Intervista (1987) User Reviews

Elegiac "rememberance" of times past, great companion piece to "Amarcord"

[roger-212 · 8/10 · 26 May 2005]

An elegiac look-back by the Maestro on where his films were shot (Cinecitta), Intervista has the most meta-fictional plot devices Fellini's used yet.

--It features Fellini himself, shooting a film "recounting" a location (as in "Roma") but here he is more forefront. --The rather casual stream-of-consciousness meandering of the happenings hearkens to "Amarcord," which is similar to this, with a wistful look back on the past, with fascists, bus rides, buxom women, etc. "Intervista" truly seems like an alternate draft of "Amarcord" with Fellini personally added. --The "young Fellini" going on an interview, being shot by Fellini during an interview in present day, and the playful and insistent 3rd-wall being broken every so often.

--And of course Marcello and Anita as themselves.

For fans of Fellini, this is an absolute must-see. Its reflection on his work, himself, and making films makes it one of the most playful, subversive, and autobiographical films in Fellini's late career.

(Originally a t.v. production, it displays a smaller scale that can only be attributed to the budget (too bad) and a need to make things "play" on a smaller screen. Although very similar to "A Director's Notebook", another filmic essay (that was a rough draft for "Roma"), this one is more assured and stands on its own. )

In Which Fellini does for Cinecitta what he did for Rome in "Roma"

[Krustallos · 7/10 · 28 September 2004]

"Intervista" means interview and naturally that's not at all what this is.

Fellini does start off with a fictional interview with a Japanese TV crew but the movie develops to include a recreation of his own first trip to Cinecitta (as a journalist to interview a famous actress), a look at the process of making a Fellini film, reminiscences of his own previous movies, cinema in general and the music of Nino Rota, sideswipes at TV and advertising and the silly questions asked by journalists.

We jump about between several layers of 'reality' - the fake 'interview', the '30's recreation, the creation of that recreation, real people playing more or less fictionalised versions of themselves. At one point we have Fellini-surrogates Mastroianni and Rubini, and Fellini himself, all in a car together.

The film lacks the epic sweep and spectacle of "Roma", perhaps due to its genesis as a TV film, and much of it will mean little to those unfamiliar with Fellini's earlier work. Nonetheless, there is much to enjoy, from Rubini and Mastroianni's discussion of masturbation, through the scenery-painters' rather blunt dialogue, to the rightly acclaimed and very poignant scene of Mastroianni and Ekberg revisiting "La Dolce Vita".

In fact the Mastroianni/Ekberg scene probably sums up the whole film - a wistful look back at past glories and a perhaps rather rueful look at where Fellini, and the rest of us, had arrived at by 1987.

a magic, nostalgic film

[jaapparqui · 8/10 · 13 April 2003]

Intervista is one of the best films I've ever seen. The strong sense in all Fellini films that reality is like a big, sad circus is even stronger in this film because fact and fiction, past and present become so confused. The fictitious carnival appears to be reality. And isn't that maybe quite a realistic view?

There is not only the usual sense of nostalgia: because the film looks back at decades of Fellini nostalgia, the nostalgia is double. Who can watch the older Anita and Marcello looking back at La Dolce Vita with dry eyes? The only possible critic could be that the film is, like all Fellini movies, little coherent, but then, isn't that as well like life itself?

Intervista maybe isn't the most famous Fellini films, it certainly is one of the better ones and with that one of the best films in cinematographic history.

To sum up a life of film making

[batzi8m1 · 8 November 1999]

So to sum it all up, Fellini seems to be saying in this film, he lived for movies. Like a long train ride as a passenger, a lover, a player, a commentator he lived through it all and had his moments. When Marcello Mastroianni says to Anita Eckberg while watching the fountain scene from La Dolce Vita with the party at her mansion that for one moment they made magic, it seemed to sum it all up. For the actors, the film maker and for us the audience, there were moments that were magic. This film is a great movie makers collage of his memories of his life. If it had been cinematic itself it would have taken away from the message. Life at its very best can yield a few magic moments, and those lucky enough to make those moments of magic can appreciate the rest of it all that serves as the backdrop. Like the film studio around which Fellini's life revolved and which gave him all those great memories he shared with us here.

