The Movie Amarcord

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The movie Amarcord was directed by Federico Fellini and shot in 1974. The setting of the story is a small town in Italy during the time period of the 1930’s. In my research, I discovered that Mr. Fellini based most of his movies on his life experiences. The town depicted in this movie is Rimini, his home town. He was a well known director who was not afraid to express his characters’ emotions and actions in bizarre or unorthodox ways.
The scene I watched opens with a young man, Titta, stopping by a tobacco store to purchase a cigarette. The shopkeeper is a robust, very well-endowed older women. When he walks in, the fat woman is all alone. Titta is skinny and immature and wants to prove his strength by claiming he can lift the fat woman off the ground. The fat woman closes the door for privacy and lets Titta try. He is so determined that Titta accomplishes this feat by lifting her more than once. Titta is sweating a great deal and breathing so heavy after this that he has to sit down to get his breath. As Titta struggles to lift her, the fat woman has a look of ecstasy on her face as if she was engaged in sexual activity. The next thing that happens is the fat woman opens her sweater and whips out her breasts. Titta is inexperienced and does not know how to handle the situation. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do. The fat woman tells him to suck her breasts. Titta tries to please her, but again because he is inexperienced. He struggles to give her sexual satisfaction by continuing to suck and ask if he is doing it right. The fat woman becomes frustrated because she has not reached her sexual peak and rebuffs Titta. The next thing you know she gives him a cigarette and tells him to leave. Titta is too tired and weak to open the door, so the fat woman says she’ll do it and opens it easily.
The director used the camera angles to illustrate the emotions of the two characters. The camera focused on the fat woman’s big girth when Titta first walked into the shop and again when he was trying to lift her. There were several close-up shots of the woman’s face depicting sexual arousal as he was trying to lift her and again as he was sucking on her breasts. The close-up shots of Titta’s face were also well done because they showed him sweating and making these strange facial expressions because she was too heavy. You could tell from the close-up shots of his fac...

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... the director, Federico Fellini, did a brilliant job in creating this movie. The varying camera angles and lighting techniques helped to make the film seem true to life. In my opinion, the movie did not have a specific plot. I believe it was more of an attempt to look at life through a young man’s fantasies. The movie received several awards including an Academy Award in 1975 for Best Foreign Language Film, New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Director and Best Film (1974), and Best Foreign Language Film (1974) from National Board of Review. If you like farcical comedy, then you would enjoy this movie. I would recommend it for adults of all ages.

Bibliography

Amarcord. Dir. Federico Fellini. Screenplay Federico Fellini and Tonino Guerra. Perf.
Magali Noel and Bruno Zanin. S.C. Produzzioni S.R.L – P.E.C.F. 1974

Giannetti, Louis and Scott Eyman. Flash-back: A Brief History of Film. 4th ed.
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 2001.

Internet Movie Database Inc. Amarcord IMDb. 2002.
<http://us.imdb.com/>

Juggling Information Service. Amarcord – Juggling. 2000.
<http://juggling.org/movies/Amarcord.html/>.

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