I Vitelloni. (PG.)
Directed by Federico Fellini. 1953.
Starring Franco Interlenghi, Alberto Sordi, Franco Fabrizi, Leopoldo Trieste, Riccardo Fellini and Eleonora Ruffo, Jean Brochard, Claude Farell, Carlo Romano. Black and white. 108 mins. Released on Blu-ray and DVD dual format by Cult Films.
Of all the great non-English language filmmakers, Fellini is probably the one with the most titles that are never translated into English: there's La Dolce Vita, Il Bidone, La Strada, Amarcord, Intervista, Fellini Roma and his first big hit, I Vitelloni. (Possibly Kurosawa could give him a run for his money.) Some of this is down to the vitality of the language – what would you rather see, The Road or La Strada, The Good Life or La Dolce Vita – but for his study of not-so-young men drifting aimlessly through a year in a small coastal town it's because there is no direct translation. In the opening scene, the narrator's subtitles have it as young rascals but the Italian is supposedly big cows.
If nothing else, I Vitelloni is an example of Italy's fanatical adherence to its stereotype. The far right is on the rise there but you wonder how they get to push the line about restoring their national identity when they cling to their core stereotypes so fanatically. Here it's the one about the men all being great big mamma's boys. The episodic storyline follows a group of five lads who all still live at home and are all around thirty. They are not ne'erdowells as much as they are ne'erdoanythings. They wander around the town at night, refrain from employment, talk big and achieve small and occasionally amble out to the seaside. Nothing much happens except for compulsive womaniser Fausto (Fabrizi) knocking up the town's just crowned Miss Mermaid (Ruffo), the sister of his friend Moraldo (Interlenghi), and then having to marry her and get a job.
The film, No. 2½ on the march toward 8½ is generally regarded as the one in which the first signs of his greatness are shown. Already you have the wind, the haunting Fellini wind, blowing in off the sea through the deserted streets, as it will in most every Fellini film that follows. You can see seeds being planted that will bring forth much greater flourishes in later films. At one point two of them steal a statue of an angel and then hawk it around town in a cart trying to sell it to a monastery and a convent. It's an image that will expand to become the statue of Jesus flying over Rome at the beginning of La Dolce Vita.
By this stage Fellini, a gifted caricaturist, had spent a long apprenticeship working dutifully under the harness of Italian, post-war, black and white, Neo-drealism. He was a Jodorowsky in a world of Ken Loaches, a Gerald Scarfe in a land of draftsmen. He isn't breaking free yet, but he's working himself some wriggle room.
I Vitelloni isn't a great film but it is a very good one, a satisfying one, one that anybody who is willing to sit down for a film that is 65 years old, should enjoy. The characterisations aren't subtle: the would-be intellectual wears a beret, the smarmy skirt chaser looks like Bob Monkhouse and, even though one of the others is played by Fellini's brother, the author's alter-ego is painfully obvious to spot: Interlenghi's Moraldo doesn't lighten up for a moment and it is made far too clear that he's the one who can see the emptiness of their lives. The script though it smart in the way it makes them just endearing enough to stick with.
Most of all though I like it because it is a Fellini film all about my life. Dossing around in a seaside coastal town into my thirties is something I can wholly relate to. The Italian way of life is a rule unto itself but the scenes of them ambling home after a busy night doing nothing chime with me. It's nothing like my life, but it's exactly like my life. Me, Vitelloni.
Other Fellini reviews
Satyricon
I Clowns
Orchestra Rehearsal
Voices of the Moon
Directed by Federico Fellini. 1953.
Starring Franco Interlenghi, Alberto Sordi, Franco Fabrizi, Leopoldo Trieste, Riccardo Fellini and Eleonora Ruffo, Jean Brochard, Claude Farell, Carlo Romano. Black and white. 108 mins. Released on Blu-ray and DVD dual format by Cult Films.
Of all the great non-English language filmmakers, Fellini is probably the one with the most titles that are never translated into English: there's La Dolce Vita, Il Bidone, La Strada, Amarcord, Intervista, Fellini Roma and his first big hit, I Vitelloni. (Possibly Kurosawa could give him a run for his money.) Some of this is down to the vitality of the language – what would you rather see, The Road or La Strada, The Good Life or La Dolce Vita – but for his study of not-so-young men drifting aimlessly through a year in a small coastal town it's because there is no direct translation. In the opening scene, the narrator's subtitles have it as young rascals but the Italian is supposedly big cows.
If nothing else, I Vitelloni is an example of Italy's fanatical adherence to its stereotype. The far right is on the rise there but you wonder how they get to push the line about restoring their national identity when they cling to their core stereotypes so fanatically. Here it's the one about the men all being great big mamma's boys. The episodic storyline follows a group of five lads who all still live at home and are all around thirty. They are not ne'erdowells as much as they are ne'erdoanythings. They wander around the town at night, refrain from employment, talk big and achieve small and occasionally amble out to the seaside. Nothing much happens except for compulsive womaniser Fausto (Fabrizi) knocking up the town's just crowned Miss Mermaid (Ruffo), the sister of his friend Moraldo (Interlenghi), and then having to marry her and get a job.
The film, No. 2½ on the march toward 8½ is generally regarded as the one in which the first signs of his greatness are shown. Already you have the wind, the haunting Fellini wind, blowing in off the sea through the deserted streets, as it will in most every Fellini film that follows. You can see seeds being planted that will bring forth much greater flourishes in later films. At one point two of them steal a statue of an angel and then hawk it around town in a cart trying to sell it to a monastery and a convent. It's an image that will expand to become the statue of Jesus flying over Rome at the beginning of La Dolce Vita.
By this stage Fellini, a gifted caricaturist, had spent a long apprenticeship working dutifully under the harness of Italian, post-war, black and white, Neo-drealism. He was a Jodorowsky in a world of Ken Loaches, a Gerald Scarfe in a land of draftsmen. He isn't breaking free yet, but he's working himself some wriggle room.
I Vitelloni isn't a great film but it is a very good one, a satisfying one, one that anybody who is willing to sit down for a film that is 65 years old, should enjoy. The characterisations aren't subtle: the would-be intellectual wears a beret, the smarmy skirt chaser looks like Bob Monkhouse and, even though one of the others is played by Fellini's brother, the author's alter-ego is painfully obvious to spot: Interlenghi's Moraldo doesn't lighten up for a moment and it is made far too clear that he's the one who can see the emptiness of their lives. The script though it smart in the way it makes them just endearing enough to stick with.
Most of all though I like it because it is a Fellini film all about my life. Dossing around in a seaside coastal town into my thirties is something I can wholly relate to. The Italian way of life is a rule unto itself but the scenes of them ambling home after a busy night doing nothing chime with me. It's nothing like my life, but it's exactly like my life. Me, Vitelloni.
Other Fellini reviews
Satyricon
I Clowns
Orchestra Rehearsal
Voices of the Moon