Last Tarantella in Cine Cita...

[ElMaruecan82 · 7/10 · 30 August 2020]

I concluded my "Ginger and Fred" review saying the experience was worth all the weirdness if only for that final reunion reunion between Fellini fetish actors Giuletta Masina and Marcello Mastroianni. After watching "Intervista", I can make exactly the same statement. The film isn't without flaws, Fellini's tendency to swing from one perspective to another can be frustratingly disorienting, even for viewers used to his anarchic style and who aspires from some semblance of coherence. The film also doesn't have the same pace than "Ginger and Fred" with two characters being like narrative backbones and making any kind of intermission useless (while "Intervista" is full of them) but for all these imperfections, "Intervista" was worth my time for one particular sequence.

Near the end of the film, there's a magnificent and emotional moment when Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni are watching sequences from "La Dolce Vita" on an improvised big screen and there was no way their emotion was acted or feigned, Anita's tears were those of a once beautiful woman who realizes how time passes and her smile and childish eyes still carry that joyful spirit and innocent lust that took her to that iconic midnight bath in the Trevi fountain. And her chemistry with Marcello "Come here" Mastroianni was still there; watching that scene where he asked for a grappa, I knew their complicity was genuine, the merit of great actors is to know when they don't need to act.

And the genius of Fellini is to know when he doesn't even need to direct, just reuse some footage from a previous classic and the magic operates. For that scene only, for these little five minutes, "Intervista" is certainly a movie I would recommend to a fan of Fellini, not a newbie for it takes a certain knowledge of his work to fully enjoy it. And I believe the Maestro knew only viewers familiar with his movies would appreciate it. Well, let's just say this is a film that cannot be watched before "La Dolce Vita", and it also feels as a continuation of Fellini's nostalgic trip started one year before with "Ginger and Fred". These are movies that couldn't come earlier in his work anyway, both carrying a mix of detachment and introspection that can't result from the mind of a young director.

And while "Ginger and Fred" was a love letter to Hollywood, "Intervista" is a back-to-the-roots journey that echoes Fellini's most puzzling masterpiece "8 ½", in a more accessible but no less eccentric way. The 1963 classic was more complex as it was dealing with autobiographical material combined with an exploration in the author's psyche revealing how his youth memories were the alphabet he wrote his language with. But as Fellini said in an interview, he gained too much weight and couldn't escape from a car hanging on a kite, more pragmatic in "Intervista", he simply shares his passion through an interview with Japanese journalists. An interview is a trigger, hence the title "Intervista".

The film focuses on Fellini's debut as a journalist visiting Cinecitta to interview a known diva, he's played by Sergio Rubini. But we couldn't see Fellini for no reason, so he inserts his trademark film-in-the-film plot, which is an adaptation of Kafka's "Amerika", and an excuse to see his cast and crew at work. And in between, actors from the "youth part" connect with the real world filmed in documentary (sometimes mockumentary) style. And then Mastroianni makes his entrance, dressed like Mandrake, a fitting disguise as once he pops up in the screen, we get to the most magical moment of the film, the one that allows it to proudly levitates above a material which, as rich and colorful as it is, is something we get a little bit used with -if not tired of- with Fellini. The problem with "Intervista" comes from the lack of a clearly defined perspective, unlike "Ginger and Fred", it can get too distracting for its own good.

There's one recurring theme though, quoting the Maestro, the film was conceived like a long private and friendly chat about film-making, it's Fellini talking about movies with his troop, his loyal friends and guiding the conversation and its vignette-like episodes the way he feels it. It's a passionate love letter to cinema and Cine Cita in its unveiling of the sideshow as essential a part as the show.In reality it's the sideshow of his own life we're plunged into. I guess the film has the most pretentious premise but maybe Fellini can get away with it, because he's got quite an eloquence when he talks about himself and such an aesthetic approach to life, such a smart use of circus-like or melancholic music that I enjoyed it to a certain degree. I'm not sure I was as enthralled as I expected to be, maybe the film drags too long on needless parts, and wrapped up in his own artistic creation, Fellini didn't feel the need to trim in the raw material. The part with the Natives attack for instance and the ensuing chaos kind of reminded me of the chaotic ending of Mel Brook's "Blazing Saddles", but I'm not sure it changed anything at all, after the Anita and Marcello part, the curtain would have found a perfect moment to close.

