Editing Federico Fellini (section)

==Career and later life==
=== Early screenplays (1940–1943) ===
[[File:Federico Fellini.jpg|thumb|Federico Fellini during the 1950s]]
Retained on business in Rimini, Urbano sent his wife and family to Rome in 1940 to share an apartment with his son. Fellini and Ruggero Maccari, also on the staff of ''Marc'Aurelio'', began writing radio sketches and gags for films.

Not yet twenty and with Fabrizi's help, Fellini obtained his first screen credit as a comedy writer on [[Mario Mattoli]]'s ''[[Il pirata sono io]]'' (''The Pirate's Dream''). Progressing rapidly to numerous collaborations on films at [[Cinecittà]], his circle of professional acquaintances widened to include novelist [[Vitaliano Brancati]] and scriptwriter Piero Tellini. In the wake of Mussolini's declaration of war against France and Britain on 10 June 1940, Fellini discovered [[Kafka]]'s ''[[The Metamorphosis]]'', [[Gogol]], [[John Steinbeck]] and [[William Faulkner]] along with French films by [[Marcel Carné]], [[René Clair]], and [[Julien Duvivier]].{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=42}} In 1941 he published ''Il mio amico Pasqualino'', a 74-page booklet in ten chapters describing the absurd adventures of Pasqualino, an alter ego.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=35}}

Writing for radio while attempting to avoid the draft, Fellini met his future wife [[Giulietta Masina]] in a studio office at the Italian public radio broadcaster [[Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche|EIAR]] in the autumn of 1942. Well-paid as the voice of Pallina in Fellini's radio serial, ''Cico and Pallina'', Masina was also well known for her musical-comedy broadcasts which cheered an audience depressed by the war.
{{Blockquote|Giulietta is practical, and likes the fact that she earns a handsome fee for her radio work, whereas theater never pays well. And of course the fame counts for something too. Radio is a booming business and comedy reviews have a broad and devoted public.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=48}}}} In November 1942, Fellini was sent to [[Libya]], occupied by Fascist Italy, to work on the screenplay of ''I cavalieri del deserto'' (''[[Knights of the Desert (film)|Knights of the Desert]]'', 1942), directed by [[Osvaldo Valenti]] and Gino Talamo. Fellini welcomed the assignment as it allowed him "to secure another extension on his draft order".{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=70}} Responsible for emergency re-writing, he also directed the film's first scenes. When [[Tripoli, Libya|Tripoli]] fell under siege by British forces, he and his colleagues made a narrow escape by boarding a German military plane flying to [[Sicily]]. His African adventure, later published in ''Marc'Aurelio'' as "The First Flight", marked "the emergence of a new Fellini, no longer just a screenwriter, working and sketching at his desk, but a filmmaker out in the field".{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=71}}

The [[apolitical]] Fellini was finally freed of the draft when an Allied air raid over [[Bologna]] destroyed his medical records. Fellini and Giulietta hid in her aunt's apartment until Mussolini's fall on 25 July 1943. After dating for nine months, the couple were married on 30 October 1943. Several months later, Masina fell down the stairs and suffered a miscarriage. She gave birth to a son, Pierfederico, on 22 March 1945, but the child died of [[encephalitis]] 11 days later on 2 April 1945.<ref name="giannini">{{cite web |title=Amarcord In Rimini with Federico Fellini |url=http://www.casettaportaverde.it/Sito/Download_files/EN%20AMARCORD.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201018035040/http://www.casettaportaverde.it/Sito/Download_files/EN%20AMARCORD.pdf |archive-date=2020-10-18 |url-status=live |last=Giannini |first=Rita}}</ref> Masina and Fellini had no other children.<ref>Information on miscarriage and death from encephalitis cited in [[Tullio Kezich]], ''Fellini: His Life and Work'' (New York: Faber, 2006), pg. 74.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref> The tragedy had enduring emotional and artistic repercussions.<ref>{{harvnb|Kezich|2006|p=157}}. Cf. filmed interview with Luigi 'Titta' Benzi in ''[[Fellini: I'm a Born Liar]]'' (2003).</ref>

