Fellini's Roma

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DVD details

Actor: Alfredo Adami, Bireno, Britta Barnes, Ginette Marcelle Bron, Pia De Doses
Brand: Unknown
Primary Contributor: Britta Barnes
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Italian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 128 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-04-10
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)

DVD Reviews of Fellini's Roma

DVD Review: Beautiful, colorful and entertaining.
Summary: 5 Stars

If you like looking at pictures, here is a fabulous movie for you. Every frame has a story, a character, a movement. Each one is a surreal painting, mysterious, unnerving and beautiful. A smirk, a leering maid, a huge landlady, a beggar with a leg in a cast, a greasy father, a man running with a handcart, a bus full of football fans, the sweaty unruly audience at the theater. Each one of these images holds more in a few seconds than most movies put into an hour. Or you can watch abstract compositions of mud on windshields, the golden radiance that surrounds the pope, the swirl of translucent fabric following a figure made out of skeletons, reflections of light on the plastic canopy over the camera, the shadows of welders on the walls of Renaissance buildings.

If all of this is a bit rich then you you can sit back and think about the ways in which Fellini is putting together not just a string of autobiographical sketches but also commenting on his own movie making. His camera, mounted on a boom, keeps coming back into the movie with questions about what can be seen, what this movie could be about be about; hippies, politics, the Roman Empire. Or should it be about the ways in which we destroy the past when we try to resurrect it? The air of the present destroys 2,000 year old frescoes.

This is a great movie, worth watching again and again.

DVD Review: Fellini's Roma
Summary: 5 Stars

As obtuse and out there as Fellini can be, I love him and his films. Roma is a classic.

DVD Review: older Fellini flick-more or less documentary
Summary: 4 Stars

I remember seeing this movie many years ago when I was in the UK. When I realized it was still available, I bought it. It was really only one scene that I remembered and liked and sure enough, I was right.

DVD Review: Interesting
Summary: 3 Stars

The 1972 film Roma, by Federico Fellini, lies somewhere between his 1968 film Satyricon and his 1973 film Amarcord, not only chronologically, but creatively (The Clowns, from 1970, is a minor work, by comparison). It is a picaresque film, as both the other films are, and has some of the heightened imagery and poesy of Satyricon, while possessing Amarcord's humor and jabs at Fellini's Fascist era youth. That said, it is not as good a film as the two films that sandwich it for the very reason that it sits on that fence the two other films eschew. Whereas Satyricon was a freestyle adaptation from an ancient Roman work of art, with recurring characters in its vignettes, Roma is more of a travelogue crossed with memory, and the only constant within it is the city of Rome. The film was written by Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi, who collaborated on Satyricon, and, like that film, it is a visual orgy, filled with color and spectacle.
The two hour film is divided into a series of hallucinogenic vignettes admixed with golden memories that recount Roman history, Fellini's past, and the present of the city. These narrative streams and themes bounce back and forth, as Fellini tries to embody the very concept of Rome as `The Eternal City' of mythos (as opposed to the `city of illusions' that American writer Gore Vidal calls it, in a late cameo appearance proclaiming Apocalypticism as a vision).... Of course, the film would not be Fellinian without whores and midgets, and a slew of other oddities- human or not. This parade of grotesques is not limited to the material, but also to the very habits of the Romans from all eras, such as a scene at an outdoor restaurant, where the lower classes practice vulgarianism unabashedly. The film also has a number of uncredited cameo appearances, aside from Fellini and Vidal- mostly by Italian filmic luminaries such as Anna Magnani, Marcello Mastroianni, Feodor Chaliapin, and Alberto Sordi. The DVD, put out by MGM, is spare in the extreme, with the only bonus being the original theatrical trailer. The film is shown in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, and is a fine print- the colors really show what a great cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno was; especially in the shots taken at night, where the lighting and the colors literally blaze in their contrast to the pitch. The art direction and costuming by Danilo Donati also shines, even more so than in earlier Fellini color films- especially during the stellar Papal throne sequence, which seems almost the antithesis (or genial parody) of Francis Bacon's Satanically satiric painted portrait of Pope Innocent X- replete with a throne that seems to explode in color and neon. That said, the only one of the Fellini regular crew who seems to be doing subpar work is the normally fantastic Nino Rota, whose soundtrack is barely an influence on the images. Whether this is because the music is deliberately understated or because the imagery is so overwhelming is debatable, but it's still a notable absence.
Overall, Roma is a solid film with great moments, but one that has more value as a work of art that bears scrutiny for its reflection of its creator, rather than standing on its own artistic merits. It is not as daring as Satyricon, not as ribald nor tightly edited as Amarcord, not as probing of the human condition as Nights Of Cabiria, not as intellectualized as 8?, nor is it as all-encompassing as La Dolce Vita. But, after all, how many films are? It is akin to dissing a drama of Eugene O'Neill because it falls short of The Iceman Cometh, Mourning Becomes Electra, or A Long Day's Journey Into Night. If it is best as a baedeker to those greater films in the Fellini canon, so be it, for it is a sojourn worth the undertaking.

