The Clowns
(I Clowns)
With Anita Ekberg, Fanfellu, Federico Fellini.
Italy/France/West Germany, 1971, 35mm, color, 92 min.
Italian with English subtitles.
This feature-length pseudo-documentary about the dying art of the clown is itself a three-ring circus of spectacle, slapstick, and sensation. Fellini and a comically clumsy film crew investigate the art of the circus clown by observing and talking to current and former practitioners of the profession. Made for Italian television, The Clowns includes reconstructions of scenes from Fellini’s own childhood in Rimini, where the circus often came to town. “My films owe an enormous amount to the circus. For me the clowns were always a traumatic visual experience, ambassadors of a vocation of showmanship,” Fellini has stated. Here the great Italian ringmaster of the cinema affectionately returns to the root of his inspiration, absorbing it masterfully into his own personal vision.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Children of Paradise
Fanny and Alexander
Milestones
Serge Daney: Journey of a Ciné-Son
Fanny and Alexander
Hiroshima mon amour
Children of Paradise
