I Vitelloni
Encyclopedia
I vitelloni is an Italian
comedy drama film
directed by Federico Fellini
. Recognized as a pivotal work in the director's artistic evolution, the film has distinct autobiographical elements that mirror important societal changes in 1950s Italy.
Nominated for an Academy Award in 1958, it was Fellini's first successful motion picture after the commercial failure of his second film The White Sheik
(1952
), and launched the career of Alberto Sordi
, one of post-war Italy's most significant and popular comedians.
). Under pressure from Francesco (Jean Brochard
), his respectable father, Fausto agrees to a shotgun wedding. After the sparsely attended middle-class ceremony, the newlyweds leave town on their honeymoon.
Unemployed and living off their parents, Fausto's twenty-something friends kill time shuffling from empty cafés to seedy pool halls to aimless walks across desolate windswept beaches. During the interim, they perform immature pranks. Taunting honest road workers from the safety of a luxury car they never earned, they're given a sound thrashing when it runs out of gas.
Moraldo Rubini (Franco Interlenghi
), Sandra's brother and the youngest of the five vitelloni, uncomfortably observes Fausto's womanizing as he ponders his own existence, dreaming of ways to escape to the big city. Riccardo (Riccardo Fellini), the baritone, nourishes unrealistic ambitions to sing and act. Alberto (Alberto Sordi
), the daydreamer, is supported by his mother and self-reliant sister, Olga (Claude Farell). Vulnerable and effeminate, he's unhappy that Olga is secretly dating a married man. Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste
), the aspiring dramatist, writes a play that he discusses with Sergio Natali (Achille Majeroni
), an eccentric stage actor he hopes will perform in it.
Back from his honeymoon and settled in with Sandra, Fausto is forced to accept a job as a stockroom assistant in a religious-articles shop owned by Michele Curti (Carlo Romano
), a friend of his father-in-law's. Incorrigible, he pursues other women even in his wife's presence.
At the annual masquerade ball, Fausto is bedazzled by the mature beauty of Giulia Curti (Lída Baarová
), his employer’s wife. Alberto, in drag and half-drunk, executes a surrealistic dance across the ballroom floor with a goofy carnival head made of papier-mâché. Returning home at dawn, Alberto is devastated to find his sister running off for good with her sinister lover. Fausto’s naive attempt to seduce Giulia results in his being humiliated and then fired by her husband. In revenge, he steals the statue of an angel in gold paint from his former employer, enlisting the loyal Moraldo to help him sell it to a monk
. Suspicious, the monk turns down the offer. Fausto ends up giving the statue to a simple-minded peasant (Silvio Bagolini
) who sets the angel on a mound outside his hovel, admiring it from afar.
One evening after a variety show, Leopoldo agrees to accompany old Sergio for a walk along the seashore to discuss the merits of his play but when the actor propositions him, he takes to his heels in horror. Learning of Fausto’s one-night stand with an actress, Sandra runs away from home, taking the baby with her. Riccardo, Alberto, Leopoldo, and Moraldo all join in Fausto’s desperate search to retrieve his wife and child. When they find her at the home of Fausto’s father, Francesco pulls off his belt in a rage and finally whips his son. Resolved to abandon the provincial monotony of his dead-end town, Moraldo boards the train for Rome, imagining his vitelloni friends sleeping their lives away.
with co-screenwriter Tullio Pinelli
in 1952, Fellini offered their "modern fairy tale" to producer Luigi Rovere with whom he was still under contract. Rovere had solid reasons for turning it down: apart from the script of La Strada being an unrecognizable genre, Fellini’s last film, The White Sheik
, was a critical and commercial flop. In a show of soldarity, Rovere loaned the script to a Venetian professor of calligraphy
turned film producer, Lorenzo Pegoraro, who had admired The White Sheik. Convinced that La Strada would never attract an audience, Pegoraro requested that Fellini develop a comedy instead. Biographers differ as to who conceived I Vitelloni. For Tullio Kezich
, it was Fellini who hit on the idea “after an afternoon-long consultation" with Ennio Flaiano
. For Hollis Alpert
, it was Pinelli brain-storming with Fellini and Flaiano who came up “with a notion the other two liked: the pleasures and frustrations of growing up in a provincial town”. Under Fellini's supervision, all three wrote the script rapidly, pooling together adolescent memories while inventing new ones.
