Ginger and Fred: A Review (Review #1460)

GINGER AND FRED

Ginger and Fred is not often remembered as part of Federico Fellini's oeuvre, probably because it is less fantastical than what he is known for. While Ginger and Fred is more grounded in reality, it still has those Felliniesque touches that the director was known for. It is also a tender, sweet story of that beautiful thing called the past.

Thirty years after their heyday as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers impersonators, Amelia Bonetti (Giulietta Massina) aka "Ginger" returns to Rome to appear on We Are Proud to Present..., an Italian television Christmas special spectacular. This variety show features impersonators, interviews with guests eccentric and heroic and a cavalcade of oddities from dancing midgets to a cow who has anywhere from 15 to 18 tits.

Amelia is a bit appalled by the gaudiness all around her, but she also has hopes for her reunion with Pippo Boticella aka Albert Light aka "Fred" (Marcello Mastroianni). While Amelia has moved on, married and had children since she and Pippo broke up in every way, he looks disoriented and disheveled. Pippo is also displeased by what he sees as almost obscene television, yet can't help also be fascinated by the overtly sexual nature of television: both programs and commercials.

As they prepare for their special appearance, Amelia observes the sadness behind Pippo's outward frivolity as she learns that he may not be in the best of health. Despite this an a stumble by "Fred", they are a hit. However, especially for Amelia, this was a one-night only appearance, yet as they part at the Rome train station you sense an enduring love between Ginger and Fred.

Ginger and Fred is a very sweet, tender, nostalgic story about loss. Fred looks upon the guests on We Are Proud to Present... with more contempt than enjoyment. He is displeased that they will be followed by an admiral, finding the celebration of a war appalling. Yet he makes up randy verses about the girls hawking pizza. Ginger, however, is grounded in reality. She too finds a lot of this surprisingly tawdry, but unlike Fred accepts that things have changed. 

She for example is confused by a transvestite who thinks can get pregnant, but Ginger treats her with if not kindness at least respectfully. She is also proud of her work and is fully professional. She is clear on wanting to rehearse and the importance of it versus winging it. She is not one to hang on past glories, but also wants to journey at least once to the past, where Fred would sweep her in his arms.

Ginger and Fred also looks like a sly critique of Italian television and television in general. We Are Proud to Present... has a production crew thoroughly uninterested in the performers save for getting them on stage. Early on, a production assistant is clearly bored with all these "has-beens": her monotone voice, her lack of interest all make clear that for the television crew it's a job, not a calling.

We Are Proud to Present... does give Fellini a chance to show some grand visuals along with the opening Rome train station scene. You also have various characters speaking almost simultaneously. However, Fellini crafted a loving tribute to two of his best collaborators.

Massima is beautiful as Ginger. She crafts in her performance a woman aware of the present, reminiscent of the past but not a slave to it. She has doubts about appearing among the eccentrics to downright vulgar (among the guests on this Christmas special are a good-looking young Mafia boss and the creator of an edible underwear company who brought living models). However, Massima also makes Amelia a professional, one who is there to perform, and see her Fred one more time.

I couldn't help but wonder if when a punk rock wig is mistakenly placed on Ginger, if Fellini was making a subtle comment on how the present is tainting the past, but that's just me.

Mastroianni is equal to the task as Pippo/Fred. He shows that beneath an almost frivolous exterior is an angry man, hurt and haunted, mourning the loss of Amelia personally and professionally. We can see shades of the Continental charmer Pippo was, but also see the ill man that he is. It's never overtly stated whether Pippo is in poor health physically or mentally, but either way you see a man at the end and in his own way defiant.

Ginger and Fred may be a shadow Giulietta and Federico, a loving farewell to a time and place where grace and elegance were the norm. I found myself charmed by this sweet, simple story of old vaudevillians taking one last turn on the dance floor. More grounded than most Fellini films, Ginger and Fred is a charming story.

DECISION: A-

Variety Lights: A Review (Review #1453)

VARIETY LIGHTS

Variety Lights may not have the usual visual flourishes people associate with Federico Fellini, but little peeks of how he will move from Italian Neorealism to Felliniesque peer out from this charming albeit slightly sad story of the shadows that form in the glitz of showbiz. 

