Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Fellini Satyricon (1969)

1/15/2020

Fellini Satyricon (1969) - Fellini's horny, ancient baccanale

♥♥♥♥

A delightfully brash and outrageous tagline accompanied by a great quote from the filmmaker and an unashamed picture of male homosexuality make up this incredible poster for Federico Fellini's Fellini Satyricon

At the time of Caesar's reign of the Roman Empire, we follow two merry young men at his court, who covet the same younger man and experience a serious of ... events ... on their journey ...

Fellini Satyricon is written by Bernardino Zapponi (Paprika (1991)), Brunello Rondi (Arabella (1967)) and Italian master co-writer/director Federico Fellini (The White Sheik/Lo Sceicco Bianco (1952)), adapting Petronius' Satyricon (54-68 AD).
The film is a nearly plot-free, psychedelic, dilly-dallying, carnevalic endeavor, - and perhaps the horniest motion picture ever made?
Fellini Satyricon is naughty and very elaborate, absolutely among the strangest and most transgressive of 1969's cinema trips. It is visually extraordinary, (cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno (Julia and Julia (1987))), at times arousing, and it has an ending in which the lustful gathering in posterity only exist on crumbling frescoes, which is highly moving. Fellini Satyricon makes it hard to fathom that Fellini wasn't gay, (no doubt he must have had a vivid bisexual side at least.)

Related posts:

Federico Fellini: Top 10: The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
8½ (1963) or, Vive la Cinema!
Top 10: The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
La Dolce Vita (1960) - Fellini's immortal masterpiece
Nights of Cabiria/Le Notti di Cabiria (1957) - Fellini serves private infatuation as incredible masterpiece

Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: Reportedly 8 mil. $ outside of Italy
= Uncertain, but certainly a box office success
[Fellini Satyricon premiered 3 September (Rome, Italy) and runs 129 minutes. Shooting took place in Italy, including Rome, from November 1968 - May 1969. Fellini has said about his goal with the film; "to eliminate the borderline between dream and imagination: to invent everything and then to objectify the fantasy; to get some distance from it in order to explore it as something all of a piece and unknowable." Another Satyricon was made in Italy also in 1969; Fellini's producer Alberto Grimaldi sued to stop that film but lost, and Fellini's film was retitled to Fellini Satyricon to distinguish it from the other. The film's Venice Film Festival screenings inspired wild praise and hype, with tickets reportedly selling on the black market for prizes upwards of 100 $. The film made 1.4 mil. $ in rentals in North America, and was reportedly a big hit in France, Japan and Italy. The Italian gross is not included in the figure listed above but could likely be anywhere from 1-3 mil. $, which could possibly make the film rank as a big hit. The film was Italy's entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar but went unnominated in 1970; however, Fellini was nominated as Best Director for it in 1971 instead, losing to Franklin J. Schaffner for Patton. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe and won an award in Venice, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/6 star review, translating to 2 notches higher than this one. Fellini returned with The Clowns/I Clowns (1970, TV documentary) and theatrically with Roma (1972). Fellini Satyricon is fresh at 76 % with a 6.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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1/15/2020

Fellini Satyricon (1969) - Fellini's horny, ancient baccanale

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