The aesthetics of Fellini's Art as Seen through its Ties with Popular Entertainment

1 THE AESTHETICS OF FELLINI’S ART SEEN THROUGH ITS TIES WITH POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT Introduction Even though Variety Lights and Clowns openly acknowledge a cinematic investigation of the corresponding form of entertainment, evidence of Fellini’s fascination with spectacle is not limited to these two cinematic features. Even a superficial inventory of the theatrical scenes interspersed within Fellini’s canon, proves without any doubt that the total number of sequences dedicated to theatrical entertainment is so substantial, both in terms of time and of visual narratives, that it can be treated as an independent aesthetic component. Every single film Fellini directed, contains at least one sequence informed by some sort of theatrical performance. I Vitelloni, for example, shows the “behind the scenes” of a touring company and an aspiring playwright; Satyricon’s second sequence is a theatrical performance; Amarcord is sprinkled with café chantant, magicians, dancers, and singers; Roma has a long scene of a rivista at a famous Roman theatre; Casanova contains an operina and is built around theatrical representation; Ginger and Fred ends with a long sequence of the protagonists’ dance routine, and Ivo, the main character of La Voce della Luna, has been inspired by Commedia dell’Arte characters. All Fellini’s films are permeated with theatrical representations and references to postwar Italian avanspettacolo which, as the following chapters will illustrate, he experienced directly as a gag-writer. Italian popular entertainment has been crucial to the director’s formation, and it never abandoned him even in his later and more sophisticated cinematic language. Several