But I guess even the most unexpected moments speak for the way Fellini looked at his four-decade spanning career at that time, every movie could be his last and so he tried to push the envelope every time even further, not using inspiration to make movies but making movies about his inspiration. It's pretentious all right but if cinema was his life, there's no reason he couldn't regard his life as cinema, maybe his genius comes from his impossibility to dissociate cinema and reality, cinema was his reality, and to understand the reality of Fellini, the director, the artist and the man, watch his films, Fellini was also his best biographer.

Wow--such a low rating for such a nice little film!

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 10 August 2007]

This was the second to last film the famed director, Fellini, made and it was his most personal. Instead of being a traditional film, this is much more like having a personal visit with him as he shows you around Cinecittà Studios in Rome. Sometimes he talks to the camera (or in many cases, the fictional Japanese crew interviewing him--a plot device to represent the audience), sometimes you just watch somewhat random scenes as they are shot and other times you watch Fellini and his friends as they reminisce--such as when Marcello Mastroianni pops by the set and Fellini, impulsively, takes him on a road trip to see Anita Ekberg. While this all seems unscripted and at the spur of the moment, it was all staged for the film but it has a real home movie quality about it. At Ekberg's home, all of Fellini's guests view scenes from LA DULCE VITA (starring Mastroianni and Ekberg) and there is a very strong nostalgic air about the party.

The total effect of all these elements was a lot like climbing inside Fellini's mind and it also gave a lot of amazing insights into the film making process. Because of this it was a lot like Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT, though a bit different because DAY FOR NIGHT stuck more to a traditional script (a movie about a movie being filmed) and seemed a lot less frivolous and fun. Fellini's is more of a "warts and all" and appears to be more spontaneous and ad-libbed--though because of some of the grand sets and the visit to Ekberg's, it obviously was staged to look spontaneous. My advice is to see this film and DAY FOR NIGHT. DAY FOR NIGHT is rated higher, but because of all the sentimentality of INTERVISTA, I preferred it slightly.

While I have never been a huge fan of Fellini, I have seen most of his films and really enjoyed having some insights into his psyche. Most of it came as no surprise (such as the use of phallic imagery--Fellini's sexuality was never repressed in his films), but some was very sweet and charming. It was nice to see him as both director and actor--so why is the film rated so poorly??!!

By the way, when the film was made, Miss Ekberg was 56 years-old and Mr. Mastroianni was 63. I was rather irritated with an IMDb review that complained about her being "obese" and him being "wrinkled". This was cruel and shallow, as most women would die to look that ravishing at 56 and most men would love to be a charming old rogue at 63! What do you expect at that age? Hmm? To quote Ekberg in a recent interview, "I'm very much bigger than I was, so what? It's not really fatness, it's development." Bravo.

PS--If you like this film, try watching Vincenzo Mollica's documentary on the film that's included on the DVD for INTERVISTA. It does a nice job of explaining some of the plot elements and features clips not only from this movie but several other Fellini films. My favorite part was learning that Miss Ekberg's plunge into the Trevi fountain in LA DULCE VITA was done in February!!

Sugary Fellini

[davidmvining · 6/10 · 12 January 2021]

I ended up with the opposite reaction I've had over the last few movies with Intervista. I was deliriously in love with everything until the ending when I felt like it just petered out. Each of the disparate pieces was wonderful as I waited for Fellini to bring it all together in the end, but that ending felt like a stop rather than a culmination, undermining the sum total of the individual episodes, making the entire film feel like a cute exercise more than anything else.

