xy
@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023
“It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
"Fidelity"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)
“Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
"Poets"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)
“Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
On the autobiographical nature of his films, in The Atlantic (December 1965)
“If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet… maybe we could understand something.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
“If I'm a cruel satirist at least I'm not a hyprocrite: I never judge what other people do.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
"Hypocrisy"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)
Context: If I'm a cruel satirist at least I'm not a hyprocrite: I never judge what other people do. Neither a politician nor a priest, I never censor what others do. Neither a philospher nor a psychiatrist, I never bother trying to analyze or resolve my fears and neuroses.
“Everyone knows that time is Death, that Death hides in clocks.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
Imposing another time powered by the Clock of the Imagination, however, can refuse his law. Here, freed of the Grim Reaper's scythe, we learn that pain is knowledge and all knowledge pain.
"Death"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
"Every Time We Say Goodbye" in Sight and Sound [London] ( June 1991)
Context: What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one... It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one — which is really the realm of the artist.
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
As quoted in Rolling Stone no. 421 (1984)
Context: Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.
“Art is all about craftsmanship.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
"Craftsmanship"
I'm a Born Liar (2003)
Context: I discovered that what's really important for a creator isn't what we vaguely define as inspiration or even what it is we want to say, recall, regret, or rebel against. No, what's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters.
“All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker
On the autobiographical nature of his films, in The Atlantic (December 1965)
“The only place where you can be a dictator and still be loved is on the movie set”
Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker