#184
Post
by Dylan » Mon Nov 16, 2020 1:24 pm
I second The Cinema of Federico Fellini by Peter Bondanella. After that, Fellini on Fellini is excellent, and I also recall Charolette Chandler's I, Fellini being very good. I haven't read Federico Fellini: Painting in Film, but it sounds great.
In regards to the transfers, I'm scratching my head over Amarcord, especially given that it was color graded by Giuseppe Rotunno. The crushing and teal tinting not only looks inconsistent with every other version of Amarcord that I've seen (Warner VHS, Home Vision VHS, Criterion DVD, older Criterion blu-ray) but also inconsistent with other color films photographed by Rotunno that I've seen (which is all of the Fellini films he shot, as well as Candy [which is trying to look like a Fellini film], The Leopard, Carnal Knowledge, Popeye, Sunflower, and too many more to mention). Rotunno usually had a fairly consistent style he brought to the table no matter who the director was (he's similar to Vittorio Storaro in that way, but many other Italian DPs also had identifiable styles that they carried across different directors) and these don't seem like decisions he would make as a cinematographer. Then again, I could be completely off in my discernment - I've never seen this film theatrically, so perhaps this is the intended look. But the older Criterion blu-ray looks far more like the work of Rotunno as I've come to know it over the years.
It reminds me of the Death in Venice transfer, which is similarly inconsistent with other versions of that film I've seen, as well as other films I've seen photographed by Pasqualino de Santis (Romeo and Juliet, The Damned, The Devil Probably, Nenè, etc.). Then again, having never seen that film theatrically, I can only go by what looks right to me (the transfer on the Warner DVD looked perfect) and like with Amarcord my perception could be based on transfers I thought looked correct but in fact may have been at odds with the cinematographer's intentions.
I can kind of understand Juliet of the Spirits having a pink tint, but that too is inconsistent with every other version of the film I've seen (including the Nouveaux R2 that isn't on DVDBeaver) as well as the other colors films I've seen photographed by Gianni di Venanzo (The Honey Pot, The Tenth Victim, etc.).
I'm guessing both Amarcord and Juliet of the Spirits look spectacular in motion, but the side-by-side comparison has thrown me a bit. Has anybody seen these theatrically and can recall if the new transfers reflect how the prints looked projected?
