Revisiting Fellini's "Amarcord" (1973)

Federico Fellini’s Amarcord (1973)[i] offers unique historical insight well before its time. Made in an autobiographical mode - the title literally means “I remember” - the film recounts the memories of growing up in the small Italian sea-town of Rimini in the backdrop of 1930s Fascist Italy. Following an episodic narrative structure (like most films of Fellini), the film teems with colourful characters, most of them being ordinary people, each with a story of its own to tell but the film is significantly without any single protagonist. While the characters live out their love, desire and fantasies in Rimini, one character stands out – a lawyer posing as the official historian of the municipality. Others are casually dressed but he is always impeccably, formally dressed and always addresses the camera (unlike others), eager to narrate the history of the small town by locating it in the grand tradition of the Roman Empire:

…The origins of this town are lost in the mists of time. In the Municipal Museum, there are stone implements…that date back to prehistoric times. I myself have found some graffiti of the Great Age on the walls of caves in Count Lovignano’s estate. Be that as it may, the first certain date is 268 BC, when this became a Roman colony… [Someone farts offscreen.] …The divine poets Dante, Pascoli and D’Annunzio and many others have sung praises to this land while numerous of its citizens have contributed greatly to the arts, science, religion and politics. [Someone farts again.]       

Not only is there a popular irreverence (expressed through scatological humour) towards the pompousness and absurdity of ‘official history’, the myriad lives affirm their existence, as it were, all of whom are part of that inclusive, utopian space of Fellini’s Rimini, far from the ramparts of Roman History.  Fellini is here, unselfconsciously and intuitively, doing postmodern history, displacing and subverting grander versions of History through sarcasm and irony and opening up the floodgates to innumerable micro-histories: his-story, her-story, histories. This is also the agenda at the heart of postcolonial historical practice.

When Rimini is enveloped by snow, the town historian in Amarcord, still under the spell of “monumental history”, rises to tell the ‘story’ again in grandiose terms:

This will go down as the Year of the Big Snow. Since the Ice Age, it never snowed so heavily in our town. It snowed in 1541, then in 1694...

By now, we know, the ‘historian’ is talking ‘baloney’. It is interesting that the only two characters in the film who talk directly to the camera are the town-idiot and the historian. The boys have to stop the historian by throwing snowballs at him.

---

Film Appreciation Course at NCPA, Bombay

Here are the outlines of the lectures that I shall deliver at NCPA through the month of August. In case you are interested in attending them, please register directly with NCPA by writing to Kavita Ogale kogale@ncpamumbai.com.

1^st Session: 7^th Aug, Sat, 2pm to 6pm – The Landscape of Cinema

Though certain kinds of cinemas have greater visibility than others, there is a vast diversity in the films made around the world. The general character of Hollywood cinema, ‘Bollywood’ and its relationship with ‘Indian Cinema’ and concepts such as ‘independent’, ‘parallel’, ‘regional’ and ‘world’ cinemas would be understood as stepping-stones for celebrating cinema in relation to the cultures and contexts from which they emerge.

2^nd Session: 8^th Aug, Sun, 2pm to 6pm – Visual Storytelling: Time and Space in Cinema

What is it in cinema that makes it unique from other forms? Is it a language with a certain grammar which we learn innately? Perhaps the better films are those that use this grammar more effectively by telling their stories visually rather than through words. If cinema fragments time and space and then brings them together, how does it manage to give us a coherent vision of an imaginary world seen through the window of the film screen?

3^rd Session: 14^th Aug, Sat, 2pm to 6pm – Evolution of Film Language and the Early Comedies

From its embryonic form in the closing years of the 19^th century, we trace the emergence of cinema through the early 20^th century until it grows into a dominant cultural form, both as art and industry. Some of the great filmmakers of the early years were comedians, many of whom have now been sadly forgotten. Films that we once saw as just hilarious are now perceived as works of great artists who explored and expanded the expressive power of cinema.

4^th Session: 15^th Aug, Sat, 2pm to 6pm – Understanding Story Structure in Films

What makes some stories more compelling than others? What dramatic devices do films often use to give ‘structure’ to a human experience that transforms character? There seem to be some general principles that work for films across cultures and these conventional notions of structure are referred as ‘classical’. However, wherever there are rules, there are exceptions. Is there any specifically ‘Indian’ way of telling stories? How does the Indian popular cinema draw upon the storytelling traditions in India?

5^th Session: 21^st Aug, Sun, 2pm to 6pm – American Cinema: Hollywood and the ‘indie’ film

Though film language was creatively explored in France, it was in USA that the cinema developed into a huge industry as early as 1919. While a few big corporations monopolised filmmaking and developed their own signature styles and dominated the world, the studio system gradually declined and took a different form. In resistance to the studio-system, there developed in America an off-Hollywood independent cinema tradition that subverts the mainstream and yet, it is from this alternative cinema that Hollywood continues to draw its fresh blood.

6^th Session: 22^nd Aug, Sat, 2pm to 6pm – Major European Film Movements

While in USA, cinema was primarily seen as an industry and films as consumer commodities, in Europe it has often been perceived as an art form and an expression of culture and history. Thus films often grew out of vibrant social, political and artistic movements that explored new avenues and deepened cinema’s engagement with the world. These pioneering movements had tremendous impact not only on Hollywood cinema but on cinemas around the world, including India.

7^th Session: 23^rd Aug, Sun, 2pm to 6pm – Mise-en-scène and Film Styles

Mise-en-scène refers to the articulation of cinematic space and defines the style of individual filmmakers. It involves almost everything that goes into the making of a shot: composition, movement of camera and characters, lighting, set design and sound design. Some films drive the story forward with every element in the frame contributing to that end while others invite viewers to pause and reflect on the compositional spaces of the narrative.

8^th Session: 30^th September, Sat, 2pm to 6pm – Concepts of genre and auteur

The idea of genre has defined Hollywood film production to a large extent where films are targeted at specific audiences who have certain expectations. Indian popular cinema, however, addresses its audience differently though it is increasingly embracing the concept. While the supremacy of genre obliges filmmakers to work within certain conventions, master filmmakers (auteurs) manage to transcend them and leave their signatures in terms of style and content on every film they make.

INDRANIL CHAKRAVARTY is Professor of Film Appreciation at Whistling Woods International in Mumbai’s Film City. He graduated in Film Direction from International School of Film & TV(EICTV) in Havana (Cuba) where he studied under the Nobel Laureate, Gabriel García Márquez. He was screenplay consultant for the European Union Cross-Cultural Programme. He has taught screenplay-writing and Film Appreciation at several universities and institutes in India and abroad. His book on Latin American cinema is now a reference text at several universities. He has also published a study of the Indian film industry and several essays in English, Spanish and Bengali. He was Manager of the Osians’ Film Archive and Convenor of the First All-India Screenwriters’ Conference held at FTII, Pune and has been on the jury of film festivals in Brazil, Mexico, Cuba and Spain. He is also the director of a foundation called ILACI (Indo-Latin American Cultural Initiative) which has exclusive collaborative arrangements with UNESCO and IberMedia and is currently producing a documentary series.