SpyVibe: nino rota

New release: Essential Fellini. The Criterion Collection made a very exciting announcement today! They have created a massive 4K-restoration project celebrating director, Federico Fellini! This gorgeous box set will include 14 films: Variety Lights, The White Sheik, I vitellone, La Strada, Il Bidone, Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, Roma, Amacord, And the Ship Sails On, and Intervista. Many of these films, especially the early titles and Juliet (yes!), will see their first Criterion hi-def editions. Additionally, Il Bidone and Intervista (see Marcello dress up as Mandrake and reunite with Anita Ekberg!) will be new to Criterion's catalog. Not included: "Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio" from Boccaccio 70, The Clowns, Casanova, Orchestra Rehearsal, City of Women, Ginger and Fred, and The Voice of the Moon. Hopefully we'll see those added eventually (Viewers can find some of these released by other distributors, but I often prefer Criterion's treatment). In terms of special features, we have a lot to look forward to, not least of which is Fellini's outstanding short, Toby Dammit, starring Terence Stamp, from Spirits of the Dead. I'll add the full list of goodies below. This box set arrives in November. If you have never explored Fellini's work, you are in for a truly amazing experience He made his start drawing cartoons and working on scripts, and then made a really profound journey as a director from Neo-Realist dramas to unique cinematic flights of imagination, often combining memory, dream, and fantasy into his narratives. They are all exceptional works, but for Spy Vibers starting out, I would suggest looking at La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and Toby Dammit. As far as I can remember, Juliet of the Spirits was the first foreign-language movie I ever saw -I was around twelve years old- and it both intrigued and frightened me (a lot!). I then rediscovered his work in High School and became a huge film history buff. We had a really influential English and Drama teacher at the boarding school I attended and he showed us a number of Fellini films- much easier to process as an older teenager! I then ran two film series in college, became a film series programmer and founder as an adult, and eventually created Spy Vibe- and I think it all started by seeing Fellini (and some Chaplin, to be fair) as a kid. I should also shout out the wonderful and essential soundtracks by Nino Rota, who was Fellini's long-term collaborator. Please join me in applauding The Criterion Collection for crafting this set for us. More details at Criterion. Read Tim Lucas' book about Toby Dammit (and Spirits of the Dead). Enjoy!

NEW 4K RESTORATIONS OF 11 THEATRICAL FEATURES, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks for all films
NEW DIGITAL RESTORATIONS of the short film Toby Dammit (1968) and the television film Fellini: A Director's Notebook (1969), with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
Feature documentaries Fellini: I'm a Born Liar (2002) and Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember (1997), the latter presented in its 193-minute version
Two-hour, four-part 1960 interview with director Federico Fellini by filmmaker André Delvaux for Belgian television
Four behind-the-scenes documentaries: Reporter's Diary: "Zoom on Fellini" (1965), Ciao, Federico! (1969), The Secret Diary of "Amarcord" (1974), and Fellini racconta: On the Set of "And the Ship Sails On" (1983)
Fellini racconta: Passegiatte nella memoria, a 2000 documentary featuring interviews with a late-in-life Fellini
Giulietta Masina: The Power of a Smile, a 2004 documentary about Fellini's wife and frequent collaborator
Once Upon a Time: "La dolce vita," a French television documentary about the film
Audio commentaries on six of the films
Program from 2003 on Fellini's 1980s television advertising work
Archival interviews with Fellini stars and collaborators, including Mastroianni, Sandra Milo, Anouk Aimée, and Magali Noël
Archival audio interviews by film critic Gideon Bachmann with Fellini, Mastroianni, and Fellini's friends and family
Video essays, trailers, and more
PLUS: Deluxe packaging, including two lavishly illustrated books with hundreds of pages of content: notes on the films by scholar David Forgacs, essays by filmmakers Michael Almereyda, Kogonada, and Carol Morley; film critics Bilge Ebiri and Stephanie Zacharek; and novelist Colm Tóibín, and dozens of images spotlighting Don Young's renowned collection of Fellini memorabilia.

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New release: Toby Dammit. Nino Rota's rare score for Fellini's Toby Dammit will be released soon as a limited-edition vinyl LP. Part of the Spirits of the Dead omnibus project and "liberally adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's Never Bet The Devil Your Head, Federico Fellini's Toby Dammit was shot in twenty-six days over the winter of 1967-68, at the experimental film center near Cinecetta in Rome. It is an extraordinary piece of genuine film psychedelia, and rightly regarded to be amongst the director's finest work. The film was originally intended to be part of a Poe homage with contributions also from Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles. In the event, Fellini's co-directors would be Louis Malle and Roger Vadim. Nino Rota's labyrinthine music is complimented here by Ray Charles performing Ruby (It's You) which is used eloquently in a scene at the awards ceremony."

The film itself is a wonderful time capsule of the period. 1967-1968 saw an interesting transition from the Mod aesthetics of the early-mid decade toward psychedelia and signs of social unrest. Examples of the shift could be seen in projects such as Danger Diabolik, The Prisoner, The Monkees 'Head', Easy Rider, Barbarella, Wonderwall, Casino Royale, Naked Under Leather (Girl On a Motorcycle), The President's Analyst, and Yellow Submarine. In Toby Dammit Terence Stamp portrayed an actor, seemingly pushed over the edge from success -and excess- who was brought to Italy to participate in a ceremony. Fellini's images concocted a feverish nightmare wrapped in vibrant colors and stylish fashion and technology. He had achieved a new level of colorful fantasy in Juliet of the Spirits (1965), and Toby Dammit showed the director at the height of his exploration of cinema as montage of cartoon/distilled graphics. This quality was made even more dramatic in the film by his use of stark textures and minimal set designs. The first third of the film glowed in amber futurism, with images of modern airport architecture and sci-fi globe monitors, and then gave way to a colder color palette as the protagonist sank deeper into his nightmare. It's was really a mini masterpiece. Check it out if you haven't seen it yet! The soundtrack record will be available from the Bella Casa label on Feb 26th in Europe and on March 4th in the US. More info at Amazon and AmazonUK. You can preview the music here. The film is available on DVD from Amazon here. Related posts: The 1968 Exhibit, Set For Adventure, Casino Royale Book, Wonderwall Blu-ray, Barbarella Returns, The Prisoner and Captain Scarlet Anniversary, Danger Diabolik Soundtrack, Tazio Secchiaroli.