In his early films Fellini showed a lot of affection for the tawdriness of second-rate theatre and circus acts, but he never transferred this affection to the equally second-rate television that he took on as a target in the eighties. Instead, television is made to be a rather obvious index of the crassness of modern life. In Ginger and Fred for the first time Fellini brings together in one film his wife Giulietta Masina and his alter ego Marcello Mastroianni. They play former Astaire and Rogers impersonators from the forties who are rescued from oblivion for one final dance performance in a horrendous Christmas variety show for TV. (The show’s host is played by Franco Fabrizi, the Lothario from I Vitelloni and Il Bidone.) Masina plays the role as a neat, genteel, little old lady, Mastroianni as a run-to-seed, semi-alcoholic has-been, and they’re both the still centre of a sometimes too busy film. This stillness is a literal one, for at the moment that they start their dance, the television studio suffers a power cut and they’re forced to sit on the stage in the darkness, quietly talking to one another. It’s a beautiful, even magical moment, and it’s one that makes for the success of an otherwise rather obvious film.
by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm print
28 Oct 2007 1:39 PM | Submit Comment
