Description
Five young men linger in post-adolescent limbo dreaming of adventure and escape from their small seacoast town. They while away their time spending the lira doled out by their indulgent families on drink, women, and nights at the local pool hall. Federico Fellini’s second solo directorial effort is a semi-autobiographical masterpiece of sharply drawn character sketches. An international success and recipient of an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, I Vitelloni compassionately details a year in the life of small-town layabouts struggling to find meaning in their lives. Criterion’s DVD also includes an exclusive documentary featuring interviews with late actor Leopoldo Trieste and other actors, technicians, and scholars; the original trailer and newsreels from the time of the film’s release; a collection of stills, posters, and memorabilia; and more.Amazon.com
Federico Fellini’s breakthrough film, the 1953 I Vitelloni, is one of the cinema’s seminal stories about slacker males, and a highly entertaining one at that. Following the unfortunate failure of his comedy The White Sheik, Fellini prepared to shoot La Strada (he would release that early masterpiece in 1954), but decided at the last minute to make an autobiographical feature about mischievous, drifting, 30-ish losers in a small, seaside town. I Vitelloni clicked with international audiences and remains an obvious influence on such later classics as Breaking Away and Diner. But there’s nothing like Fellini’s almost self-mocking fusion of gritty neo-realism with the audacious, illusionary style he would later be entirely linked. The ensemble comedy follows the ever-diminishing fortunes of five young men who can’t define, let alone jump-start, their dreams, particularly the caddish Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), who thinks nothing of molesting the wife of his father-in-law’s best friend. –Tom Keogh
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I Vitelloni