It's essentially four movies in one. The first is a TV documentary by Japanese journalists interviewing Fellini as he starts his production of a new movie. The second is a dreamlike recreation of Fellini's first trip to Cinecitta as a young journalist himself, going for an interview with a beautiful actress. The third is the film that Fellini intends to make, an adaptation of Franz Kafka's Amerika. The fourth is Intervista itself as a whole. The joys of this film are in how Fellini intertwines the four, letting his memories in his interviews bleed into the production of a film which ends up being his memories of Cinecitta, but once the character of Rubini (named after the actor who plays him, Sergio Rubini, and also, coincidentally, the name of the protagonist in La Dolce Vita) gets to Cinecitta and performs his interview, that memory fades away in favor of the production effort on Amerika.

Watching Fellini talk about his movie never to be made, his memories, and direct his actors and production team, Intervista heavily recalls 8 1/2. He does have a clear idea of what he wants, as opposed to Guido previously, but the roving meetings with his staff, the screen tests of women, and the flurry of activity around the production in general end up feeling like an extended reference to his earlier movie. It was wonderfully rewarding, as someone going through his filmography and familiar with his work, but I began to wonder how it would play to someone not in the club, so to speak.

And then we get the movie's most wonderful moment. Marcello Mastroianni shows up outside Fellini's production office window (three stories up) on a crane dressed as Mandrake the Magician for a commercial filming just outside. Fellini steals him away and takes him into he country to Anita Ekberg's house. There, the two stars of La Dolce Vita see each other for the first time in decades, and Mastroianni magically makes a movie screen appear on which plays their famous moments at the Trevi Fountain. It's a wonderful and endearing moment as Fellini allows his aging icons to relive their most well-known moment, speaking to the power and timelessness of movies.

I think that moment, as isolated as it is from the rest of the movie, can point to the overall message of the film. Movies were dying according to Fellini, being replaced by the inferior form of television as seen in Ginger and Fred. The magic was going away, and I can see that in Fellini's nostalgic look at his past that dominates the early parts of the film. However it's once Mastroianni and Ekberg leave the picture where I feel like the movie falters. I've loved the film up to this point, but the ending feels aimless. During some outdoor screentests for Amerika, rain falls and starts bursting some of the hot lamps lighting the area (recalling another moment from La Dolce Vita). The cast and crew huddle under a makeshift cover built of wooden planks and plastic sheets, and they wait out the night until morning when they get attacked by Indians who use antennae as spears. Then Fellini takes his camera into an empty soundstage and provides an Arclight to give the movie a final ray of hope, as, he explains, is related to a complaint from a producer he had decades before, that his movies never ended with any hope.

So, I think I get the movie, but I don't feel like the ending lives up to the rest of the film. Movies are dying as an artform. Fellini is nearing the end of his life and career (he only had one more movie in him after this). He's saying goodbye to the artform he's known and loved for decades as well as the place he made his movies since Nights of Cabiria, but watching his crew huddle under that cover doesn't feel like a great way to end this collection of stories and memories. I just felt more and more deflated as the ending went on. That very well could have been the point, though. The joyful act of moviemaking is dead. I'm open to reassessing with a second viewing.

There's a lot of joy and good feeling in this movie including a lot of treats for fans of Fellini. Its ending ends up missing an opportunity to bring everything together, especially the enjoyable tangent with Mastroianni and Ekberg, which drags the entire experience down a good bit for me.

The magic of movies and the magic of life according to Fellini

[Rodrigo_Amaro · 9/10 · 9 November 2012]

"Intervista" ("Interview") takes life and movies to an unimagined extent. A nostalgic journey into memory, experiences and life in the way Federico Fellini sees them. And he asks those kind of questions: "What's real in movies? What's real in news and documentaries?". Even more: "What's real in life?" Defying, joking, molding, constructing and deconstructing films and the human existence, Fellini challenges and fascinates viewers through four intertwined segments which echo his work, his art and his early memories when of his arrival at the famous studio Cinecittá, way before of becoming the cinematic author of "Amarcord" and "Satyricon".

