Big Movie. Lot to it. Missed half of what was going on. I'm not sure what it was, but my focus in the film was flip-flopping between different things inside of it the entire time. At times, I'm trying to pay attention to visual aspects and then I'd start focusing on the story and then I'm watching the interactions between characters. There was enough to take in that it was kinda hard to analyze what I was watching without getting interrupted by something new. It was almost like too much was important. It was also hard because because everything kept changing like first it's about some American actress and then we're watching a crowd chase around a couple kids who say they've seen a religious figure.
Marcello is the one character that left me questioning. I was never sure what he was doing or who he loved or if he even knew himself. However, how he is viewed visually conflicts with the normal view of the main character. Generally, you see the "hero" fighting for one person throughout the movie but Marcello is always inconclusive. Even physically he messes with the views of how we see romances. Anytime he is with a woman, he always ends up too close trying to kiss her. It plays with the idea of the romantic moment where the couple of the film ends up inching closer for the first kiss. However, it's always him trying to move closer while the girl is generally apathetic to the situation. After seeing it time and time again in the film, it starts to desensitize us to the moment. It eventually reaches a point where there is no romance and it makes him just look like a creep. It strains the concept of romance and flips the view on that particular situation.
I had trouble finding anything else in the film. However, I had conflicting ideas with the reading. The main idea was that people that the film made fun of Italy and religion. In the review, he talked about how it was actually the other way around and this is what I disagree with. They say it isn't making fun of religion and yet we see everyone chasing kids around with them giggling and playing. It makes it out to be a child's game made from their imagination. It feels like a direct shot a Christianity like it's all just a child's ideas. He also makes people look like idiots as people are dying they're just leaving them all on the ground outside hoping these children will save them in some way. It makes it seem like they want someone else to solve their problems.
Overall it was an entertaining movie for me, but I missed alot of ideas they put forth. I think it would have helped had the group had time to discuss the film as I would be able to get different views and opinion on different scenes. However, of my own ideas I wasn't able to pull much from it.
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I totally agree with you. There was a lot to this movie and a class disscussion would have been really cool to hear, esp. for this particular movie. I love what you say in comparison to the reading and the movie. I felt the same exact way. The movie did make fun of Christanity in a sense. In the scene in which the two children confessed to seeing the virgin Mary. The fact that it was portrayed as a child's game as they ran around aimlessly giggling and claiming the direction of Mary.
ReplyDeleteEven though you say you didn't get much out of the film, you have some good ideas here. I agree with you about Marcello, we look for more in him because he is the main character but he he just became more and more shallow. It was definitely disappointing in the romantic aspect, which you wouldn't expect from an Italian film.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about how much there really was going on in this movie; hence, I didn't blog on it. I also like what you said about Marcello because I thought a lot of the same things about him. I never knew what he was going to do next and for the most part I don't think he knew himself. It also seemed he loved another women every moment. He was disappointing for me as a main character. The whole movie was all over the place for me too because even though Marcello was one of the main characters, it jumped to the American actress and to different scenes and was pretty confusing.
ReplyDelete>>I was never sure what he was doing or who he loved or if he even knew himself.
ReplyDeleteI think you nailed it here. This is pretty much exactly what Marcello's story is about. What I really love about reading everybody's blog, especially this time when we didn't have discussion, is that you have really good insights anyway. Pasolini was arguing that although the movie seemed to make fun of Catholicism, that the way that Fellini showed such extreme oppositions between innocence and corruption shows that the underlying morality of the movie was ultimately grounded in Catholicism.
I agree, there was a lot to look at in this movie, and it takes more than one viewing sometimes to take it all in. It's much easier the second time (should you have another occasion, of course.) :-)