===Neorealist apprenticeship (1944–1949)===
After the Allied liberation of Rome on 4 June 1944, Fellini and Enrico De Seta opened the Funny Face Shop where they survived the postwar recession drawing caricatures of American soldiers. He became involved with [[Italian Neorealism]] when [[Roberto Rossellini]], at work on ''Stories of Yesteryear'' (later ''[[Rome, Open City]]''), met Fellini in his shop, and proposed he contribute gags and dialogue for the script. Aware of Fellini's reputation as Aldo Fabrizi's "creative muse",{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=78}} Rossellini also requested that he try to convince the actor to play the role of Father [[Giuseppe Morosini]], the parish priest executed by the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] on 4 April 1944.

In 1947, Fellini and [[Sergio Amidei]] received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of ''Rome, Open City''.

Working as both screenwriter and assistant director on Rossellini's ''[[Paisà]]'' (''Paisan'') in 1946, Fellini was entrusted to film the Sicilian scenes in [[Maiori]]. In February 1948, he was introduced to [[Marcello Mastroianni]], then a young theatre actor appearing in a play with Giulietta Masina.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=404}} Establishing a close working relationship with [[Alberto Lattuada]], Fellini co-wrote the director's ''[[Without Pity (1948 film)|Senza pietà]]'' (''Without Pity'') and ''[[Il mulino del Po]]'' (''The Mill on the Po''). Fellini also worked with Rossellini on the [[anthology film]] ''[[L'Amore (film)|L'Amore]]'' (1948), co-writing the screenplay and in one segment titled, "The Miracle", acting opposite [[Anna Magnani]]. To play the role of a vagabond rogue mistaken by Magnani for a saint, Fellini had to bleach his black hair blond.

===Early films (1950–1953)===
[[File:Fellini masina delpoggio lattuada 1952.jpg|thumb|Fellini, Masina, Carla del Poggio and Alberto Lattuada, 1952]]
In 1950 Fellini co-produced and co-directed with Alberto Lattuada ''[[Variety Lights]]'' (''Luci del varietà''), his first feature film. A backstage comedy set among the world of small-time travelling performers, it featured Giulietta Masina and Lattuada's wife, [[Carla Del Poggio]]. Its release to poor reviews and limited distribution proved disastrous for all concerned. The production company went bankrupt, leaving both Fellini and Lattuada with debts to pay for over a decade.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=114}} In February 1950, ''Paisà'' received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay by Rossellini, [[Sergio Amidei]], and Fellini.

After travelling to Paris for a script conference with Rossellini on ''[[Europa '51]]'', Fellini began production on ''[[The White Sheik]]'' in September 1951, his first solo-directed feature. Starring [[Alberto Sordi]] in the title role, the film is a revised version of a treatment first written by [[Michelangelo Antonioni]] in 1949 and based on the ''fotoromanzi'', the photographed cartoon strip romances popular in Italy at the time. Producer [[Carlo Ponti]] commissioned Fellini and [[Tullio Pinelli]] to write the script but Antonioni rejected the story they developed. With [[Ennio Flaiano]], they re-worked the material into a light-hearted satire about newlywed couple Ivan and Wanda Cavalli ([[Leopoldo Trieste]], Brunella Bovo) in Rome to visit the Pope. Ivan's prissy mask of respectability is soon demolished by his wife's obsession with the White Sheik. Highlighting the music of [[Nino Rota]], the film was selected at Cannes (among the films in competition was [[Orson Welles]]'s ''[[Othello (1952 film)|Othello]]'') and then retracted. Screened at the [[13th Venice International Film Festival]], it was razzed by critics in "the atmosphere of a soccer match".{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=128}} One reviewer declared that Fellini had "not the slightest aptitude for cinema direction".