An unsuccessful travelling vaudeville troupe is finishing up their run in a small Italian village. One audience member, however, is enthralled with the show. Liliana (Carla Del Poggio) sees them as a chance to become a star and forces herself onto the troupe. The troupe's leader Checco Dal Monte (Peppino De Fillipo), once a major star now all but forgotten, soon becomes besotted by the pretty young thing. Less besotted are the other troupe members, in particular Checco's loyal lover Melina Amour (Guiletta Masina). 

Liliana does have some talent as a dancer, but what she really has is great beauty. She soon becomes the troupe's main draw with her mix of legs and face. A randy theater-loving lawyer invites the troupe to a lavish party, but Checco's jealousy causes him to break up a potential liaison and gets them all thrown out. Melina sees that Checco's obsession with Liliana has made him forget her and essentially the troupe.

Deciding to strike out on his own with his muse, Checco's efforts to cull old friends flops, with Liliana able to charm his old set to a career of her own onto bigger shows, albeit in small parts. This despite his own efforts to form a troupe of his own. Some time later, Liliana's bit part on a major stage, perhaps inadvertently, attracts more male eyes away from the aging female star. Checco finds himself back with his old troupe, where a chance encounter sees them literally depart in opposite directions. Despite his failure with Liliana, Checco spots another pretty young thing on the train, and his eyes soon light up, Melina again unaware.

Variety Lights is surprisingly gentle with the characters, almost loving. Checco is not portrayed as lecherous and I'd say not even pathetic in his barely concealed desires for Liliana. Instead, he comes across as a man brought low by fading fame who sees in Liliana a second chance at youth and regeneration. De Filipo makes Checco a mix of the arrogant and the tragic, a wonderful performance of someone trying to live on whatever past glory he had, with a curious sense of optimism about his future despite it long passing him by. 

Similarly, Del Poggio does not make Liliana into a vixen or coquette, or for that matter a scheming seductress using Checco to move forward. Far from it: she at times seems wide-eyed and if not innocent at least naïve about how the jolly nature of the show does not carry over into the backstage drama. A schemer would, for example, deliberately push herself to the center of attention and use her sex appeal to get her way. Liliana, conversely, is horrified when her costume shows her legs to the group of eager men. Even when it's made part of the show and the main attraction, she still shows a great deal of discomfort at the goings-on. 

A nice surprise is Masina as Melina, the loyal lover. She is a fascinating character: one who simultaneously regrets and enjoys her life in entertainment. Unlike the other troupe members she has plans for her retirement (she's saved money for a deli she wants to open with Checco). She stays with Checco and the troupe out of love and loyalty to both. Melina is the balance between Checco's dreams of reviving past glories and Liliana's dreams of future glories. 

Masina gives a beautiful performance in Variety Lights. She's surprisingly sexy as Melina, but we also see her genuine heartbreak when she observes Checco ignoring her pleas to help her lift the troupe's elderly manager, her lover lost in concentration with the younger, prettier Liliana.

Variety Lights is deftly directed by Fellini and Alberto Lattuada. Granted, it's hard to know exactly what the balance was in the directing, but I think we see elements of Fellini in certain scenes. There's a brief running gag of the troupe members being caught off-guard by a water drip just before they take to the stage, and a dance club scene where club-goers have to dance like people riding animals (the women on top of the men). There's also a moment when Checco walks away from Liliana's apartment to the sound of applause, an ironic comment on his failures.

Variety Lights is a love letter to those who travel from town to town to entertain people. Behind the jolliness of Luci del Varietà, the closing troupe number, there is actually quite a lot of sadness behind those glittering costumes and stage magic. Variety Lights is still within Italian neorealism in how it keeps things grounded and even a touch sad, but it also has bits of the more elaborate and surrealist work that Federico Fellini would eventually master. 

DECISION: A-

Nights of Cabiria: A Review (Review #685)

NIGHTS OF CABIRIA

I am a late convert to Federico Fellini. It took two viewing of 8 1/2 to convince me that he was truly an extraordinary filmmaker.  This isn't to say that on a certain level I still am not a die-hard unquestioning fan.  I still hold that probably after Juliet of the Spirits and definitely after Amarcord, Fellini became too self-indulgent in this visual esotericism, too willing to coast on his legend to make real movies in favor of being 'Fellini-esque'.   I came into Nights of Cabiria with less reluctance than I had with 8 1/2, and while I found it had a simply beautiful performance by Guilietta Masina, I also found it almost predictable in how the story was going to go.  Now, granted that might have been Fellini's whole intent, and I was emotionally moved, but I still felt that knowing how it would go kept me a bit removed from it.

