettigrew's elegant portrait of Italy's
greatest director isn't so much a biographical overview as a sophisticated
attempt to plumb the depths of il Maestro's cinematic psyche. For when it comes
to Fellini, famous for turning his own life into fiction and vice versa,
straightforward biography is a slippery thing. Early in Pettigrew's film,
Fellini admits to being a "born liar," and says the childhood he invented
for himself in such largely autobiographical films as I Vitteloni and Amarcord has
become more real to him than his actual memories. Donald Sutherland, who
starred in Fellini's Casanova (1976), tells Pettigrew that,
like Orson Welles, Fellini created a great lie about himself that was in many
ways true, while novelist Italo Calvino points out that a writer's
"lies" are not unlike the fictions spun by analysands which can be as
revealing as the truth. Keeping all this in mind, Pettigrew intercuts Fellini's own
ruminations on memory, childhood, his career and cinema with beautifully
selected clips from the director's most personal films — including his
masterpiece 8 1/2 and, interestingly, the nightmarish Toby Dammit episode from the 1968 anthology film Spirits of
the Dead — and interviews with screenwriters, producers and, best of
all, actors. Toby Dammit star Terence Stamp does a hilarious
imitation of Fellini, whom, he says, would never deign to address an actor
directly. A typically animated Roberto Begnini recalls how Fellini thought of
him as his very own Kim Novak, and Sutherland coolly describes the director as
"a martinet, a tartar" whose on-set modus operandi included screaming
and humiliation. Pettigrew also includes fascinating clips of Fellini at work,
berating an actor during the filming of Amarcord and
manipulating a trio of lovers from Fellini Satyricon like a
master puppeteer. General audiences will regret the absence of titles
identifying various clips and interviewees, but Fellini fans will want to eat
the whole thing up with a spoon.
80 CHICAGO TRIBUNE • Michael Wilmington
A MUST FOR FELLINI LOVERS
Seeing Fellini again in the flesh and in his films is, as
always, a pleasure and a teasing mystery... FELLINI: I'M A BORN LIAR is best
watched in conjunction with the films themselves.
80 NEWSDAY • John Anderson It’s fascinating to hear Fellini talk about himself and his
work… And the previously unseen footage Pettigrew employs of Fellini’s most
magnetic star, Marcello Mastroianni, is close to
exhilarating!
80 VARIETY • Leslie Felperin For aficionados, it’s hard to beat Fellini: I'm a Born Liar…
80 LOS ANGELES TIMES • Mark Olsen Taken together, Pettigrew’s documentary and the retrospective
screenings provide an excellent opportunity to discover with fresh eyes what it
was that vaulted the films of Federico Fellini, as well as their creator, to
international acclaim
80 LOS ANGELES TIMES • Kenneth Turan There's a lot to like about FELLINI: I’M A BORN LIAR, starting
with that comprehensive interview, which reveals Fellini to be an intoxicating
conversationalist, articulate, expansive and capable of giving radically
different takes on the same subject… Equally intriguing is vintage
behind-the-scenes footage showing Fellini in the act of directing… The film has
an intensity and ambition that the maestro would have admired...
80 FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL • Kevin Lally The movie features ample footage of Fellini offering his philosophical and playful reflections on life, death, art, inspiration, spirituality, actors and women, and that’s reason enough to make it essential viewing for the serious cineaste…
80 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT • Ky N. Nguyen
Pettigrew’s revealing documentary FELLINI: I’M A BORN LIAR
uses candid interviews with Federico Fellini and his co-workers to portray the
legendary Italian director’s life and actions behind the camera…
80 WASHINGTON POST • Desson Howe In these conversations, Fellini’s obviously the star and saint
and genius of his own commentary. But it’s fascinating to listen to him…
Pettigrew shows Fellini at work and those moments are priceless…
80 DALLAS MORNING NEWS • Chris Vognar
It’s not a just-the-facts doc, but Fellini was no
just-the-facts director… Fellini came close to painting his thoughts directly
onto the screen. FELLINI: I’M A BORN LIAR honors this approach by putting
lyricism ahead of clarity. You get the feeling that the maestro would
appreciate the results…
80 CONTRA COSTA TIMES • Mary F. Pols
By no means a hatchet job on the Italian director, rather an
enlightening portrait of a difficult artist and his methods… Offers us a
close-up look at a director who was foremost a visual master, capable of
creating the kind of unsettling images that haunt you forever… FELLINI: I'M A
BORN LIAR opens doors for us…
80 CHICAGO READER • J. R. Jones
A fascinating inquiry into memory and art, mixing clips from
Fellini's films with contemporary shots of the same locales in and around Rome…
80 MINNEAPOLIS CITY PAGES • Joshua Rothkopf
For Fellini fans, the film is pure gold… glimpses of the
director at work, toiling toward something specific in mind, are argument
enough against recent critical reevaluations built on the idea that our
visionaries should be more articulate…
80 THE HERALD • Robert Horton A summation of Fellini's spirit. As such, it will be terrific
for fans, perhaps less so for the uninitiated…
80 THE SEATTLE STRANGER • Sean Nelson PERFORMANCE PIECE AND VANITY TRIP Seattle's cinephiliac denizens will be able to curl up and die
after this revealing visit with the late great master of Italian film. FELLINI:
I'M A BORN LIAR is as much performance piece and vanity trip as documentary…
80 TUSCON WEEKLY • James DiGiovanna ... Any fan of Fellini, or of cinema as personal art, should
enjoy this rare chance at seeing a master of the form present himself as an
object for his own discipline…
80 ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY • Owen Gleiberman ... It's a messy, entertaining documentary rooted in -- though
not limited to -- the iconically indulgent years of Fellini's later career...
75 CHICAGO SUN-TIMES • Roger Ebert
PRICELESS INSIGHT INTO FELLINI'S STYLE
... As a source of information about his life and work, this
interview is almost worthless, but as an insight into his style, it is
priceless...
60 THE ONION (A.V. CLUB) • Keith Phipps
... Turns a fond look back at the great Federico Fellini into
an occasion for the kind of talky tedium Fellini's own movies would never have
allowed...
60 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE • Mick LaSalle ... Occasionally brilliant, profiting from Fellini's distinct and
unmistakable way of looking and seeing. But it goes in circles and wears out
its welcome, except for the most hard-core enthusiasts.
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