In 1953, ''[[I Vitelloni]]'' found favour with the critics and public. Winning the Silver Lion Award in Venice, it secured Fellini his first international distributor.

===Beyond neorealism (1954–1960)===
[[File:Cinecittà - Teatro 5.jpg|thumb|[[Cinecittà]] – Teatro 5, Fellini's favorite studio<ref>{{cite web|title=Our flexible giant.|url=http://www.cinecittastudios.it/en/events/special-events/teatro-5|publisher=Cinecittà Studios|access-date=20 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921054032/http://www.cinecittastudios.it/en/events/special-events/teatro-5|archive-date=21 September 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>]]

Fellini directed ''[[La Strada]]'' based on a script completed in 1952 with Pinelli and Flaiano. It starred his wife [[Giulietta Masina]], [[Anthony Quinn]], and [[Richard Basehart]]. During the last three weeks of shooting, Fellini experienced the first signs of severe clinical depression.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=158}} Aided by his wife, he undertook a brief period of therapy with Freudian psychoanalyst Emilio Servadio.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=158}}

Fellini cast American actor [[Broderick Crawford]] to interpret the role of an aging swindler in ''[[Il Bidone]]''. Based partly on stories told to him by a petty thief during production of ''La Strada'', Fellini developed the script into a con man's slow descent. To incarnate the role's "intense, tragic face", Fellini's first choice had been [[Humphrey Bogart]],{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=167}} but after learning of the actor's lung cancer, chose Crawford after seeing his face on the theatrical poster of ''[[All the King's Men (1949 film)|All the King's Men]]'' (1949).{{sfn|Fava|Viganò|1995|p=79}} The film shoot was wrought with difficulties stemming from Crawford's alcoholism.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|pp=168–169}} Savaged by critics at the [[16th Venice International Film Festival]], the film did miserably at the box office and did not receive international distribution until 1964.

During the autumn, Fellini researched and developed a treatment based on a film adaptation of [[Mario Tobino]]'s novel, ''The Free Women of Magliano''. Set in a mental institution for women, the project was abandoned when financial backers considered the subject had no potential.{{sfn|Liehm|1984|p=236}}
[[File:Federico Fellini 56.jpg|thumb|Fellini during the filming of ''[[Nights of Cabiria]]'', 1956]]
While preparing ''[[Nights of Cabiria]]'' in spring 1956, Fellini learned of his father's death by cardiac arrest at the age of sixty-two. Produced by [[Dino De Laurentiis]] and starring Giulietta Masina, the film took its inspiration from news reports of a woman's severed head retrieved in a lake and stories by Wanda, a shantytown prostitute Fellini met on the set of ''[[Il Bidone]]''.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=177}} [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]] was hired to translate Flaiano and Pinelli's dialogue into Roman dialect and to supervise researches in the vice-afflicted suburbs of Rome. The movie won the [[Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film]] at the [[30th Academy Awards]] and brought Masina the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her performance.<ref>[[1957 Cannes Film Festival|Cannes Film Festival]]: Best Actress, Giulietta Masina; OCIC Award – Special Mention, Federico Fellini; 1957. {{cite web |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3550/year/1957.html |title=Festival de Cannes: Nights of Cabiria |access-date=2 August 2009|work=festival-cannes.com}}</ref>

With Pinelli, he developed ''Journey with Anita'' for [[Sophia Loren]] and [[Gregory Peck]]. An "invention born out of intimate truth", the script was based on Fellini's return to Rimini with a mistress to attend his father's funeral.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=189}} Due to Loren's unavailability, the project was shelved and resurrected twenty-five years later as ''[[Lovers and Liars]]'' (1981), a comedy directed by [[Mario Monicelli]] with [[Goldie Hawn]] and [[Giancarlo Giannini]]. For [[Eduardo De Filippo]], he co-wrote the script of ''[[Fortunella (film)|Fortunella]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://movieplayer.it/film/fortunella_21090/cast/|title=Cast del fil fortunella (1958)|access-date=21 November 2022|language=it}}</ref>

