Amarcord

Amarcord

1973. Italy. Directed by Federico Fellini. Screenplay by Fellini, Tonino Guerra. With Pupella Maggio, Armando Brancia, Magali Noël. Screened with an additional 10 minutes of silent outtakes edited by Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), this Italian theatrical version of Amarcord—unlike the English-dubbed U.S. release—highlights Fellini’s use of multiple narrators and points of view. Filmed in Fellini’s seaside hometown of Rimini, where he made I Vitelloni in 1953, this affectionately grotesque fantasia about provincial life during the Fascist 1930s is filled with his usual gallery of broadly sketched eccentrics—the village idiot, the overripe mamma, the buffoonish collaborator—seen through a filter of personal reminiscence (the title means “I remember”) that makes this one of his most deeply felt films. And while its vaudevillian pleasures remain undimmed across the 42 years since it won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Amarcord is also a trenchant meditation on Italy’s national character, reflecting Fellini’s observation that “fascism and adolescence continue to be . . . permanent historical seasons of our lives.” Restored digitally by Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, with funding provided by yoox.com. In association with the City of Rimini, Cristaldi Film, and Warner Bros. In Italian; English subtitles. 123 min.