Imagination, the Open, and the Movies of Federico Fellini
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TO DISCOVER THAT _ THERE IS NOTHING TO DISCOVER: IMAGINATION, THE OPEN, AND THE MOVIES OF FEDERTCO FELL1NI By DAVID L. LAVERY A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1978 COPYRIGHT 1978 David L. Lavery For Lee Bluestein (1938-1968) and John F. Reinhardt, who first showed me the Journey Out and Back and taught me to endure it. For W. R. R. , Taylor, my parents, Carol, Joyce, and Susan. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see. Black Elk In the rites of passage of many native American peoples it is common for a young man, approaching maturity, to embark on a vision quest into the wilderness in search of a message or revelation on which he might shape his existence. I would like to think of the follow- ing work as such a vision quest, and I wish here to thank those who were responsible in their various ways for helping me complete the quest. W. R. Robinson introduced me to Fellini and to the movies and taught me to see as well as an amblyopic blind person like myself could hope to. Taylor Scott brought me, I hope, back to earth, pronouncing, like Guido's producer, the magic words, "Down, definitely down," when I most needed to hear them. Sid Homan, Motley Deakin, and Ben Pickard showed their understanding and patience with my viscissitudes and allowed me to finish this creature. John F. Reinhardt, because of a promise made to him, gave me the courage to finish; my moral debt is to him. Phil Kuhn helped to discover the poet in me. My students were a constant inspiration. Joyce Kling was and always will be my angel. And the contributions of my wife Susan go beyond all words to describe: for all she has done, she deserves nothing more than the Open. I also wish to thank W. W. Norton and Company and Harper and Row Publishers for their permission to quote from their publications. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS v ±±± ABSTRACT xi CHAPTER ONE: FELLINI: MAJOR MAN 1 CHAPTER TWO: THE WAYS OF THE FLESH 40 The Elements 50 The Grotesque 56 Madmen and Clowns 64 Children 71 Inside/Outside 74 Face-to-Face 81 CHAPTER THREE: JULIET OF THE SPIRITS: FROM LOVE TO AUTOCHTHONY 90 CHAPTER FOUR: AMARCORD : "A CELEBRATION OF THE LIGHT" 125 CHAPTER FIVE: THE OPEN 164 LEXICON 180 APPENDIX I: FIRST STRUCTURE AND CREATIVITY 185 APPENDIX II: THE MORE THAN RATIONAL DISTORTION 201 APPENDIX III: SAYING IN THE THOUGHT OF MARTIN HEIDEGGER 209 APPENDIX IV: THE FLESH 223 APPENDIX V: MIMICRY AND THE MOVIES 229 FILMOGRAPHY 260 vi BIBLIOGRAPHY 261 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 271 KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS Works by Martin Heidegger: BT . Being and Time "CCP' "Conversation on a Country Path About Thinking' DT . Discourse on Thinking EB . Existence and Being EP . The End of Philosophy IM . Introduction to Metaphysics OWL On the Way to Language PLT Poetry , Language , Thought QT . The Question Concerning Technology Works by Maurice Merleau-Ponty: VI ... The Visible and the Invisible Works by Rainer Maria Rilke: DE Duino Elegies SO Sonnets to Orpheus Works by Wallace Stevens: CP . Collected Poems NA The Necessary Angel OP Opus Posthumous So far as we know, the tiny fragments of the universe embodied in man are the only centres of thought and responsibility in the visible world. If that be so, the appearance of the human mind has been so far the ultimate stage in the awakening of the world; and all that has gone before, the strivings of a myriad of centres that have taken the risks of living and believing, seem to have all been pursuing, along rival lines, the aim now achieved by us up to this point. They are all akin to us. For all these centres— those which led up to our own existence and the far more numerous others which produced different lines of which many are extinct —may be seen engaged in the same endeavor towards ultimate liberation. We may envisage then a cosmic field which called forth all these centres by offering them a short-lived, limited, hazardous opportunity for making some progress of their own towards an unthinkable consummation. Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem. (Is not this the reason why men to whom after long doubting the sense of life became clear, could not then say wherein this sense consisted?) Ludwig Wittgenstein I obtained not the least thing from unexcelled, complete awakening, and for this reason it is called "unexcelled, complete awakening." Buddha The acute intelligence of the imagination, the illimitable resources of its memory, its power to possess the moment it perceives — if we were speaking of light itself, and thinking of the relationship between objects and light, no further demonstration would be necessary. Like light, it adds nothing, except itself. Wallace Stevens : —— — FELLINIESQUE Consummation of the poet then the passage winds describe to breadcrumbs in his iris, ambit of quicksilver re-memberings, the center-ring agreements, inventions of the sesame (Asa Nisi Masa) "where the eyes move" in amarcord ' s serenade . "true friends" guide, clowns of angelic exercise, the tour of la strada vouching "Buena sera!" the mother pedagogy, like a peacock's benediction Auguste reconnoiterings, grotesque sagas of confessed misogyny, prodigal from wrapping sheets and afraid of being happy, ascend trees wanting woman her glance of shy epiphany "there the treasures are" . little hands of spring in seminars of weather the photogenic seasons. Nothing to say 6/25/78 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy TO DISCOVER THAT THERE IS NOTHING TO DISCOVER: IMAGINATION, THE OPEN, AND THE MOVIES OF FEDERICO FELLINI By David L. Lavery August, 1978 Chairman: William R. Robinson Major Department: English The following is a study of the development of the imagination of Federico Fellini. It is a hermeneutical attempt to interpret Fellini's films as personal visions, revelations of an evolving orientation to the world in the experience of their director. It is founded upon a conception of creativity drawn from the thought of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty , and Wallace Stevens, developed in an attempt to understand what Fellini's fellow director Lina Wertmuller meant when she proclaimed that, "When you work with Federico, you can only learn to discover that there is nothing to discover." Chapter One, Fellini: Major Man, explains briefly this theory of creativity, examines Fellini's own thinking on his art, and suggests that Fellini be understood as a "major man," as Wallace Stevens described him, a character "beyond/ Reality, composed thereof." Here as well the place in the "topology of Being" in which the discovery that there is nothing to discover holds sway is renamed the Open, following the description of Rainer Maria Rilke, and the purpose of the dissertation is established: to search for this "place" in the works of Fellini, following the growth of his art, seeking out what Heidegger called the "overarching poem" which lies behind the entire creative output of an artist and attempting to describe its message hermeneutical ly. Chapter Two, The Ways of the xii Flesh, traces the presence of various "eternal recurrences" that appear again and again in Fellini's work, failure, the elements, the grotesque, madmen and clowns, children, inside/outside, and the face-to-face, showing them to be the ground against which his movie narratives develop and the Open is secured. All of his films are considered and the function of each of these facets of his imagination is determined. Chapter Three, Juliet of the Spirits : From Love to Autochthony, studies in depth Fellini's 1965 color film as the first real vision of the Open. Chapter Four, Amarcord : A "Celebration of the Light," analyzes that 1973 movie as a full narrative attainment of the Open. Chapter Five, The Open, attempts to explicate Wertmuller's insight about Fellini based upon the preceding discussion of his films and to describe phenomenologically the nature of the Open as revealed by Fellini's art. A lexicon and five appendices follow which seek to provide a grounding for my discussion of Fellini's cinematic imagination. Each expands upon subjects only briefly discussed in the text, the nature of creativity, the "more than rational distortion" (Wallace Stevens), Saying (Martin Heidegger), the flesh (Merleau-Ponty) , and the movies as an art of mimicry, and they may be read either before or after the exposition in the body of the work. A filmography of Fellini's works and an extensive bibliography, drawn from both the body and the appendices, complete the work. CHAPTER ONE FELLINI: MAJOR MAN A flight of fantasy, whether in dreams or daydreams, is no mere sleight of mind. But only children will accept it as being equally as profound as the arbitrary awareness we are taught to regard as reality, and hence, only they are nur- tured by it. Later, of course, many of us comprehend our self-imposed poverty and try to double back, but the bread crumbs are always missing and our failures are immense. A true belief in the validity of non-ordinary reality—with all that it can teach us — seems beyond the capabilities of every practicing adult, with the possible exception of Federico Fellini.