federico fellini

is my favorite director in the whole wide world. i love his images. i love his celluloid thoughts, fears, visions. i love the starkness of some of his scenes and i love the scenes where he goes overboard (which certainly outnumber the former). i love how MOST of his movies are autobiographical. i love gieulietta massina. i love nino rota (i have a TON of his music on my mp3 player. i can hear the music to giulietta now....)

a while ago i saw a few minutes of a film called Federico Fellini: Sono un gran bugiardo (fellini: i am a born liar). yesterday i was lucky enough to catch the tail end of it on showtime or hbo or cinemax (one of 'em). it's a documentary. an interview with fellini which occurred toward the end of his life, interspersed with scenes from his films and interviews with people fellini worked with.

i'm NOT going to name all of his movies. you should know most of them. if not, it is YOUR loss. and i mean that most sincerely. i AM going to mention my particular favorite; giulietta degli spiriti (juliet of the spirits). the star of the movie was guilietta masina, his wife. she starred in a lot of his movies. this was their masterpiece together though. i remember the first time i saw this movie. i was transfixed. i couldn't move. one of the great regrets of my life is i never got to meet him.