''Intervista'' (English: ''Interview'') is a 1987 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini.

Plot

Interviewed by a Japanese TV crew for a news report on his latest film, Fellini takes the viewer behind the scenes at

Cinecittà Cinecittà Studios (; Italian for Cinema City Studios), is a large film studio in Rome, Italy. With an area of 400,000 square metres (99 acres), it is the largest film studio in Europe, and is considered the hub of Italian cinema. The studios we ...

. A nighttime set is prepared for a sequence that Fellini defines as “the prisoner’s dream” in which his hands grope for a way out of a dark tunnel. With advancing age and weight, Fellini is finding it difficult to escape by simply flying away, but when he does, he contemplates Cinecittà from a great height. The next morning, Fellini accompanies the Japanese TV crew on a brief tour of the studios. As they walk past absurd TV commercials in production, Fellini's casting director presents him with four young actors she's found to interpret Karl Rossmann, the leading role in the maestro's film version of Kafka's ''Amerika''. Fellini introduces the Japanese to the female custodian of Cinecittà (Nadia Ottaviani) but she succeeds in putting off the interview by disappearing into the deserted backlot of Studio 5 to gather dandelions to make herbal tea. Meanwhile, Fellini's assistant director (Maurizio Mein) is on location with other crew members at the Casa del Passeggero, a once cheap hotel now converted into a drugstore. Fellini wants to include it in his film about the first time he visited Cinecittà as a journalist in 1938 during the Fascist era. Past and present intermingle as Fellini interacts with his younger self played by aspiring actor,

Sergio Rubini Sergio Rubini (born 21 December 1959) is an Italian actor, film director and screenwriter. Life and career Rubini was born in Grumo Appula, Apulia, but soon moved to Rome to study acting. After some roles in theater, he debuted in a feature ...

. After the crew reconstruct the facade of the Casa del Passeggero elsewhere in Rome, a fake tramway takes young Fellini/Rubini from America's Far West with Indian warriors on a clifftop to a herd of wild elephants off the coast of Ethiopia. Arriving at Cinecittà, he sets off to interview matinee idol,

Greta Gonda Greta Gonda (1917–1974) was an Austrian stage and film actress who emigrated to Italy where she worked as a leading lady.Gundle p. 267 She was born in Margarethe Tomicek Mondschein in Vienna, but left for Italy in the mid-1930s. In later life G ...

. Seamlessly, the illusion takes over the realities of moviemaking as the viewer is thrown into two feature films being directed by tyrannical directors. But only for a short while; for the rest of the film, Fellini and his assistant director (Maurizio Mein) scramble to recruit the right cast and build the sets for the film version of ''Amerika'', a fictitious adaptation that Fellini uses as a pretext to shoot his film-in-progress. This allows Fellini/Rubini to go back and forth in time to experience filmmaking first-hand including disgruntled actors who failed their auditions, Marcello Mastroianni in a TV commercial as Mandrake the Magician, a bomb threat, a visit to

Anita Ekberg Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg (; 29 September 193111 January 2015) was a Swedish actress active in American and European films, known for her beauty and stunning figure. She became prominent in her iconic role as Sylvia in the Federico Fellini ...

’s house where she and Mastroianni re-live their ''

La Dolce Vita ''La Dolce Vita'' (; Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life"Kezich, 203) is a 1960 satirical comedy-drama film directed and co-written (with Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Brunello Rondi) by Federico Fellini. The film stars Marcello ...

'' scenes, screen tests of Kafka’s Brunelda caressed in a bathtub by two young men, and an inconvenient thunderstorm that heralds the production collapse of ''Amerika'' with an attack by bogus Indians on horseback wielding television antennae as spears. Back inside Studio 5 at Cinecittà, ''Intervista'' concludes with Fellini’s voiceover, “So the movie should end here. Actually, it’s finished.” In response to producers unhappy with his gloomy endings, the Maestro ironically offers them a ray of sunshine by lighting an arc lamp.