The actual origin of the term has been defined as a cross between the Italian words for veal and beef implying “an immature, lazy person without a clear identity or any notion of what to do with his life". In a 1971 letter, co-screenwriter Ennio Flaiano offered a fuller meaning of the word: "The term vitellone was used in my day to define a young man from a modest family, perhaps a student - but one who had either already gone beyond the progammed schedule for his coursework, or one who did nothing all the time... I believe the term is a corruption of the word vudellone, the large intestine, or a person who eats a lot. It was a way of describing the family son who only ate but never 'produced' - like an intestine, waiting to be filled."
in a major role. Intent on playing the lead, however, Sordi didn’t accept Fellini’s offer until later in production. Pegoraro’s skeptical distributors, far from closing the deal, demanded a clause in the contract banning Sordi’s name from theatrical posters. To make matters worse, Fellini also cast Leopoldo Trieste
(the lead in The White Sheik
fiasco) as the budding dramatist, and his brother Riccardo, a total unknown, to interpret his own role. Further unknowns included Franco Interlenghi
and Leonora Ruffo who had just wrapped on The Queen of Sheba. Although Czech actress Lída Baarová
had a cult following, she was more famous for her love affair with Nazi Joseph Goebbels
than for any of her film roles. Fellini topped things off by casting Franco Fabrizi
as Fausto, an actor who began his film career in 1950 with Michelangelo Antonioni
's Chronicle of a Love but bombed two years later in Christ Passed by the Barn. Pressured by his financial backers — a Florentine business group and the Paris
-based Cité Film, Pegoraro finally balked at the lack of a star. “Sordi makes people run away," he complained to Fellini. "Leopoldo Trieste is a nobody. Meet me half way - bring in a name."
To placate him, Fellini contacted Vittorio De Sica
, hoping to convince the famous director of Bicycle Thieves
to play the part of Sergio Natali, the aging ham actor. When Fellini outlined the homosexual overtones of the role, De Sica accepted provided it was written with "a great deal of humanity". In the end, he rejected the offer, "concerned about being marked as actually gay". Fellini then decided that De Sica would have been "too nice, too fascinating, too distracting" and cast Achille Majeroni
, a respected stage actor, in the part.
, shooting began as an all-night party at the city's Teatro Goldoni in early December 1952. Supervised by production manager Luigi Giacosi whom Fellini first met while on location in Tripoli
during the war, and lensed by veteran cinematographer
Otello Martelli
, the rushes served as the basis of the masquerade ball, a major sequence. With a break in production for Christmas, shooting resumed on January 15, 1953. Constrained by the shoestring budget, many scenes were shot in a natural decor. In Ostia
, a quay provided the winter setting for Fausto and his gang to wander around listlessly staring at the sea. In Fiumicino, the terrace of the Kursaal Hotel was the backdrop for the beauty pageant that opens the film. Accustomed to movies produced on promises, Giacosi maintained morale by ensuring that cast and crew dined in the best restaurants in the towns they visited.
Working with several cinematographers over a six-month period, Fellini developed a predominant camera style based on slow tracking shots that "match the listless, purposeless lives" of his characters. Zooms underscored dramatic events, most notably when Sandra falls ill at the beauty pageant, after the birth of her child, and when Francesco beats his wayward son.
With editor Rolando Benedetti, Fellini established a rhythm in which short sequences were separated by abrupt cuts while longer sequences used dissolves. The numerous brief and disparate episodes "governed by their own internal logic" were thus held together by a particular editing pattern. A freeze-frame was used to immobilize the young Guido, Moraldo’s friend, at the end of the film when he balances himself on a railtrack.
Screened in competition at the Venice Film Festival
on August 26, 1953, the film was awarded the Silver Lion by Italian poet Eugenio Montale
who headed the jury, along with a public ovation and acclaim from the majority of critics. "Belying all doubts about its appeal", the film opened on September 17, 1953 to both commercial and critical success.
Reviewing for La Stampa
, Mario Gromo argued that it was a "film of a certain importance because of its many intelligent moments, its sound portrayal of provincial life, and because it is the second film of a young director who evidently has considerable talent... The Italian film industry now has a new director and one who puts his own personal ideas before any of the customary traditions of the trade. Fellini's is a fresh approach". "It is the atmosphere that counts most in this unusual film," wrote Francesco Càallari of the Gazzetta del Lunedi, "an intensely human and poetical atmosphere altogether estranged from the provincialism of the setting... Fellini has something to say and he says it with an acute sense of observation... Here is someone apart from the other young directors of post-war Italian cinema. Fellini has a magical touch." First published 31 August 1953 in the Gazzeta del Lunedi (Genoa). After praising Fellini's Venice triumph, Ermanno Contini of Il Secolo XIX outlined the film's weaknesses: "I Vitelloni does not have a particularly solid structure, the story is discontinuous, seeking unity through the complex symbiosis of episodes and details... The narrative, built up around strong emotions and powerful situations, lacks solid organic unity, and at times this undermines the story's creative force, resulting in an imbalance of tone and pace and a certain sense of tedium. But such shortcomings are amply atoned for by the film's sincerity and authenticity." Arturo Lanocita of Corriere della Sera
wrote: "I Vitelloni gives a graphic and authentic picture of certain aimless evenings, the streets populated by groups of idle youths... The film is a series of annotations, hints, and allusions without unity... With a touch of irony, Fellini tries to show the contrast between the way his characters see themselves and the way they really are. Despite its weaknesses, the film is one of the best in recent years." For Giulio Cesare Castello of Cinema VI, the film proved "that Fellini is the Italian film industry's most talented satirist, and an acute observer and psychologist of human behaviour. Like any good moralist, he knows how to give his story a meaning, to provide more than just simple entertainment".