The [[Hollywood on the Tiber]] phenomenon of 1958 in which American studios profited from the cheap studio labour available in Rome provided the backdrop for photojournalists to steal shots of celebrities on the via Veneto.{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=122}} The scandal provoked by Turkish dancer Haish Nana's improvised striptease at a nightclub captured Fellini's imagination: he decided to end his latest script-in-progress, ''Moraldo in the City'', with an all-night "orgy" at a seaside villa. [[Pierluigi Praturlon]]'s photos of [[Anita Ekberg]] after an evening spent with the actress in a Rome night club provided further inspiration for Fellini and his screenwriters.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.spaziodi.it/magazine/n0210/vdb.asp?tag=FOTO&id=425|title=Pierluigi Praturlon – Il fotografo che riprese la dolce vita del cinema italiano|access-date=21 November 2022|language=it}}</ref>

Changing the title of the screenplay to ''[[La Dolce Vita]]'', Fellini soon clashed with his producer on casting: The director insisted on the relatively unknown Mastroianni while De Laurentiis wanted [[Paul Newman]] as a hedge on his investment. Reaching an impasse, De Laurentiis sold the rights to publishing mogul [[Angelo Rizzoli]]. Shooting began on 16 March 1959 with Anita Ekberg climbing the stairs to the cupola of Saint Peter's in a mammoth décor constructed at [[Cinecittà]]. The statue of Christ flown by helicopter over Rome to [[St. Peter's Square]] was inspired by an actual media event on 1 May 1956, which Fellini had witnessed.

''[[La Dolce Vita]]'' broke all box office records. Despite scalpers selling tickets at 1000 lire,{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=208}} crowds queued in line for hours to see an "immoral movie" before the censors banned it. At an exclusive [[Milan]] screening on 5 February 1960, one outraged patron spat on Fellini while others hurled insults. Denounced in parliament by right-wing conservatives, undersecretary Domenico Magrì of the Christian Democrats demanded tolerance for the film's controversial themes.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=209}} The [[Holy See|Vatican]]'s official press organ, ''[[L'Osservatore Romano]]'', lobbied for censorship while the Board of Roman Parish Priests and the Genealogical Board of Italian Nobility attacked the film. In one documented instance involving favourable reviews written by the Jesuits of San Fedele, defending ''[[La Dolce Vita]]'' had severe consequences.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=210}} In competition at Cannes alongside Antonioni's ''[[L'Avventura]]'', the film won the [[Cannes Film Festival|Palme d'Or]] awarded by presiding juror [[Georges Simenon]]. The Belgian writer was promptly "hissed at" by the disapproving festival crowd.{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=145}}

===Art films and dreams (1961–1969)===
[[File:Federico Fellini in the Seventies.jpg|thumb|Federico Fellini]]
A major discovery for Fellini after his [[Italian neorealism]] period (1950–1959) was the work of [[Carl Jung]]. After meeting Jungian psychoanalyst Dr. Ernst Bernhard in early 1960, he read Jung's autobiography, ''[[Memories, Dreams, Reflections]]'' (1963) and experimented with [[LSD]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sostanze.info/esperienza/fellini-e-l039sd|title=Fellini e l' LSD – sostanze.info|website=www.sostanze.info}}</ref> Bernhard also recommended that Fellini consult the ''[[I Ching]]'' and keep a record of his dreams. What Fellini formerly accepted as "his extrasensory perceptions"{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=224}} were now interpreted as psychic manifestations of the unconscious. Bernhard's focus on Jungian depth psychology proved to be the single greatest influence on Fellini's mature style and marked the turning point in his work from neorealism to filmmaking that was "primarily oneiric".{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=227}} As a consequence, Jung's seminal ideas on the ''anima'' and the ''animus'', the role of archetypes and the collective unconscious directly influenced such films as ''[[8½|{{Fraction|8|1|2}}]]'' (1963), ''[[Juliet of the Spirits]]'' (1965), ''[[Fellini Satyricon]]'' (1969), ''[[Fellini's Casanova|Casanova]]'' (1976), and ''[[City of Women]]'' (1980).{{sfn|Bondanella|1992|pp=151–154}} Other key influences on his work include [[Luis Buñuel]],{{efn|name=fellini-pettigrew-2003}} [[Charlie Chaplin]],{{efn|name=stubbs-2006}} [[Sergei Eisenstein]],{{efn|name=bondanella-1978}} [[Buster Keaton]],{{sfn|Bondanella|1992|p=8}} [[Laurel and Hardy]],{{sfn|Bondanella|1992|p=8}} the [[Marx Brothers]],{{sfn|Bondanella|1992|p=8}} and [[Roberto Rossellini]].{{efn|name=fellini-pettigrew-marx-brothers}}

