Amarcord (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

if you are a felini fan and do not have this criterion edition of 'amacord', go get it. such amazing packaging, full insert...a mini biography of the filmmaker! just gorgeous. and of course for all those w/italian heritage that goes back to...sicily or napaliano circa the 50's, it is a valentine...as seen through the exaggerated lens and florid style of fellini. an excellent film and robust experience if you ask me and azon did so there it is.

Amarcord (1973) is yet another dive into a sort of fantasy/dreamlike and humorous take on a personal journey through an Italian village and its culture. Director Federico Fellini weaves together something that sort of feels and looks like a previous film, La Dolce Vita, but with less maturity. This film is really a comedy, and there’s enough goofiness to go around. This film is sort of all over the place, but symbolism, fantasy sequences, and beautiful cinematography will keep your interest. This film is like a combination of 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita— only in color. I will admit that it took multiple viewings to finally get onboard with this eccentric film. That said, it’s probably not for everyone, as it can be hard to follow at times. The Criterion Collection blu ray is something special— it contains several special features, and also has a 65-page booklet included. Criterion did a good job with the restoration process. If you’re a Fellini completist, then Amarcord fits the bill. If you’re just getting into Fellini films, I recommend starting with 8 1/2 or La Dolce Vita. Amarcord really isn’t the place to start.

Okay, I'll admit right off that I am not a Fellini fanatic. I haven't watched his work in the past with a critical eye, nor have I made a study of his habits, tendencies, world-view, etc. So I watched AMARCORD with essentially fresh eyes, knowing only that it was considered enough of a world classic to be presented on Bluray by Criterion.I'm not sure I understand why it's a classic. But it certainly was enjoyable. Full of unbridled energy, unconcerned with narrative coherence and clearly dedicated to celebrating naughty fun, AMARCORD is a visual feast. Allegedly, Fellini said "Amarcord" means "I remember"...but it does not. Much like the film feels very much like a recollection a childhood gone by...but clearly is NOT realistic. It is set in an Italian coastal village during the early fascist era (before WWII). We basically follow one year in the life of this little town. The camera focuses primarily on one extended family, but also visits with several other characters. I hesitate to use the word "character" since what most of the citizens of this town are is "caricatures." Each actor is a visual extreme. Whether the irate father who yells far more than is realistic (and has a HUGE mole on his bald head), or the garishly dressed town trollop...no one in the film rings quite true.The best I can describe it is: imagine a full grown man remembering the town of his youth, but using the world-view and libido of a teen aged boy who is simply dying to lose his virginity. AMARCORD is full of fart jokes, crude sex jokes, and has a teen's fixation on large breasts and general mischief. Apparently, this village was just a swirling mass of horny people! This is not to say that Fellini has made an art house AMERICAN PIE...the movie is too cunning to be dismissed so simply. It is so evocative of a "simpler" time...when bonfires were held in the village square to celebrate the arrival of spring, when the whole town puts to sea in rowboats with the hope of spotting a giant cruise ship coming by, when the church ran the moral show and when fascism was still mostly harmless pomp & circumstance. We feel the pride of the people in their town and in their country (still less than 100 years old at the time).As we follow the main characters around, we get to know them at small family gatherings, at major occasions, at weddings, at funerals, at school & work. The entire movie is a string of incidents, only held together because we're seeing the same people over and over. It's like we've been invited as guests for the year and our casual wanderings through the village sometimes take us to momentous happenings and other times to trivial scenes. And occasionally, a "professorial" character will ride on his bike into our view and speak directly to us...just as though we were tourists who needed a little perspective.AMARCORD simply does a fabulous job of capturing a time and place, as well as the character of that time & place. It rambles often, but never runs out of steam. It has great forward momentum all the time, and you never know what's going to happen next because it's a series of sketches. Visually, it's quite stunning (and the BluRay is awesome) and it features some great music. The performances are quite unrealistic, but they are all very consistent with the tone Fellini is clearly aiming for. The movie feels utterly loose and random...yet it is clearly under the director's complete control.To me, the "classic" label is a bit puzzling. It's a well-made film, but seems like such a trifle too. I don't really glean a "greater meaning " from it, nor do I find it to make some universal statement. It's too garish and specific for that. I give the film very high marks for achieving its own peculiar aims so well...but can't quite put it into the pantheon of 5-star films either.The Criterion edition is stellar (although the commentary and included essay don't really enlighten as to the meaning of the film...they focus more on Fellini, and how his life compares to the life on the film, and how the film fits his overall body of work). The video is superb and the sound is excellent. Subtitles are a little better than usual (sometimes Criterion has shockingly bad subtitles.)

