Amarcord

Written & Directed by Frederico Fellinni (1973), Score: Nino Rota, Awards: Academy Award: Best Foreign Film, Nominations: Best Director, Best Screenplay, New York Film Critics Circle Awards: Best Film & Best Director, National Board of Review, USA: Best Foreign Language Film. Italian with English subtitles, R

Federico Fellini’s warmly nostalgic memory piece examines daily life in the Italian village of Rimini during the reign of Mussolini. The film’s greatest asset is its ability to be sweet without being cloying, due in great part to Danilo Donati’s surrealistic art direction and to the frequently bawdy injections of sex and politics by screenwriters Fellini and Tonino Guerra. Fellini clearly has deep affection for the people of this seaside village, warts and all, and communicates it through episodic visual anecdotes which are seen as if through the mists of a favorite dream, playfully scored by Nino Rota and lovingly photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno. Ribald, sweet, and sentimental, Amarcord is a larger-than-life journey through a seaside village and its colorful citizens.