Exploiting ''La Dolce Vita''{{'}}s success, financier Angelo Rizzoli set up Federiz in 1960, an independent film company, for Fellini and production manager Clemente Fracassi to discover and produce new talent. Despite the best intentions, their overcautious editorial and business skills forced the company to close down soon after cancelling Pasolini's project, ''[[Accattone]]'' (1961).{{sfn|Kezich|2006|pp=218–219}}

Condemned as a "public sinner",{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=212}} for ''La Dolce Vita'', Fellini responded with ''The Temptations of Doctor Antonio'', a segment in the omnibus ''[[Boccaccio '70]]''. His second colour film, it was the sole project green-lighted at Federiz. Infused with the [[surrealistic]] satire that characterized the young Fellini's work at ''Marc'Aurelio'', the film ridiculed a crusader against vice, interpreted by [[Peppino De Filippo]], who goes insane trying to censor a billboard of [[Anita Ekberg]] espousing the virtues of milk.{{sfn|Bondanella|2002|p=96}}

In an October 1960 letter to his colleague Brunello Rondi, Fellini first outlined his film ideas about a man suffering creative block: "Well then – a guy (a writer? any kind of professional man? a theatrical producer?) has to interrupt the usual rhythm of his life for two weeks because of a not-too-serious disease. It's a warning bell: something is blocking up his system."<ref>Affron, 227{{incomplete short citation|date=September 2021}}</ref> Unclear about the script, its title, and his protagonist's profession, he scouted locations throughout Italy "looking for the film",{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=159}} in the hope of resolving his confusion. Flaiano suggested ''La bella confusione'' (literally ''The Beautiful Confusion'') as the movie's title. Under pressure from his producers, Fellini finally settled on ''{{Fraction|8|1|2}}'', a [[self-referential]] title referring principally (but not exclusively)<ref>{{harvnb|Kezich|2006|p=234}} and Affron, pp. 3–4{{incomplete short citation|date=September 2021}}</ref> to the number of films he had directed up to that time.

Giving the order to start production in spring 1962, Fellini signed deals with his producer Rizzoli, fixed dates, had sets constructed, cast Mastroianni, [[Anouk Aimée]], and [[Sandra Milo]] in lead roles, and did screen tests at the Scalera Studios in Rome. He hired [[cinematographer]] [[Gianni Di Venanzo]], among key personnel. But apart from naming his hero Guido Anselmi, he still couldn't decide what his character did for a living.{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=160}} The crisis came to a head in April when, sitting in his Cinecittà office, he began a letter to Rizzoli confessing he had "lost his film" and had to abandon the project. Interrupted by the chief machinist requesting he celebrate the launch of ''{{Fraction|8|1|2}}'', Fellini put aside the letter and went on the set. Raising a toast to the crew, he "felt overwhelmed by shame… I was in a no exit situation. I was a director who wanted to make a film he no longer remembers. And lo and behold, at that very moment everything fell into place. I got straight to the heart of the film. I would narrate everything that had been happening to me. I would make a film telling the story of a director who no longer knows what film he wanted to make".{{sfn|Fellini|1988|pp=161–162}} The self-mirroring structure makes the entire film inseparable from its reflecting construction.