Fellini's first film with international distribution, I Vitelloni did reasonable box office in England and North America while performing "huge in Argentina". Opening in France on April 23, 1954, it was especially well-received. André Martin of Les Cahiers du Cinéma insisted that by "virtue of the quality of the narrative, and the balance and control of the film as a whole, I Vitelloni is neither commercial nor does it possess those traits that usually permit a work of art to be consecrated and defined. With a surprising and effective sense of cinema, Fellini endows his characters with a life both simple and real". Film critic Geneviève Agel appreciated the maestro's symbolism: "Fellini films a deserted piazza at nighttime. It symbolizes solitude, the emptiness that follows communal joy, the bleak torpor that succeeds the swarming crowd; there are always papers lying around like so many reminders of what the day and life have left behind."
United States
I Vitelloni opened in the United States on November 7, 1956 to generally positive reviews. In his New York Times review, Bosley Crowther
reported that Fellini, with "his volatile disposition and a desire to make a stinging film... does certainly take a vigorous whiplash to the breed of over-grown and over-sexed young men who hang around their local poolrooms and shun work as though it were a foul disease. He ridicules them with all the candor of his sharp neo-realist style, revealing their self-admiration to be sadly immature and absurd. And without going into reasons for the slack state of these young men, he indicates that they are piteous and merit some sympathy too". For John Simon
, Nino Rota's music was one "of the most brilliant features of the film... The first [of its two main themes] is a soaring, romantic melody that can be made to express nostalgia, love, and the pathos of existence... Slowed down, [the second main theme] becomes lugubrious; with eerie figurations in the woodwinds it turns sinister. The quicksilver changes in the music support the changing moods of the story".
The film was re-released internationally on the tenth anniversary of Fellini's death in 2003. For the San Francisco Chronicle
, Mick LaSalle noted that I Vitelloni was "a film of sensitivity, observation and humor - a must-see for Fellini enthusiasts and a worthwhile investment for everyone else. Those less taken by the maestro may find I Vitelloni to be a favorite among his works". Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune
wrote: "In Italy, it remains one of Fellini's most consistently loved movies. It should be in America as well... If you still remember that terrific drunk scene, Alberto Sordi's pre-Some Like It Hot
drag tango or the way the little boy balances on the train track at the end, you should know that this picture plays as strongly now as it did in 1956 or whenever you first saw it. I know I had a ball watching I Vitelloni again. It reminded me of the old gang."
. It also had an influence on Martin Scorsese
's Mean Streets
(1973), George Lucas
's American Graffiti
(1973), Joel Schumacher
's St. Elmo's Fire
(1985), and Barry Levinson
's Diner
(1987), among many others.
Nominations
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
comedy drama film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed by Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
. Recognized as a pivotal work in the director's artistic evolution, the film has distinct autobiographical elements that mirror important societal changes in 1950s Italy.
Nominated for an Academy Award in 1958, it was Fellini's first successful motion picture after the commercial failure of his second film The White Sheik
The White Sheik
The White Sheik is a 1952 film by Federico Fellini starring Leopoldo Trieste, Alberto Sordi, and Brunella Bovo.- Plot :Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda and Ivan Cavalli , arrive in Rome for their honeymoon...
(1952
1952 in film
The year 1952 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 10 - Cecil B. DeMille's circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth, premieres at Radio City Music Hall in New York City....
), and launched the career of Alberto Sordi
Alberto Sordi
Alberto Sordi, also known as Albertone, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian actor. He was also a film director and the dubbing voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian version of the Laurel & Hardy films....
, one of post-war Italy's most significant and popular comedians.
