Amarcord
1974 - 125 min. - Color
Genre: Foreign
Sub-Genre: Drama
Rated R
Country: USA

LaserDisc Movie Storyline:
Federico Fellini's AMARCORD, an acclaimed semiautobiographical episodic drama, examines life in a small Adriatic village just before Mussolini's reign in the 1930s. As the weather changes and spring arrives, the village holds a festival in which it burns a symbolic bonfire and celebrates new life. This gathering in the central square is the first of many others throughout the film. Each time the community assembles, its colorful members show themselves in full force, boasting their bizarre, disjointed personalities--and pure mischief is the result. Several of the village ladies wear their eyebrows penciled on in high, provocative arches, a style that seethes sex and drama, coaxing the camera to follow them. The film takes on a circusy, chaotic tone, making it difficult to see a clear plot structure; AMARCORD instead breaks up into several memorably surreal sequences, a few of which follow a young man named Titta (Bruno Zanin) who wanders in and out of the animated provincial landscape, meeting assorted crazy characters and obsessing over sex. The beautiful clashes with the grotesque and politics and family matters blend together while sex is offset by violence in the inimitable style of Italy's late master of cinema, whose tour de force won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

LaserDisc Movie Review:
Federico Fellini's warmly nostalgic memory piece examines daily life in the Italian village of Rimini during the reign of Mussolini, and won the 1974 Academy Award as Best Foreign Film. 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.

"Amarcord" is the phonetic translation of the Italian words "Mi Ricordo" (I remember) as pronounced in the dialect of Emilia-Romagna, the birthplace of director Federico Fellini and the setting of this wonderful film. Little surprise, then, that it is a poignant and bawdy semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale, with an ethereal, dreamlike quality that combines sharply drawn memories with vividly engaging fantasy. Like William Wordsworth, Fellini implies that the child is father to the man, and Amarcord is a both a lament for and an homage to his hometown. Employing a picaresque style, Fellini expertly weaves the tales of a wild menagerie of characters in pre-WW II Italy. No mere sentimentalist, he also tackles the prickly issue of the emergence of Fascism. The film takes careful aim at fanatics, while conserving its empathy for the lost, questing, confused, and lonely individuals in its midst. The family at the center of it all, loosely based on Fellini's own, is a well-drawn melange of coarse, pathetic, colorful, clever, and cranky characters. While Fellini does not choose nostalgic sepia tones, he does shoot much of the film in muted colors that seem slightly out-of-focus, as if he were attempting to transport us into a dreamlike state. Blending scenes of pathos and humor, vulgar carnal desire and transcendent magical illumination (the peacock's standing in the newly fallen snow, spreading its magnificent plumage is this film's signature image), Amarcord won the lion's share of 1974's Best Foreign Film awards, including the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, the Golden Globe, and the Academy Award, and it remains a triumph of personal filmmaking.

Cast for Amarcord

Pupella Maggio - Titta's Mother
Magali Nol - Gradisca
Bruno Zanin - Titta
Armando Brancia - Titta's Father
Ciccio Ingrassia - Uncle Teo
Nando Orfei - Pataca
Luigi Rossi - Lawyer
Domenico Pertica - Blindman
Alvaro Vitali - Naso
Fernando Vona - Candela
Josiane Tanzilli - Volpina
Ferruccio Brembilla - Fascist Leader
Giuseppe Ianigro - Titta's Grandfather
Mario Liberati - "Ronald Coleman" - Theater Owner
Gianfilipo Carcano - Don Baravelli
Gennaro Ombra - Bisein
Maria Antonietta Beluzzi - Tobacconist
Franco Magno - Zeus
Marco Misul - Philosophy Teacher


Crew for Amarcord

Federico Fellini - Director / Screenwriter
Franco Cristaldi - Producer
Tonino Guerra - Screenwriter
Giuseppe Rotunno - Cinematographer
Nino Rota - Composer (Music Score)
Ruggero Mastroianni - Editor
Danilo Donati - Production Designer / Costume Designer
Carlo Savina - Musical Direction/Supervision



Awards for Amarcord

Best Foreign Film (win) 1974 Academy
5 Best Films 1974 National Board of Review of Motion Pict
Best Direction (win) Federico Fellini 1974 New York Film Critics Circle
Best Film (win) Federico Fellini 1974 New York Film Critics Circle
Best Director (nom) Federico Fellini 1975 Academy
Best Original Screenplay (nom) Tonino Guerra 1975 Academy
Best Original Screenplay (nom) Federico Fellini 1975 Academy


LD Release Date: 18 Oct 1995
Catalog Number: CC1422L
UPC: 0715515006811
ISBN: 1559406577
Manufacturer: Mitsubishi
Collection: Criterion Collection
Publisher: Criterion

Diameter: 12"
Sides: 3
Cover: Jacket
Subtitle Language: English
Sound: Digital
Sound Analog Left: Original Soundtrack
Sound Analog Right: English Dubbed Soundtrack
Spoken Language: Italian
Country: USA
Video Format: NTSC