Fellini's Casanova. DAMN YOU, FELLINI!!!
I've been raking him over the coals in all of my film classes over the past couple of years because I hated La Strada, can't stand when women are dubbed, and thought 8 1/2 was nice but not something I have to see over and over and over again.
From everything I'd heard and seen of his work, I just kept thinking of Heir Mozart's critique of Italian Opera: "All those sopranos running about screeching, that's not love."
But then this vile vermin who I had stamped into the ground with a constant contempt, had within his filmography this little gem which is not available in the US but just so happened to be playing at the Castro Theatre tonight.
I was drawn into it immediately and it would not let me go. I was caught up in Giacomo's unending string of lovers which tossed him about the world. Fellini gave me a world of imagination and a love note to love and lust and conquest and the futility of that constant chase. We watch a young Donald Sutherland romp around Europe seeing these places at a time leading up to the blurring of the class system. Each one is a sort of pastiche of frantic insanity that acts a portrait of that country's stereotypes. Germany, and Casanova's run-in with Spain are both very memorable, and his stay in Switzerland cemented this films greatness for me.
In all honesty, the only film I can compare this to is Amadeus in my shear love for it. Every scene drips with love and beauty. DAMN YOU FELLINI!
Don't know how you can find a way to see it, but you really should.
I have not wanted to apologize this much since There Will Be Blood (although I still hate Magnolia).
So, as it stands, the list of people who I need to apologize to are:
1) Almondovar - Talk to Her
2) Anderson - There Will Be Blood
3) Fellini - Casanova
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