The movie is composed of showing the behind the scenes of a movie directed by the maestro Fellini; the movie itself (film within the film) and its long and confusing process of shooting; the interview documented by the Japanese crew who hears the director's stories that later are intercut with scenes of a young Fellini (played by the lovable Sergio Rubini) living his first experiences at Cinecittá while interviewing an impressionable film star. They're all mixed into a magical and dreamy imitation of life.

But how can one distinguish what's scripted and what's real? You can't. But you can try. The reunion between Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, 27 seven years later after "La Dolce Vita" is wonderful, almost brings tears to our eyes. But did they really kept apart for all those years without seeing each other as they say? Maybe, maybe not, very unlikely but somehow we buy this as a fact. It looks genuine, they're so thrilled and surprised with this event. They play themselves in the movie, watching the characters they played in another Fellini classic, when they were very young. That's the film's magic, to capture both these stars in different situations and periods of life, all captured in a beautiful frame where Marcello can play magic tricks and prepare a delightful and nostalgic surprise to Anita and then watch the famous sequence of the Fontana de Trevi that the two performed in 1960. This dialog between medias and time is hypnotic, mysterious and funny too. It's a perfect fusion of realities, facts and fiction friendly put together in one single film.

One of Fellini's finest and a treasure to be sought. 9/10.

My first Fellini directed film.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 6 August 2019]

Despite having known about him for years,the only thing I've seen related to auteur film maker Federico Fellini is the excellent Without Pity (1948-also reviewed),which he co-wrote. Having first heard about the film during Kim Newman and Alan Jones commentary for Dario Argento's Tenebrae (1982-also reviewed),and with a ICM poll for the best films of 1987 coming up,I decided to invest in Intervista.

View on the film:

Reuniting from Tenebrae, Lara Wendel and Christian Borromeo give delightful performances,with Wendel capturing the excitement of a actress working with a legend,and Christian Borromeo brings out a playfulness from being on set with the film maker. Joining old friends of the good life, Marcello Mastroianni brings a touching melancholy as himself, conjuring the highlight of the film, via Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg watching footage of themselves together in faded footage from a fading era of cinema.

Interviewed by a documentary crew at Cinecitta studio, the screenplay by co-writer/(with Gianfranco Angelucci) directing auteur Federico Fellini give the dialogue of the fake documentary portion an in the moment feel, via criss-crossing between snappy questions from the interviewer, with the more considered replies by Fellini. Pulling four films out of his magicians hat, Fellini continues building upon his themes with a enticing zest, magicking up the blurring between fantasy and reality of Fellini reminiscing about his time at Cinecitta seeping into the making of a fake film version of Kafka's Amerika.

Finding it more difficult to fly at his advance age, Fellini & Sergio Leone's regular cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli continue the later theme of Fellini's credits in a bitter-sweet love letter to Cinecitta. Turning his magical surrealism towards the magic of cinema, Fellini takes a flight of fantasy in tracking shots down the sets of the Kafka's Amerika and his heightened re-enactment of the first visit to the studio, pinned by a striking final shot, which peels away the fantasy of Cinecitta.

One of Fellini's most underrated, most personal and most interesting films

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 22 August 2012]

For me, it does fall short of Fellini's most classic movies like Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, Amarcord and La Strada. But it is one of Fellini's better later films along with Ginger and Fred and When the Ship Sails On, and I connected more to Intervista than other Fellini's like Casanova, Juliet of the Spirits and especially Satyricon. Intervista is superbly directed by Fellini, restrained yet insightful, and the visuals are gorgeous. The music is brightly characterful and sweepingly beautiful, and the basic story is very interesting in its balance of past and present blurring, studio reality and cinematic illusion as well as being packed with numerous jewels of the screen. It is also one of Fellini's most personal in its nostalgic themes, and balance of humour, surrealism, restless action and beauty. But what makes it especially so is the poignant climax, a beautifully staged reunion between La Dolce Vita stars Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg. Overall, I knew right from the title what to expect, and I got exactly what was promised from the title and summary. Not one of the classics of Fellini, but underrated and interesting. 9/10 Bethany Cox

A Later Fellini

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 23 February 2017]

Cinecitta, the huge movie studio outside Rome, is 50 years old and Fellini (Sergio Rubini) is interviewed by a Japanese TV crew about the films he has made there over the years as he begins production on his latest film.

