Quotes & Sayings About Fellini

Marriage is a tyranny, a mortification of man's natural instincts. Man needs a multiplicity of relationships. — Federico Fellini

Don't tell me what I'm doing; I don't want to know. — Federico Fellini

Fellini and Bunuel changed my life for me, they are my favourites. If it is true that movies are dreams, both of them, Fellini and Bunuel were shooting in a dream way. — Roberto Benigni

Never trust a woman who doesn't like to eat. She is probably lousy in bed. — Federico Fellini

You exist only in what you do. — Federico Fellini

Your life is a Fellini film, lacking only Anita Ekberg with a cat on her head. — Camille Paglia

There is no such thing as a good paparazzo. A good paparazzo, that's a paparazzo who has had his camera broken. In fact, they are bandits, thieves of photography. (Statement after photographs were published showing Jackie Onassis sunbathing nude.) — Federico Fellini

With 'Brick' there was the Dashiell Hammett influence, and with 'Brothers Bloom' there was a really strong Fellini influence - both those movies wore that on their sleeve. — Rian Johnson

I could spend my whole life photographing circuses. They combine everything I'm interested in - they're ironic, poetic, and corny at the same time. There's also something about a circus that's magical, sentimental, and almost tragic, like a Fellini film. — Mary Ellen Mark

When I first saw a Fellini movie, I came out of the movie theatre and decided to become a lawyer! I thought to myself, it's impossible to make something so beautiful! — Roberto Benigni

We must get beyond passions, like a great work of art. In such miraculous harmony. We should learn to love each other so much to live outside of time ... detached. — Federico Fellini

There is abundant testimony that if we choose love rather than self, we gain immeasurably. — Federico Fellini

A more miserable life is better...believe me..than an existence protected by an organized society...where everything is calculated....where everything is perfect... — Frederico Fellini

If you're not [Federico] Fellini you might make something very vulgar. Animation made it possible to maintain unity with all these different narratives. — Marjane Satrapi

I think television has betrayed the meaning of democratic speech, adding visual chaos to the confusion of voices. What role does silence have in all this noise? — Federico Fellini

We can all pretend to be cynical and scheming, but when we're faced with purity and innocence, the cynical mask drops off. — Federico Fellini

I even see the cinema itself as a woman, with its alternation of light and darkness, of appearing and disappearing images — Federico Fellini

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It's a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream. — Federico Fellini

I loved all movies, literally. I certainly loved 'Shane' and 'Roxie Hart.' Later on, when I was less of a kid, I loved 'L'Avventura' and 'Persona' and all Fellini movies and like everybody else I loved John Ford. Then and now, I loved Preston Sturges, maybe above anyone. — Mike Nichols

My star was kind of fading towards the end of the '60s and suddenly I got this call from Fellini, who just appeared to kind of love me! — Terence Stamp

I wasn't allowed to see movies when I was a child. It was against the religion I was raised in, Fundamentalist Baptist. I didn't go into a commercial movie house until I was a senior in college, and that was on the sly. It wasn't until I was in graduate school that I immersed myself in films. Then, I went to see all the films by Bergman, Fellini, etc. — Wes Craven

New York's like a boxing match. In Hollywood, it's like a Fellini movie or something. — John Cusack

My mother is like a character who escaped from the set of a Fellini film. She's a whole performing universe of her own. Activists would run a mile from her because they could not deal with what she is. — Arundhati Roy

Martin Scorcese is probably America's greatest living director, and while he is not a titan like John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock or Federico Fellini, he is certainly consistently more interesting than Steven Spielberg, Brian de Palma, Francis Ford Coppola or Woody Allen. Even a failure like Gangs of New York or a curiosity like The Aviator is more interesting and ambitious than Munich, The Black Dahlia or Scoop. — Joe Queenan

I'm a liar, but an honest one. People reproach me for not always telling the same story in the same way. But this happens because I've invented the whole tale from the start and it seems boring to me and unkind to other people to repeat myself. — Federico Fellini

I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it. — Federico Fellini

The greatest danger for artists is total freedom. — Federico Fellini

Fellini belongs to nature. — Roberto Benigni

One of the greatest handicaps is to fear a mistake. You have stopped yourself. You have to move freely into the arena, not just to wait for the perfect situation, the perfect moment ... If you have to make a mistake, it's better to make a mistake of action than one of inaction. If I had the opportunity again, I would take chances. — Federico Fellini

There are beauty icons that I can never be like, sorta like a Gena Rowlands - I'll never have that look. I love Giulietta Masina, the great Fellini actress. But I'm probably more Seymour Cassel. Or somewhere between Lou Reed and Nora Ephron? — Natasha Lyonne

It's easier to be faithful to a restaurant than it is to a woman. — Federico Fellini

Most movies shot in Italian don't even bother to record the sound. In fact, sometimes when Fellini works, he doesn't even know what the dialogue is going to be, and he simply has his characters count from 1 to 10, knowing he will loop in their dialogue later. — Sean Connery

There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life. — Federico Fellini

Objects and their functions no longer had any significance. All I perceived was perception itself, the hell of forms and figures devoid of human emotion and detached from the reality of my unreal environment. I was an instrument in a virtual world that constantly renewed its own meaningless image in a living world that was itself perceived outside of nature. And since the appearance of things was no longer definitive but limitless, this paradisiacal awareness freed me from the reality external to myself. The fire and the rose, as it were, became one. — Federico Fellini

In a sense, 'Schmidt' is the most Omaha of my films. But have I gotten it right? I'm not sure. Did Fellini get Rome right? Did Ozu get Tokyo right? — Alexander Payne

If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet ... maybe we could understand something. — Federico Fellini

Like many people, I have no religion, and I am just sitting in a small boat drifting with the tide. I live in the doubts of my duty ... I think there is dignity in this, just to go on working ... Today we stand naked, defenseless, and more alone than at any time in history. We are waiting for something, perhaps another miracle, perhaps the Martians. Who knows? — Federico Fellini

It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive. — Federico Fellini

A different language is a different vision of life. — Federico Fellini

Life is a combination of magic and pasta. — Federico Fellini

When I do things without any explanation, but just with spontaneity ... I can be sure that I am right. — Federico Fellini

God may not play dice but he enjoys a good round of Trivial Pursuit every now and again. — Federico Fellini

The only place where you can be a dictator and still be loved is on the movie set — Federico Fellini

Nietzsche claimed that his genius was in his nostrils and I think that is a very excellent place for it to be. — Federico Fellini

Our minds can shape the way a thing will be because we act according to our expectations. — Federico Fellini

Fellini, Kurosawa, and Bunuel move in the same field as Tarkovsky. Antonioni was on his way, but expired, suffocated by his own tediousness. — Ingmar Bergman

I claim the right to contradict myself. I don't want to deprive myself of the right to talk nonsense, and I ask humbly to be allowed to be wrong sometimes. — Federico Fellini

The films I liked were European films-Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut. — Tobe Hooper

When you shoot a film, when it was film, there used to be rushes and normally a director would look at them the next day. All directors look at the rushes, except for Fellini. I asked him why he didn't and said, "Because it interrupts my fantasy." What he was trying to say was that he had a three-dimensional, vibrant, living, volatile fantasy going on in his head, and when he looked at rushes, they were two-dimensional and they killed it. — Donald Sutherland

When I'm on stage, it's really intense. My mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to remember my act, trying to say it all the right way. It's funny how different it looks and how it's happening. There are three Fellini circuses in my head, and outwardly it looks like I'm going to get a bagel. — Steven Wright

With Fellini, the fear dropped out of my work because it was such a happy experience ... hanging out with Fellini, having pasta on the set with Fellini, and going out with Fellini! — Terence Stamp

The public has lost the habit of movie-going because the cinema no longer possesses the charm, the hypnotic charisma, the authority it once commanded. The image it once held for us all - that of a dream we dreamt with our eyes open - has disappeared. Is it still possible that one thousand people might group together in the dark and experience the dream that a single individual has directed? — Federico Fellini

Censorship is advertising paid by the government. — Federico Fellini

Borges is particularly stimulating to a man who works in the cinema, because the unusual thing about his writing is that it is like a dream, extraordinarily farsighted in calling up from the unconscious complete images in which the thing itself, and its meaning, coexist - exactly as happens in a film. And, just as happens in dreams, in Borges the incongruous, the absurd, the contradictory, the arcane and the repetitive, although as powerfully imaginative as ever, are at the same time illumined like the careful details of something larger, something unknown, and are the faultless elements of a cruelly perfect, indifferent mosaic. Even the fact that Borges's work is strangely fragmentary makes me think of a broken dreamlike flow; and the heterogeneous quality of his work - stories, essays, poems - I prefer to see not as the union of the multiple threads in a greedy, impatient talent, but as a mysterious sign of unending change. — Federico Fellini