Shooting began on 9 May 1962. Perplexed by the seemingly chaotic, incessant improvisation on the set, Deena Boyer, the director's American press officer at the time, asked for a rationale. Fellini told her that he hoped to convey the three levels "on which our minds live: the past, the present, and the conditional — the realm of fantasy".{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=170}} After shooting wrapped on 14 October, [[Nino Rota]] composed various circus marches and fanfares that would later become signature tunes of the maestro's cinema.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=245}} Nominated for four Oscars, ''{{Fraction|8|1|2}}'' won awards for best foreign language film and best costume design in black-and-white. In California for the ceremony, Fellini toured [[Disneyland]] with [[Walt Disney]] the day after.

Increasingly attracted to [[parapsychology]], Fellini met the [[Turin]] antiquarian [[Gustavo Rol]] in 1963.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Gustavo Rol – Who was he?|url=http://2000-2013.gustavorol.org/who.htm|access-date=2021-08-09|website=2000-2013.gustavorol.org}}</ref> Rol, a former banker, introduced him to the world of [[Kardecist spiritism|Spiritism]] and [[séances]]. In 1964, Fellini took [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|LSD]]<ref>A synthetic derivative "fashioned to produce the same effects as the hallucinogenic mushrooms used by Mexican tribes". {{harvnb|Kezich|2006|p=255}}</ref> under the supervision of Emilio Servadio, his psychoanalyst during the 1954 production of ''La Strada''.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=255}} For years reserved about what actually occurred that Sunday afternoon, he admitted in 1992 that
<blockquote>...&nbsp;objects and their functions no longer had any significance. All I perceived was perception itself, the hell of forms and figures devoid of human emotion and detached from the reality of my unreal environment. I was an instrument in a virtual world that constantly renewed its own meaningless image in a living world that was itself perceived outside of nature. And since the appearance of things was no longer definitive but limitless, this paradisiacal awareness freed me from the reality external to my self. The fire and the rose, as it were, became one.{{sfn|Fellini|Pettigrew|2003|p=91}}</blockquote>

Fellini's hallucinatory insights were given full flower in his first colour feature ''[[Juliet of the Spirits]]'' (1965), depicting [[Giulietta Masina]] as Juliet, a housewife who rightly suspects her husband's infidelity and succumbs to the voices of spirits summoned during a séance at her home. Her sexually voracious next door neighbor Suzy ([[Sandra Milo]]) introduces Juliet to a world of uninhibited sensuality, but Juliet is haunted by childhood memories of her [[Catholic guilt]] and a teenaged friend who committed suicide. Complex and filled with psychological symbolism, the film is set to a jaunty score by [[Nino Rota]].

===Nostalgia, sexuality, and politics (1970–1980)===
To help promote ''[[Fellini Satyricon|Satyricon]]'' in the United States, Fellini flew to Los Angeles in January 1970 for interviews with [[Dick Cavett]] and [[David Frost]]. He also met with film director [[Paul Mazursky]] who wanted to cast him in a starring role alongside [[Donald Sutherland]] in his new film, ''[[Alex in Wonderland]]''.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=410}} In February, Fellini scouted locations in Paris for ''[[The Clowns (film)|The Clowns]]'', a [[docufiction]] both for cinema and television, based on his childhood memories of the circus and a "coherent theory of clowning."{{sfn|Bondanella|1992|p=192}} As he saw it, the clown "was always the caricature of a well-established, ordered, peaceful society. But today all is temporary, disordered, grotesque. Who can still laugh at clowns?... All the world plays a clown now."{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=224}}

In March 1971, Fellini began production on ''[[Roma (1972 film)|Roma]]'', a seemingly random collection of episodes informed by the director's memories and impressions of Rome. The "diverse sequences," writes Fellini scholar [[Peter Bondanella]], "are held together only by the fact that they all ultimately originate from the director's fertile imagination."{{sfn|Bondanella|1992|p=193}} The film's opening scene anticipates ''Amarcord'' while its most surreal sequence involves an ecclesiastical fashion show in which nuns and priests roller skate past shipwrecks of cobwebbed skeletons.

