Fellini Lexicon

Federico Fellini (1920-93) was one of the most inventive of film-makers and he remains one of the best loved. Director of a whole series of celebrated films - among them La Strada (1954) The Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960), Otto e Mezzo (1963) and Amarcord (1973) - he created melancholy, magical worlds peopled by clowns, dreamers, conmen, trumpeters and werewolves. Fellini Lexicon explores the forms and substances, significances and insignificances, objects and shadows in Fellini's work - the dance and music of his characters, the colour, light, and movement in his images. The Lexicon accompanies Fellini's films, rather than seeking to possess them, taking pleasure in their incongruities, exaggerations, absurdities and surprises. The entries are reversible, overlapping, often unlikely, combining careful analysis of the films with a celebration of their richness. Fellini Lexicon is an original, delightful approach to Fellini's work and to the practice of film criticism.

Sam Rohdie is Professor of Film Studies at Queen's University Belfast. Editor of Screen in the 1970s. He is the author of books on Pasolini and Antonioni as well as Promised Lands: Cinema, Geography, Modernism (bfi, 2001).

AcknowledgmentsIntroductionAngelsAnita(The) BeyondChaplinCitations 1Citations 2Clowns 1Clowns 2Conmen (bidonisti)DanceDocumentaryEffacement(The) EyeFelliniGiuliettaGrace/graziaIllusionismLoveLunaticsMarcello/'Marcello'MastornaOxymoronPurityRimini 1Rimini 2Rossellini 1Rossellini 2Rubini 1Rubini 2Screen tests(The) SheriffSpectacleSpiritsTelevision 1Television 2Television 3TrumpetsWerewolfZoologyBibliographyFilmography