Something about Italian cinema... they are really good about making movies about making movies, or often movies with movies within, breaking the fourth wall. This is a bit different, as it is something of a documentary. Except for the fact it is completely fictionalized, beyond the actors who are essentially playing themselves.

I do love these sort of films, because it really shows the Italian love of cinema. As an American, I would be silly to deny the dominance of Hollywood, but no American comes to mind as being on the "artist level" of the classic Italians: Fellini, Rossellini, etc.

The End of a Golden Era

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 29 November 2008]

While shooting a movie about his arrival to Cinecittà to interview a famous star, Federico Fellini is interviewed by the Japanese television. Fellini highlights and revisits the beginning of his career portrayed by the young actor Sergio Rubini in the early 40's. Then he casts new characters for his next movie, "Amerika", from Franz Kafka. Later Marcello Mastroianni performing Mandrake visits Fellini and his producers, cast and crew and together they pay a visit to Anita Ekberg in her country cottage. Last but not the least, Fellini foresees the end of the golden era to the cinema industry with the competition of the television.

The beautiful and simple "Intervista" is a nostalgic "movie of a documentary of a film-making" that envisions the increasing competition to the television in this segment and consequent end of the golden era of the cinema industry and mostly of the movie theaters. The climax of the story is certainly with the unforgettable and most famous scene of the Italian cinema with Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg in the fountain of "La Dolce Vita". I would give a penny for the thoughts of Anita and Marcello while seeing that magic moment of their youth again. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Entrevista" ("Interview")

Horrid

[Cosmoeticadotcom · 3/10 · 12 September 2008]

Old men tend to make art that is shallow, imitative of their earlier, better works, and which would never garner an ounce of praise were it not for their backlog of greater works somehow letting their patina still rub off. In America, the best proof of this nostrum is the awarding of the lifetime Academy Award to a film director, or actor. Apparently, Europe is not immune to such worthless laurels either, for, in 1987, Federico Fellini's disastrously bad film Intervista won the Cannes Film Festival's Fortieth Anniversary Award and the Grand Prize at the Moscow Film Festival. In it, one can see many pastiches from earlier Fellini films, much as Ingmar Bergman cribbed ideas and scenes from his earlier masterpieces for his disastrously bad last film Saraband, the way Akira Kurosawa tossed random ideas together for Dreams, and the way Woody Allen has constantly reworked themes from his 1970s and 1980s great films into his last decade's worth of mostly mediocrities. That said, even the worst of Allen's recent films, like The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion, were better than Intervista. Fellini might take some solace in the fact that Intervista is a better film than Bergman's incest-ridden Saraband, but it's a minor comfort, at best, and this shoddy film still falls well shy of even Dreams.

what a way to go!

[spookygrinder · 25 June 2001]

I don't know what the reviewers were thinking, but with Ebert leading the pack, it might be safe to say that they weren't thinking at all.

Intervista is an amazing film. It takes the shape of a fake documentary, in which Fellini looks at, and pokes fun at, his entire career. In the end it is an homage, not to himself, as other reviewers have suggested, but to film itself. Praise for a medium which never ceases to amaze viewers and film makers alike with it's capacity to project and create our dreams.

Mixed bag; brilliant moments

[RG-5 · 8/10 · 5 October 1998]

Watching Fellini's "Intervista" is a mixed bag--sadness, frustration because it is not better... coupled with moments of brilliance. I'm not sure there is a more poignant moment in the movies than the scene of a wrinkled Marcello Mastroianni and obese Anita Ekberg wistfully watching their former youthful black & white selves in "La Dolce Vita" being projected on a makeshift screen. That scene alone is a richly-charged commentary on time, memory, regret, self-delusion, love, missed opportunity, life and death--unlike any other I have ever seen.