Plot
As summer draws to a close, a violent downpour interrupts a beach-side beauty pageant in a provincial town on the Adriatic coast. Sandra Rubini (Leonora Ruffo), elected "Miss Siren of 1953", suddenly grows upset and faints: rumours fly that she’s expecting a baby by inveterate skirt chaser Fausto Moretti (Franco FabriziFranco Fabrizi
Franco Fabrizi was an Italian actor.Son of a barber and a cinema cashier, he was a soap opera photo actor, for example, the fotoromanzo Arizona Kid, in the newspaper Avventuroso Film...
). Under pressure from Francesco (Jean Brochard
Jean Brochard
Jean Brochard was a French film actor. He appeared in over 100 films between 1933 and 1966.- Selected filmography :* Le Corbeau * Voyage sans espoir * A Lover's Return...
), his respectable father, Fausto agrees to a shotgun wedding. After the sparsely attended middle-class ceremony, the newlyweds leave town on their honeymoon.
Unemployed and living off their parents, Fausto's twenty-something friends kill time shuffling from empty cafés to seedy pool halls to aimless walks across desolate windswept beaches. During the interim, they perform immature pranks. Taunting honest road workers from the safety of a luxury car they never earned, they're given a sound thrashing when it runs out of gas.
Moraldo Rubini (Franco Interlenghi
Franco Interlenghi
Franco Interlenghi is an Italian actor.He made his acting debut at 15 in Vittorio De Sica's 1946 Neorealist film Sciuscià....
), Sandra's brother and the youngest of the five vitelloni, uncomfortably observes Fausto's womanizing as he ponders his own existence, dreaming of ways to escape to the big city. Riccardo (Riccardo Fellini), the baritone, nourishes unrealistic ambitions to sing and act. Alberto (Alberto Sordi
Alberto Sordi
Alberto Sordi, also known as Albertone, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian actor. He was also a film director and the dubbing voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian version of the Laurel & Hardy films....
), the daydreamer, is supported by his mother and self-reliant sister, Olga (Claude Farell). Vulnerable and effeminate, he's unhappy that Olga is secretly dating a married man. Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste
Leopoldo Trieste
Leopoldo Trieste was an Italian actor, film director and script writer.Trieste was born in Reggio Calabria...
), the aspiring dramatist, writes a play that he discusses with Sergio Natali (Achille Majeroni
Achille Majeroni
Achille Majeroni was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 73 films between 1913 and 1964.He was born in Syracuse, Sicily and died in Rome.-Selected filmography:* La damigella di Bard...
), an eccentric stage actor he hopes will perform in it.
Back from his honeymoon and settled in with Sandra, Fausto is forced to accept a job as a stockroom assistant in a religious-articles shop owned by Michele Curti (Carlo Romano
Carlo Romano
Carlo Romano was an Italian film actor and screenwriter. He appeared in 94 films between 1934 and 1975. He also wrote for 14 films between 1955 and 1975...
), a friend of his father-in-law's. Incorrigible, he pursues other women even in his wife's presence.
At the annual masquerade ball, Fausto is bedazzled by the mature beauty of Giulia Curti (Lída Baarová
Lída Baarová
Lída Baarová was a Czech actress and mistress of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister.-Biography:...
), his employer’s wife. Alberto, in drag and half-drunk, executes a surrealistic dance across the ballroom floor with a goofy carnival head made of papier-mâché. Returning home at dawn, Alberto is devastated to find his sister running off for good with her sinister lover. Fausto’s naive attempt to seduce Giulia results in his being humiliated and then fired by her husband. In revenge, he steals the statue of an angel in gold paint from his former employer, enlisting the loyal Moraldo to help him sell it to a monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
. Suspicious, the monk turns down the offer. Fausto ends up giving the statue to a simple-minded peasant (Silvio Bagolini
Silvio Bagolini
Silvio Bagolini was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 137 films between 1936 and 1973.-Selected filmography:* Variety Lights * The Overcoat * Il viale della speranza...
) who sets the angel on a mound outside his hovel, admiring it from afar.
One evening after a variety show, Leopoldo agrees to accompany old Sergio for a walk along the seashore to discuss the merits of his play but when the actor propositions him, he takes to his heels in horror. Learning of Fausto’s one-night stand with an actress, Sandra runs away from home, taking the baby with her. Riccardo, Alberto, Leopoldo, and Moraldo all join in Fausto’s desperate search to retrieve his wife and child. When they find her at the home of Fausto’s father, Francesco pulls off his belt in a rage and finally whips his son. Resolved to abandon the provincial monotony of his dead-end town, Moraldo boards the train for Rome, imagining his vitelloni friends sleeping their lives away.