Cast

Main

* Federico Fellini as Himself *

as Young Fellini / Himself * Antonella Ponziani as Train Girl / Herself * Maurizio Mein as Himself * Paola Liguori as Star *

Lara Wendel Lara may refer to: Places * Lara (state), a state in Venezuela *Electoral district of Lara, an electoral district in Victoria, Australia * Lara, Antalya, an urban district in Turkey * Lara, Victoria, a township in Australia * Lara de los In ...

as Bride * Antonio Cantafora as Spouse * Nadia Ottaviani as Vestal Virgin *

as Herself * Marcello Mastroianni as Himself

Supporting

* Maria Teresa Battaglia as Recruited Actress at Train Station *

Christian Borromeo Christian Borromeo is a retired Italian actor. He made several feature films, perhaps best known for Ruggero Deodato's '' The House on the Edge of the Park'', and Dario Argento's '' Tenebrae''. Career Borromeo began his career with a part i ...

as Christian * Roberta Carlucci as Recruited Actress in the Subway * Umberto Conte as Photographer * Lionello Pio Di Savoia as Aurelio * Germana Dominici as No Nudity Actress * Adriana Facchetti as Star's Assistant * Ettore Geri as Menicuccio * Eva Grimaldi as Actress at Audition * Alessandro Marino as Cinecittà Director #1 * Armando Marra as Cinecittà Director #2 * Mario Miyakawa as Japanese Reporter * Francesca Reggiani as Secretary * Patrizia Sacchi as Make-up Artist * Faustone Signoretti as Cinecittà Gate Guard * Rolando De Santis as Chiodo

Cameo/Uncredited

Tonino Delli Colli Tonino Delli Colli (20 November 1923 – 16 August 2005) was an Italian cinematographer. Biography Cousin of Franco Delli Colli, Antonio (Tonino) Delli Colli was born in Rome, and began work at Rome's Cinecittà studio in 1938, at the age of ...

as Himself * Federico Fellini as Himself * Gino Millozza as Himself * Danilo Donati as Himself * Delia D'Alberti as Script Girl * Stefano Corsi as Assistant Director *

Sophie Hicks Sophie Hicks is a British architect and former fashion editor. Early career in fashion Hicks started work at the age of 17, as a guest fashion editor for the fashion magazine '' Harpers & Queen’s'' first teenage issue. She remained in fashion ...

as Androgenic Actress / Herself * Roberto Ceccacci as Production Assistant * Piero Vivaldi as Fellini's Driver * Clarita Gatto as "Fellinian" Woman *

Domiziano Arcangeli Domiziano Arcangeli (June 10, 1966 – July 13, 2020) was an Italian actor, producer and writer best known for low-budget independent, and particularly exploitation, films.Daniel Reynolds"''Brides of Sodom'' Star Domiziano Arcangeli Brings Hom ...

as Extra

Structure

Blurring the line between documentary and fiction, ''Intervista'' threads four films into one or a film-within-four-films: :Film 1 is a television news report: Japanese journalists arrive on the set to interview Fellini and his crew preparing sets,

location scouting Location scouting is a vital process in the pre-production stage of filmmaking and commercial photography. Once scriptwriters, producers or directors have decided what general kind of scenery they require for the various parts of their work ...

, searching for actors, inspecting photographs, and shooting screen tests. Fellini,

and Marcello Mastroianni appear as themselves. :Film 2 is filmed autobiography: while interviewed by the Japanese, Fellini evokes memories (real or invented) of his first visit to Cinecittà in 1938 as a young journalist commissioned to interview a female matinee idol. :Film 3 is the making of a non-existent movie at

, an adaptation of

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typi ...

's '' Amerika''. :Film 4 is the movie itself: ''Intervista'' subsumes all three films, making them cohere into the Maestro’s portrait of himself and cinema.

Reception

The film has a 75% approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 12 reviews with an average rating of 6.9/10. The film ranked 2nd on Cahiers du Cinéma's Top 10 Films of the Year List in 1987.

Awards

* 40th Anniversary Prize at the

1987 Cannes Film Festival The 40th Cannes Film Festival was held from 7 to 19 May 1987. The Palme d'Or went to the '' Sous le soleil de Satan'' by Maurice Pialat, a choice which was considered "highly controversial" and the prize was given under the jeers of the public. ...

* 15th Moscow International Film Festival: Golden Prize

References

Citations

* Burke, Frank and Marguerite R. Waller (2002). ''Federico Fellini: Contemporary Perspectives''. Toronto: Toronto University Press. * Ciment, Gilles (ed.)(1988). ''Positif''. Paris: Editions Rivages. * Fellini, Federico (1987). ''Intervista''. Paris: Flammarion.

External links

* * {{MIFF Main Award, state=autocollapse 1987 films Films directed by Federico Fellini Italian documentary films 1980s Italian-language films Films about actors Films about film directors and producers Films about filmmaking Films with screenplays by Federico Fellini Films scored by Nicola Piovani 1980s Italian films