DVD Review: Hard to appreciate
Summary: 4 Stars

Roma is a film about Rome by one of the most revered film directors who ever lived - Fellini. As a piece of simple cinema entertainment this has little to offer; there is no plot and no characterisation, which makes it tough going if you are used to traditional Hollywood films. To have some understanding of the history of Rome will certainly help, but even then you may find this difficult to take. Where the film succeeds is Fellini's amazing direction and stunning use of images and colours. If you approach this film like you would a brilliant painting then it begins to make sense. However two hours is a long time to stare at a brilliant painting!

My initial reaction is perhaps a little negative compared with previous reviewers, however, I suspect that this is a film that will improve with repeated viewings. Nevertheless if you mainly watch mainstream movies I'd advise caution before buying - rent it or watch it on TV first.

Description of Fellini's Roma

Acclaimed director Federico Fellini (Fellini's Satyricon, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2) brilliantly demonstrates why he is regarded as "the last of the great epic filmmakers," delivering "a thrilling personal memoir" (Newsweek) with this monumental and outlandish tribute to his beloved RomeThe Eternal City. This lavish autobiography, full of "lush fantasy sequences and monumental pageantry," (Los Angeles Times) begins with Fellini as a youngster living in the Italian countryside. In school he studies the eclectic but parochial history of ancient Rome and then is introduced as a young man to the real thingarriving in this strange new city on the outbreak of World War II. Here, through a series of "visually stunning" (Los Angeles Times) vignettes brimming with satire and spark, the filmmaker comes to grips with a "sprawling, boisterous, bursting-at-the-seams portrait of Rome" (Interview), reinterpreting with his inimitable style an Italian history full of "rich sensual imagery and extravagant perception" (Playboy).

Federico Fellini's 1972 ode to the city of Rome is far from a coherent narrative, but as a selection of images and sounds celebrating the famed Italian capital, it's dazzling and hugely enjoyable. Stylistically, it's a perfect bridge between the excesses of Satyricon and the nostalgia of Amarcord, and it showcases the true love that Fellini had for the Eternal City. Mixing autobiographical flashbacks with the travails of a present-day movie company making a film about the city (headed up by Fellini himself), Roma is an impressionistic tour de force, delivered via Fellini's unique cinematic vision. If you can't tolerate Fellini's larger-than-life approach, the sometimes-garish colors, or the circus atmosphere, you'll probably find Roma insufferable. But fans of Fellini will be in seventh heaven, especially during some of the wonderful set pieces--a music dance hall performance that's interrupted by bombing during World War II; a papal fashion show that's so surreal it must be seen to be believed; and a breathtaking sequence in which the film crew, tagging along with an archaeological dig, happens upon an ancient Roman catacomb and watches as the beautiful murals disintegrate before their eyes. Through it all, Fellini's passion for Rome (and moviemaking) shines through, especially in the film's climax, a dialogue-free sequence of motorcycles roaring through the city at night, a tour that ends at the magnificent Colosseum. At that marriage of past and present, Roma is about as perfect as cinema can get. --Mark Englehart

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