Cast
- Franco InterlenghiFranco InterlenghiFranco Interlenghi is an Italian actor.He made his acting debut at 15 in Vittorio De Sica's 1946 Neorealist film Sciuscià....
as Moraldo Rubini - Alberto SordiAlberto SordiAlberto Sordi, also known as Albertone, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian actor. He was also a film director and the dubbing voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian version of the Laurel & Hardy films....
as Alberto - Franco FabriziFranco FabriziFranco Fabrizi was an Italian actor.Son of a barber and a cinema cashier, he was a soap opera photo actor, for example, the fotoromanzo Arizona Kid, in the newspaper Avventuroso Film...
as Fausto Moretti - Leopoldo TriesteLeopoldo TriesteLeopoldo Trieste was an Italian actor, film director and script writer.Trieste was born in Reggio Calabria...
as Leopoldo Vannucci - Riccardo Fellini as Riccardo
- Leonora Ruffo as Sandra Rubini, Moraldo's sister
- Jean BrochardJean BrochardJean Brochard was a French film actor. He appeared in over 100 films between 1933 and 1966.- Selected filmography :* Le Corbeau * Voyage sans espoir * A Lover's Return...
as Francesco Moretti, Fausto's father - Claude Farell as Olga, Alberto's sister
- Carlo RomanoCarlo RomanoCarlo Romano was an Italian film actor and screenwriter. He appeared in 94 films between 1934 and 1975. He also wrote for 14 films between 1955 and 1975...
as Signore Michele Curti - Lída BaarováLída BaarováLída Baarová was a Czech actress and mistress of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister.-Biography:...
as Signora Giulia Curti - Enrico ViarisioEnrico ViarisioEnrico Viarisio was an Italian theatre and cinema actor.Equipped of a fine and elegant humour, Viarisio began his professional theatrical career at the age of 20...
as Signore Rubini, Moraldo's father - Paola BorboniPaola BorboniPaola Borboni was an Italian film actress whose career spanned nine decades of cinema. She also made a substantial contribution to theatre....
as Signora Rubini, Moraldo's mother - Arlette Sauvage as mysterious women at the cinema
- Silvio BagoliniSilvio BagoliniSilvio Bagolini was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 137 films between 1936 and 1973.-Selected filmography:* Variety Lights * The Overcoat * Il viale della speranza...
as simple-minded peasant - Vira Silenti as Gisella
- Maja Nipora as Caterina, the soubretteSoubretteA soubrette is a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy".-Theater:...
Writing
Having completed an early version of La StradaLa Strada
La Strada is a 1954 Italian neorealist drama directed by Federico Fellini in which a naïve young woman is sold to a brutish man and goes on the road as a part of his itinerant show....
with co-screenwriter Tullio Pinelli
Tullio Pinelli
Tullio Pinelli was an Italian screenwriter best known for his work on the Federico Fellini classics I Vitelloni, La strada, La Dolce Vita and 8½.-Biography:...
in 1952, Fellini offered their "modern fairy tale" to producer Luigi Rovere with whom he was still under contract. Rovere had solid reasons for turning it down: apart from the script of La Strada being an unrecognizable genre, Fellini’s last film, The White Sheik
The White Sheik
The White Sheik is a 1952 film by Federico Fellini starring Leopoldo Trieste, Alberto Sordi, and Brunella Bovo.- Plot :Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda and Ivan Cavalli , arrive in Rome for their honeymoon...
, was a critical and commercial flop. In a show of soldarity, Rovere loaned the script to a Venetian professor of calligraphy
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
turned film producer, Lorenzo Pegoraro, who had admired The White Sheik. Convinced that La Strada would never attract an audience, Pegoraro requested that Fellini develop a comedy instead. Biographers differ as to who conceived I Vitelloni. For Tullio Kezich
Tullio Kezich
Tullio Kezich was an Italian film critic, screenwriter, playwright and actor.Kezich was born in Trieste...
, it was Fellini who hit on the idea “after an afternoon-long consultation" with Ennio Flaiano
Ennio Flaiano
Ennio Flaiano , was an Italian screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist and drama critic...
. For Hollis Alpert
Hollis Alpert
Hollis Alpert was an American film critic and author. Alpert was best known as the cofounder of the National Society of Film Critics, which he started in his New York City apartment.-Early life:...
, it was Pinelli brain-storming with Fellini and Flaiano who came up “with a notion the other two liked: the pleasures and frustrations of growing up in a provincial town”. Under Fellini's supervision, all three wrote the script rapidly, pooling together adolescent memories while inventing new ones.