Amarcord is an oddball film. It does not have a specific plot or story and there is not a main character with a purpose. Instead, we are introduced to an array of unique individuals each one with its own plots and conflicts. Amarcord follows the life of this town and the characters that populates it. Although there is no story "per se", the movie is very engaging and you'll never feel bored. One of the film merits is that fills the screen with unforgettable characters such as Gradisca, Titta, his parents, the priest, the narrator and more. Also the score by Nino Rota is amazing and enhances the whole experience.Unlike other films by Fellini, Amarcord is pure fun without much subcontext or political themes, the characters just live there, watch each other, tease each other, fight, laugh, etc. Many have said that this film is a biographical one but although it does contain elements that undoubtedly belong to Fellini's life, this film is a creation of his own with dream like sequences, surrealistic scenes and character exaggeration.Amarcord may not be Fellini's finest film but it surely his most delightful one and a true classic in its own right.Video & AudioAmarcord comes to BD courtesy of Criterion and, as expected, the results are spectacular. The transfer is very strong with superb detail, well reproduced colors and a well preserved grain layer that gives the film a natural look. Sometimes some mild noise creeps in the screen but it's nothing of serious concern. A fantastic transfer.The uncompressed monoaural soundtrack is also superb with astounding clarity and no signs of damage.Bonus FeaturesAmarcord comes with a healthy collection of bonus material that are very interesting to watch:First you have a very informative documentary with professors Peter Brunette and Frank Burke, they analize key scenes in the movie and deconstruct the characters in the film. You should hear it alongside the film."Fellini's Homecoming" is a great documentary dealing with the complicated relationship between Fellini and his hometown Rimini in which the film is partially based.Then you have an interesting interview with actress Magali Noel (Gradisca) in which she talks about her relationship with Fellini."Fellini's Drawings" are a collection of sketches that Fellini did during the production on Amarcord."Felliana" is a collection of publicity material for the film."Gideon Bachmann Interviews" are a series of interviews that Bachmann conducted with Fellini and his friends and family members.You also have a deleted scene, the trailer, an optional English language for the film and a restoration demonstration.A 64 page booklet is also included which features an essay by San Rohdie "Federico of the Spirits" as well as a collection of remiscences by Fellini called "My Rimini".Closing ThoughtsAmarcord is one of the many Fellini masterpieces and it's a must own film. It may not be a very complex film but is pure good quality entertainment. Is a must see for everyone. This Criterion BD features superb picture and sound and a lot of bonus features. This BD is Very Highly Recommended!!

ONe of Fellini's best and most celebrated films. Probably his most personal along with I Vitelloni, Giulietta degli Spiriti and 8 1/2.This is also the most rooted and inspired by his past and kid's life in the small town and countryside of northern italy, before he became one of the main narrator of Rome.Amarcord (meaning "my memories") is a mix of dream and rude reality, of peasant colorful habits and myths, of old fascist italy imaginery and artistic elaboration of youth and memory. Something made years after the events, and therefore filtered by a grown up man who saw much else while still feel he belongs to that age, a collective and personal one, where all seems to be suspended and there, and now is gone. Probably you will not appreciate some details and colors of the language and the manners that so clearly characterize the setting and people depicted in the film, but I would be really interested to see what's the point of view and vision of non-italian viewers.A great blu ray edition.

Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1973, 124')Amarcord is a 1973 Italian comedy-drama, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale about Titta, an adolescent boy growing up among an eccentric cast of characters in the fictional town of Borgo (based on Fellini's hometown of Rimini) in 1930s Fascist Italy. The film's title is Romagnol for "I remember". Titta's sentimental education is emblematic of Italy's "lapse of conscience". It skewers Mussolini's ludicrous posturings and those of a Catholic Church, which "imprisoned Italians in a perpetual adolescence", by mocking himself and his fellow villagers in comic scenes that underline their incapacity to adopt genuine moral responsibility, or outgrow foolish sexual fantasies.Federico Fellini (1920-1993) was a film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century. Amarcord won the 1975 Oscar for Best Foreign Film - his fifth after La Strada (1954), Le notti di Cabiria (1957), 8½ (Otto e Mezzo, 1963), I clowns (1970). The film was destined to be Fellini's last major commercial success. I have already written for amazon uk my reviews number 20 on La dolce vita (1960), 105 on Boccaccio '70‬ (episode Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio, 1962), ‬‬‬‬106 on Histoires extraordinaires (episode Toby Dammit, 1968), and for amazon us 50us on E la nave va (1983). Other major films are I vitelloni (1953), Roma (1972), Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976), and Ginger e Fred (1986).Released in Italy in December 1973, Amarcord was an "unmitigated success". Critic Giovanni Grazzini, reviewing for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, described Fellini as "an artist at his peak" and the film as the work of a mature, more refined director whose "autobiographical content shows greater insight into historical fact and the reality of a generation. Almost all of Amarcord is a macabre dance against a cheerful background".Russell Davies, British film critic and later a BBC radio host, compared the film to the work of Thornton Wilder and Dylan Thomas: "The pattern is cyclic... A year in the life of a coastal village, with due emphasis on the seasons, and the births, marriages and deaths. It is an Our Town or Under Milk Wood of the Adriatic seaboard, concocted and displayed in the Roman film studios with the latter-day Fellini's distaste for real stone and wind and sky. The people, however, are real, and the many non-actors among them come in all the shapes and sizes one cares to imagine."In his review, American senior critic Roger Ebert, noted: "It's also absolutely breathtaking filmmaking. Fellini has ranked for a long time among the five or six greatest directors in the world, and of them all, he's the natural. Ingmar Bergman achieves his greatness through thought and soul-searching, Alfred Hitchcock built his films with meticulous craftsmanship, and Luis Buñuel used his fetishes and fantasies to construct barbed jokeabout humanity. But Fellini... well, moviemaking for him seems almost effortless, like breathing, and he can orchestrate the most complicated scenes with purity and ease."I have here made an effort to keep this review to reasonable length. There is hardly anything to add. The plot alone would have taken a few pages - I suggest you see the film or get the dvd. If you are still curious, read it up in Wikipedia; I further suggest that, instead, I here list the cast, most of whom were not trained actors, in recognition of their performance. Grazie a tutti!Cast: Bruno Zanin as Titta, Magali Noël as Gradisca, hairdresser, Pupella Maggio as Miranda Biondi, Titta's mother, Armando Brancia as Aurelio Biondi, Titta's father, Giuseppe Ianigro as Titta's grandfather, Nando Orfei as Lallo or "Il Pataca", Titta's uncle, Ciccio Ingrassia as Teo, Titta's uncle, Stefano Proietti as Oliva, Titta's brother, Donatella Gambini as Aldina Cordini, Gianfranco Marrocco as Son of count, Ferdinando De Felice as Cicco, Bruno Lenzi as Gigliozzi, Bruno Scagnetti as Ovo, Alvaro Vitali as Naso, Francesco Vona as Candela, Maria Antonietta Beluzzi as the tobacconist. Story and Co-script: Tonino Guerra, Music: Nino Rota, Cinematographer: Giuseppe Rotunno, Film editing: Ruggero Mastroianni.

My all time favourite Fellini film. He picked his characters for their looks and eccentricities. The music (Nino Rota) is wonderful. Compared to some of the rubbish that is thrown up to us these days 'Amarcord' is quirky and entertaining. One to watch again and again. With the projection and sound facilities we have in cinemas now it would be worth another release - as would several of Fellini's works.

This is far and away the best of Fellini's films, though I haven't seen all of them. A hugely sensitive portrayal of the ups and downs of family life. Set in 1930s Italy but just as relevant today. Acting and direction are superb.

I thought it was wonderful when I first saw it in the seventies and on subsequent occasions, but now after 40 years it has lost its magic particularly as I have seen so many wonderful Italian films along the way some of which covered the same Mussolini period.As a " professional film critic" ( which i am not ) I can respect and admire it but am not moved.