Cabiria (Masina) is a happy hooker.  Plying her trade, she takes great pride in owning her own home (even if it is on the outskirts of Rome in an underdeveloped part of the continuously rebuilt city) and despite what life throws at her, she still keeps going.  We start with her boyfriend pushing her into the Tiber and running off with her purse, where she nearly drowns.  She is still mad even after her rescue, and not even her best friend Wanda (Franca Marzi) can get her in a good mood.

One night, she has a chance encounter with Alberto Lazzari (Amadeo Nazzari), a famous movie star who was dumped by his girl in front of her.  Partially out of frustration, partially because he needs someone, he picks Cabiria up and takes her to first a club, then his home.  She seems to perhaps found someone for her to go beyond turning tricks, but just as they are coming to making love, in comes the girlfriend.  Alberto rushes her into the bathroom, where she sleeps until she is able to sneak out with Alberto's help, declining his money.

She then tries to find faith in the Blessed Mother, but that's a bit of a wash when she finds she hasn't changed.  Finally, after taking in a magic show where she was hypnotized to talk about her great dream of marriage, she encounters Oscar D'Onofrio (Francois Perier), an accountant who was in the audience.  He tells her that her treatment on stage was terrible, but that he finds her enchanting.  Soon a lovely romance blossoms.  Oscar the Accountant tells her he loves her and wants to marry her.  Cabiria believes things have turned around at last.  She sells her home, bids a tearful goodbye to Wanda and goes with Oscar, only to find heartbreak, despair, but in the end, some hope...

Perhaps it was because at a certain point I sensed that this was not going to be a great romance, that we weren't going to get a true happy ending, that somehow history would repeat itself, that my desire to enjoy Nights of Cabiria ended.  I'm very conflicted about how the story turned out.  Part of me understands that we can't always have a 'happy ending', and that tragedy is part of life.

Part of me, however, so desperately wished that Oscar had turned out to be a genuinely decent man, or at least one that in the end, could not go through with the terrible plan he contemplated (pushing her off a cliff, which he didn't) and chose (taking the purse with her life savings, which he did).   It wasn't just because I happened to like Cabiria as a person: her sincerity, her unapologetic joie de vivre despite everything, or the fact that she longed for things prostitutes don't ever get: a happy home life as a wife and mother.   I WANTED a real happy ending for Cabiria, and perhaps Nights of Cabiria gave her something like that, as she found herself walking among revelers and smiling through her tears.

However, I found the whole thing sad, predictable, and so unfair. 

It brought to mind what my mother said about another Italian film, Life is Beautiful.  SPOILER ALERT.  Couldn't they let the father LIVE?, she asked.  Similarly I asked, 'couldn't she find real happiness?'  Why condemn such a nice, sweet person to such sadness?  It seems almost cruel, and while I figure that was the point I still felt quite bad.

I admire the beauty in Nights of Cabiria.  I admire Guilietta Masina's beautiful performance of our naïve hooker, who still finds joy in almost all situations, who still believes in love, who is at times prickly and unpleasant but who still wants to make her mamma proud.   Masina gives one of the most heartfelt and sincerest performances as Cabiria, this good girl in a bad world, whom you like and learn to love, whom you want to protect and make happy.

I admire the visual beauty in it, like when "Satan" leads her onto the stage for her to reveal her innermost hopes, or in the frenzy at the pilgrimage, or in the encounter she has with a man who feeds the homeless of Rome, living in caves.  I admire how Fellini led us to, if briefly, imagine the romance between the prostitute and meek accountant could possibly be real and true.  Yes, Fellini was a master, not just of the fantastical, but also of the Neo-Realism that the Italians were creating.

I think both Nights of Cabiria and I Vitelloni were his transitions from Neo-Realism to being Felliniesque (even if in my view he went overboard and was determined to be Felliniesque just FOR being Felliniesque, but that is for another time).

I found much to admire in Nights of Cabiria. It's certainly a beautiful film.  However, I could never get over whether or not I was suppose to know that Cabiria's nights were going to end in the cold light of day.  I am so conflicted on that that I could not bring myself to make it for me a true masterpiece.  I'm sure others will argue that it is, and I won't argue back.  However, I wish Cabiria could have had what she so longed for...

Who could resist that face?

DECISION: B+