Title
Distributors interested in the script demanded a title change: incomprehensible to a general audience, I vitelloni was a liability to an already risky venture. Fellini adamantly refused to change it, having chosen the film’s title after “being called a vitellone by an elderly woman expressing disapproval of one his pranks”. For him, vitelloni were "the unemployed of the middle class, mother’s pets. They shine during the holiday season, and waiting for it takes up the rest of the year". According to biographer Alpert, the term was Romagnol dialect for "veal, or calf... used to refer to callow youths". Today, the term is widely translated as "big calves".The actual origin of the term has been defined as a cross between the Italian words for veal and beef implying “an immature, lazy person without a clear identity or any notion of what to do with his life". In a 1971 letter, co-screenwriter Ennio Flaiano offered a fuller meaning of the word: "The term vitellone was used in my day to define a young man from a modest family, perhaps a student - but one who had either already gone beyond the progammed schedule for his coursework, or one who did nothing all the time... I believe the term is a corruption of the word vudellone, the large intestine, or a person who eats a lot. It was a way of describing the family son who only ate but never 'produced' - like an intestine, waiting to be filled."
Casting
Despite his reputation as box office poison, and against Pegoraro’s express wishes, Fellini once again cast Alberto SordiAlberto Sordi
Alberto Sordi, also known as Albertone, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian actor. He was also a film director and the dubbing voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian version of the Laurel & Hardy films....
in a major role. Intent on playing the lead, however, Sordi didn’t accept Fellini’s offer until later in production. Pegoraro’s skeptical distributors, far from closing the deal, demanded a clause in the contract banning Sordi’s name from theatrical posters. To make matters worse, Fellini also cast Leopoldo Trieste
Leopoldo Trieste
Leopoldo Trieste was an Italian actor, film director and script writer.Trieste was born in Reggio Calabria...
(the lead in The White Sheik
The White Sheik
The White Sheik is a 1952 film by Federico Fellini starring Leopoldo Trieste, Alberto Sordi, and Brunella Bovo.- Plot :Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda and Ivan Cavalli , arrive in Rome for their honeymoon...
fiasco) as the budding dramatist, and his brother Riccardo, a total unknown, to interpret his own role. Further unknowns included Franco Interlenghi
Franco Interlenghi
Franco Interlenghi is an Italian actor.He made his acting debut at 15 in Vittorio De Sica's 1946 Neorealist film Sciuscià....
and Leonora Ruffo who had just wrapped on The Queen of Sheba. Although Czech actress Lída Baarová
Lída Baarová
Lída Baarová was a Czech actress and mistress of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister.-Biography:...
had a cult following, she was more famous for her love affair with Nazi Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
than for any of her film roles. Fellini topped things off by casting Franco Fabrizi
Franco Fabrizi
Franco Fabrizi was an Italian actor.Son of a barber and a cinema cashier, he was a soap opera photo actor, for example, the fotoromanzo Arizona Kid, in the newspaper Avventuroso Film...
as Fausto, an actor who began his film career in 1950 with Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
's Chronicle of a Love but bombed two years later in Christ Passed by the Barn. Pressured by his financial backers — a Florentine business group and the Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
-based Cité Film, Pegoraro finally balked at the lack of a star. “Sordi makes people run away," he complained to Fellini. "Leopoldo Trieste is a nobody. Meet me half way - bring in a name."
To placate him, Fellini contacted Vittorio De Sica
Vittorio de Sica
Vittorio De Sica was an Italian director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement....
, hoping to convince the famous director of Bicycle Thieves
Bicycle Thieves
Bicycle Thieves , also known as The Bicycle Thief, is a 1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Luigi...
to play the part of Sergio Natali, the aging ham actor. When Fellini outlined the homosexual overtones of the role, De Sica accepted provided it was written with "a great deal of humanity". In the end, he rejected the offer, "concerned about being marked as actually gay". Fellini then decided that De Sica would have been "too nice, too fascinating, too distracting" and cast Achille Majeroni
Achille Majeroni
Achille Majeroni was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 73 films between 1913 and 1964.He was born in Syracuse, Sicily and died in Rome.-Selected filmography:* La damigella di Bard...
, a respected stage actor, in the part.
Filming and editing
Described as an "itinerant production", shooting was tailored to accommodate Sordi’s variety show schedule, requiring Fellini and his troupe to follow him from town to town across Italy. On tour in the Big Ruckus, Sordi rehearsed his role and was ready for filming during his hours off. Accordingly, when the actor toured FlorenceFlorence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, shooting began as an all-night party at the city's Teatro Goldoni in early December 1952. Supervised by production manager Luigi Giacosi whom Fellini first met while on location in Tripoli
Tripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...
during the war, and lensed by veteran cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Otello Martelli
Otello Martelli
Otello Martelli was an Italian cinematographer.Born in Rome, he began work in 1920. He collaborated with Roberto Rossellini, Alberto Lattuada, Federico Fellini, Alessandro Blasetti, Giuseppe De Santis, Vittorio De Sica and Pier Paolo Pasolini...