Over a period of six months between January and June 1973, Fellini shot the [[Academy Award|Oscar]]-winning ''[[Amarcord]]''. Loosely based on the director's 1968 autobiographical essay ''My Rimini'',{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=239}} the film depicts the adolescent Titta and his friends working out their sexual frustrations against the religious and Fascist backdrop of a provincial town in Italy during the 1930s. Produced by [[Franco Cristaldi]], the [[seriocomic]] movie became Fellini's second biggest commercial success after ''La Dolce Vita''.{{sfn|Bondanella|1992|p=265}} Circular in form, ''Amarcord'' avoids plot and linear narrative in a way similar to ''The Clowns'' and ''Roma''.{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=242}} The director's overriding concern with developing a poetic form of cinema was first outlined in a 1965 interview he gave to ''[[The New Yorker]]'' journalist [[Lillian Ross (journalist)|Lillian Ross]]: "I am trying to free my work from certain constrictions – a story with a beginning, a development, an ending. It should be more like a poem with metre and cadence."{{sfn|Bondanella|1978|p=104}}

===Late films and projects (1981–1990)===
[[File:Sandro Pertini David Donatello.jpg|thumb|Italian President [[Sandro Pertini]] receiving a [[David di Donatello]] Award from Fellini in 1985]]
Organized by his publisher [[Diogenes Verlag]] in 1982, the first major exhibition of 63 drawings by Fellini was held in [[Paris]], [[Brussels]], and the [[Pierre Matisse]] Gallery in [[New York City|New York]].<ref>{{harvnb|Kezich|2006|p=413}}. Also cf. [https://archive.today/20110613161040/http://www.warsawvoice.pl/view/13135/ The Warsaw Voice]</ref> A gifted caricaturist, he found much of the inspiration for his sketches from his own dreams while the films-in-progress both originated from and stimulated drawings for characters, decor, costumes and set designs. Under the title, ''I disegni di Fellini'' (Fellini's Designs), he published 350 drawings executed in pencil, watercolours, and felt pens.<ref>Fellini, ''I disegni di Fellini'' (Roma: Editori Laterza), 1993. The drawings are edited and analysed by Pier Marco De Santi. For comparing Fellini's graphic work with those of [[Sergei Eisenstein]], consult S.M. Eisenstein, ''Dessins secrets'' (Paris: Seuil), 1999.</ref>

On 6 September 1985 Fellini was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 42nd Venice Film Festival. That same year, he became the first non-American to receive the [[Film Society of Lincoln Center]]'s annual award for cinematic achievement.{{sfn|Bondanella|2002|p=7}}
[[File:Fellini Mastroianni 1990 Venice Film Festival 02 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Fellini rewards [[Marcello Mastroianni]] with the [[Golden Lion#Golden Lion Honorary Award|Golden Lion Honorary Award]] at the [[47th Venice International Film Festival]].]]
Long fascinated by [[Carlos Castaneda]]'s ''[[The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge]]'', Fellini accompanied the Peruvian author on a journey to the [[Yucatán Peninsula|Yucatán]] to assess the feasibility of a film. After first meeting Castaneda in Rome in October 1984, Fellini drafted a treatment with Pinelli titled ''Viaggio a Tulun''. Producer [[Alberto Grimaldi]], prepared to buy film rights to all of Castaneda's work, then paid for pre-production research taking Fellini and his entourage from Rome to [[Los Angeles]] and the jungles of [[Mexico]] in October 1985.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|pp=360–361}} When Castaneda inexplicably disappeared and the project fell through, Fellini's mystico-shamanic adventures were scripted with Pinelli and serialized in ''[[Corriere della Sera]]'' in May 1986. A barely veiled satirical interpretation of Castaneda's work,{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=362}} ''Viaggio a Tulun'' was published in 1989 as a [[graphic novel]] with artwork by [[Milo Manara]] and as ''Trip to Tulum'' in America in 1990.