, the rushes served as the basis of the masquerade ball, a major sequence. With a break in production for Christmas, shooting resumed on January 15, 1953. Constrained by the shoestring budget, many scenes were shot in a natural decor. In Ostia
Ostia (quarter of Rome)
Ostia is a large neighbourhood in the XIII Municipio of the comune of Rome, Italy. Ostia is also the only municipio or district of Rome on the Tyrrhenian Sea and many Romans spend the summer holidays there. Sometimes it is confused with Ostia Antica, an archaeological area, that is nearby...
, a quay provided the winter setting for Fausto and his gang to wander around listlessly staring at the sea. In Fiumicino, the terrace of the Kursaal Hotel was the backdrop for the beauty pageant that opens the film. Accustomed to movies produced on promises, Giacosi maintained morale by ensuring that cast and crew dined in the best restaurants in the towns they visited.
Working with several cinematographers over a six-month period, Fellini developed a predominant camera style based on slow tracking shots that "match the listless, purposeless lives" of his characters. Zooms underscored dramatic events, most notably when Sandra falls ill at the beauty pageant, after the birth of her child, and when Francesco beats his wayward son.
With editor Rolando Benedetti, Fellini established a rhythm in which short sequences were separated by abrupt cuts while longer sequences used dissolves. The numerous brief and disparate episodes "governed by their own internal logic" were thus held together by a particular editing pattern. A freeze-frame was used to immobilize the young Guido, Moraldo’s friend, at the end of the film when he balances himself on a railtrack.
Critical response
Italy and FranceScreened in competition at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
on August 26, 1953, the film was awarded the Silver Lion by Italian poet Eugenio Montale
Eugenio Montale
Eugenio Montale was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975.- Early years :...
who headed the jury, along with a public ovation and acclaim from the majority of critics. "Belying all doubts about its appeal", the film opened on September 17, 1953 to both commercial and critical success.
Reviewing for La Stampa
La Stampa
La Stampa is one of the best-known, most influential and most widely sold Italian daily newspapers. Published in Turin, it is distributed in Italy and other European nations. The current owner is the Fiat Group.-History:...
, Mario Gromo argued that it was a "film of a certain importance because of its many intelligent moments, its sound portrayal of provincial life, and because it is the second film of a young director who evidently has considerable talent... The Italian film industry now has a new director and one who puts his own personal ideas before any of the customary traditions of the trade. Fellini's is a fresh approach". "It is the atmosphere that counts most in this unusual film," wrote Francesco Càallari of the Gazzetta del Lunedi, "an intensely human and poetical atmosphere altogether estranged from the provincialism of the setting... Fellini has something to say and he says it with an acute sense of observation... Here is someone apart from the other young directors of post-war Italian cinema. Fellini has a magical touch." First published 31 August 1953 in the Gazzeta del Lunedi (Genoa). After praising Fellini's Venice triumph, Ermanno Contini of Il Secolo XIX outlined the film's weaknesses: "I Vitelloni does not have a particularly solid structure, the story is discontinuous, seeking unity through the complex symbiosis of episodes and details... The narrative, built up around strong emotions and powerful situations, lacks solid organic unity, and at times this undermines the story's creative force, resulting in an imbalance of tone and pace and a certain sense of tedium. But such shortcomings are amply atoned for by the film's sincerity and authenticity." Arturo Lanocita of Corriere della Sera
Corriere della Sera
The Corriere della Sera is an Italian daily newspaper, published in Milan.It is among the oldest and most reputable Italian newspapers. Its main rivals are Rome's La Repubblica and Turin's La Stampa.- History :...
wrote: "I Vitelloni gives a graphic and authentic picture of certain aimless evenings, the streets populated by groups of idle youths... The film is a series of annotations, hints, and allusions without unity... With a touch of irony, Fellini tries to show the contrast between the way his characters see themselves and the way they really are. Despite its weaknesses, the film is one of the best in recent years." For Giulio Cesare Castello of Cinema VI, the film proved "that Fellini is the Italian film industry's most talented satirist, and an acute observer and psychologist of human behaviour. Like any good moralist, he knows how to give his story a meaning, to provide more than just simple entertainment".
Fellini's first film with international distribution, I Vitelloni did reasonable box office in England and North America while performing "huge in Argentina". Opening in France on April 23, 1954, it was especially well-received. André Martin of Les Cahiers du Cinéma insisted that by "virtue of the quality of the narrative, and the balance and control of the film as a whole, I Vitelloni is neither commercial nor does it possess those traits that usually permit a work of art to be consecrated and defined. With a surprising and effective sense of cinema, Fellini endows his characters with a life both simple and real". Film critic Geneviève Agel appreciated the maestro's symbolism: "Fellini films a deserted piazza at nighttime. It symbolizes solitude, the emptiness that follows communal joy, the bleak torpor that succeeds the swarming crowd; there are always papers lying around like so many reminders of what the day and life have left behind."
United States
I Vitelloni opened in the United States on November 7, 1956 to generally positive reviews. In his New York Times review, Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
reported that Fellini, with "his volatile disposition and a desire to make a stinging film... does certainly take a vigorous whiplash to the breed of over-grown and over-sexed young men who hang around their local poolrooms and shun work as though it were a foul disease. He ridicules them with all the candor of his sharp neo-realist style, revealing their self-admiration to be sadly immature and absurd. And without going into reasons for the slack state of these young men, he indicates that they are piteous and merit some sympathy too". For John Simon
John Simon (critic)
John Ivan Simon is an American author and literary, theater, and film critic.-Personal life:Simon was born in Subotica, Bačka, County of Bačka, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later, known as Yugoslavia . He is of Hungarian descent...
, Nino Rota's music was one "of the most brilliant features of the film... The first [of its two main themes] is a soaring, romantic melody that can be made to express nostalgia, love, and the pathos of existence... Slowed down, [the second main theme] becomes lugubrious; with eerie figurations in the woodwinds it turns sinister. The quicksilver changes in the music support the changing moods of the story".
The film was re-released internationally on the tenth anniversary of Fellini's death in 2003. For the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, Mick LaSalle noted that I Vitelloni was "a film of sensitivity, observation and humor - a must-see for Fellini enthusiasts and a worthwhile investment for everyone else. Those less taken by the maestro may find I Vitelloni to be a favorite among his works". Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
wrote: "In Italy, it remains one of Fellini's most consistently loved movies. It should be in America as well... If you still remember that terrific drunk scene, Alberto Sordi's pre-Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot is an American comedy film, made in 1958 and released in 1959, which was directed by Billy Wilder and starred Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and George Raft. The supporting cast includes Joe E. Brown, Pat O'Brien and Nehemiah Persoff. The film is a remake by Wilder and I....
drag tango or the way the little boy balances on the train track at the end, you should know that this picture plays as strongly now as it did in 1956 or whenever you first saw it. I know I had a ball watching I Vitelloni again. It reminded me of the old gang."
Influence
One of Fellini's most imitated films, I Vitelloni inspired European directors Juan Antonio Bardem, Marco Ferreri, and Lina WertmullerLina Wertmüller
Lina Wertmüller is an Italian film writer and director of aristocratic Swiss descent. In 1976, she became the first woman ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for Directing with the film Seven Beauties.-Biography:...
. It also had an influence on Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's Mean Streets
Mean Streets
Mean Streets is a 1973 drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin. The film stars Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. It was released by Warner Bros. on October 2, 1973...
(1973), George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
's American Graffiti
American Graffiti
American Graffiti is a 1973 coming of age film co-written/directed by George Lucas starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips and Harrison Ford...
(1973), Joel Schumacher
Joel Schumacher
Joel T. Schumacher is an American film director, screenwriter and producer.-Early life:Schumacher was born in New York City, the son of Marian and Francis Schumacher. His mother was a Swedish Jew, and his father was a Baptist from Knoxville, Tennessee, who died when Joel was four years old...
's St. Elmo's Fire
St. Elmo's Fire (film)
St. Elmo's Fire is a 1985 American coming-of-age film directed by Joel Schumacher. The film, starring Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Mare Winningham, is a prominent movie of the Brat Pack genre, and revolves around a group of friends that have...
(1985), and Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson is an American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television. His films include Good Morning, Vietnam, Sleepers and Rain Man.-Early life:...
's Diner
Diner (film)
Diner is a 1982 comedy-drama film written and directed by Barry Levinson. Levinson's screen directing debut, Diner is the first in his "Baltimore films", which also include the subsequent Tin Men, Avalon and Liberty Heights.-Plot:...
(1987), among many others.
Awards
Wins- Venice Film FestivalVenice Film FestivalThe Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
: Silver Lion; Federico Fellini; 1953. - Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists: Silver Ribbon; Best Director, Federico Fellini; Best Producer; Best Supporting Actor, Alberto Sordi; 1954.
Nominations
- Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion; Federico Fellini; 1953.
- Academy AwardsAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language FilmThe Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
: Oscar; Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen, Federico Fellini (screenplay/story), Ennio Flaiano (screenplay/story) and Tullio Pinelli (story); 1958.
External links
- I vitelloni selected scene at You Tube
- I vitelloni carnival scene at You Tube