For ''[[Intervista]]'', produced by Ibrahim Moussa and RAI Television, Fellini intercut memories of the first time he visited [[Cinecittà]] in 1939 with present-day footage of himself at work on a screen adaptation of [[Franz Kafka]]'s ''[[Amerika (novel)|Amerika]]''. A meditation on the nature of memory and film production, it won the special 40th Anniversary Prize at Cannes and the [[15th Moscow International Film Festival]] Golden Prize. In Brussels later that year, a panel of thirty professionals from eighteen European countries named Fellini the world's best director and ''{{Fraction|8|1|2}}'' the best European film of all time.{{sfn|Burke|Waller|2003|p=16}}

In early 1989 Fellini began production on ''[[The Voice of the Moon]]'', based on Ermanno Cavazzoni's novel, ''Il poema dei lunatici'' (''The Lunatics' Poem''). A small town was built at Empire Studios on the via Pontina outside Rome. Starring [[Roberto Benigni]] as Ivo Salvini, a madcap poetic figure newly released from a mental institution, the character is a combination of ''La Strada''{{'}}s Gelsomina, [[Pinocchio]], and Italian poet [[Giacomo Leopardi]].{{sfn|Bondanella|1992|p=330}} Fellini improvised as he filmed, using as a guide a rough treatment written with Pinelli.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=383}} Despite its modest critical and commercial success in Italy, and its warm reception by French critics, it failed to interest North American distributors.{{sfn|Segrave|2004|p=179}}

Fellini won the ''[[Praemium Imperiale]]'', an international prize in the visual arts given by the Japan Art Association in 1990.<ref>{{harvnb|Kezich|2006|p=387}}. The award covers five disciplines: painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theatre/film. Other winners include [[Akira Kurosawa]], [[David Hockney]], [[Balthus]], [[Pina Bausch]], and [[Maurice Béjart]].</ref>

===Final years (1991–1993)===
In July 1991 and April 1992, Fellini worked in close collaboration with Canadian filmmaker [[Damian Pettigrew]] to establish "the longest and most detailed conversations ever recorded on film".<ref>Peter Bondanella, Review of ''Fellini: I'm a Born Liar'' in ''[[Cineaste Magazine]]'' (22 September 2003), p. 32</ref> Described as the "Maestro's spiritual testament" by his biographer [[Tullio Kezich]],<ref>[[Tullio Kezich|Kezich, Tullio]], "Forword" in ''I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon'', 5. Also cf. {{harvnb|Kezich|2006|p=388}}</ref> excerpts culled from the conversations later served as the basis of their feature documentary, ''[[Fellini: I'm a Born Liar]]'' (2002) and the book, ''[[I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon]]''.

In April 1993 Fellini received his fifth [[Academy Awards|Oscar]], for lifetime achievement, "in recognition of his cinematic accomplishments that have thrilled and entertained audiences worldwide". On 16 June, he entered the Cantonal Hospital in [[Zürich]] for an [[angioplasty]] on his [[femoral artery]]{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=396}} but suffered a [[stroke]] at Rimini's [[Grand Hotel Rimini|Grand Hotel]] two months later. Partially paralyzed, he was first transferred to [[Ferrara]] for rehabilitation and then to the [[Policlinico Umberto I]] in Rome to be near his wife, also hospitalized. He suffered a second stroke and fell into an irreversible [[coma]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0120.html|title=Federico Fellini, Film Visionary, Is Dead at 73|website=archive.nytimes.com|access-date=24 February 2018}}</ref>