A face, he believes, is a piece of sculpture that has taken a lifetime to mold, so it tells more than any actor's technique possibly could. I've watched Fellini work, and he did — Elia Kazan

Georgian film is a completely unique phenomenon, vivid, philosophically inspiring, very wise, childlike. There is everything that can make me cry and I ought to say that it (my crying) is not an easy thing. — Federico Fellini

Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected. — Federico Fellini

Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real. — Federico Fellini

Happiness is simply a temporary condition that proceeds unhappiness. Fortunately for us, it works the other way around as well. But it's all a part of the carnival, isn't it? — Federico Fellini

I always direct the same film. I can't distinguish one from the other. — Federico Fellini

As I don't consider myself exceptional, but simply a storyteller, each of my stories is really a period of my life. Deep down I feel that criticism of my work-which is the most sincere and authentic vision of myself-is unsuitable and immodest, whether it is favorable or unfavorable. — Federico Fellini

Well, Fellini ... there is always Fellini. — Louis Malle

Nothing is more honest than a dream. — Federico Fellini

All art is autobiographical. — Federico Fellini

Nothing is sadder than laughter; nothing more beautiful, more magnificent, more uplifting and enriching than the terror of deep despair. — Federico Fellini

Real religion should be something that liberates men. But churches don't want free men who can think for themself and find their own divinity within. When a religion becomes organized it is no longer a religious experience but only superstition and estrangement. — Federico Fellini

When the most important times are occurring, we don't even recognize them or notice. We are just busy living our lives. Only looking back do we know what was a great moment in our lives. — Federico Fellini

A creator always needs excuses. — Federico Fellini

I was inspired by Maya Deren because she was the first woman filmmaker whose films I saw. I also loved Fellini and Goddard because they were so different from Hollywood films. But when I saw the cinema verite films that were made by Drew Associates with Leacock and Pennebaker I found my passion. — Chris Hegedus

A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together. — Federico Fellini

Film works when a director and a star have a connection. You know, when there's something telekinetic between them, there's a partnership, it's like alter egos. It's like James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock, or Fellini and Mastroianni. I'm not comparing, I'm just saying, if you can come into a relationship where the director and star have such a bond, it's so much easier to make a movie. — Nicolas Winding Refn

Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present. — Federico Fellini

'La Notte' is my favorite of the Antonioni pictures and my favorite work of the master cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo, who also shot '8 1/2' for Fellini. — Jake Paltrow

I remember, the first time I saw a [Andrei] Tarkovsky film, I was shocked by it. I didn't know what to do. I was fascinated, because suddenly I realized that film could have so many more layers to it than what I had imagined before. Then others, like Kurosawa and Fellini, were like a new discovery for me, another country. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

To evoke the classic period of Italian cinema in a little film seemed like a great, fun thing to do. I had relations to that period. I had known Fellini and I had known Antonioni. I had made a movie with Antonioni and I had visited Fellini in his studios. So, it seemed like something worthwhile doing. You bring yourself to that mythical cinema. — Wim Wenders

My favorite favorites are people like Bunuel, Fellini and Charlie Chaplin. — Alex Winter

Freedom, especially a woman's freedom, is a conquest to be made, not a gift to be received. It isn't granted. It must be taken. — Federico Fellini

When the film was presented in New York, the distributor reproduced the fountain scene on a billboard as high as a skyscraper. My name was in the middle in huge letters, Fellini's was at the bottom, very tiny. Now the name of Fellini has become very great, mine very little. — Anita Ekberg

Put yourself into life and never lose your openness, your childish enthusiasm throughout the journey that is life, and things will come your way. — Federico Fellini

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world. — Federico Fellini

I think about a Richard Avedon photo series, the kind of faces he gets of real people, which I find so captivating. Fellini was also great in filling his films with this ambiance, this environment, sometimes chaotic and carnival-like, but people's faces were always amazing. — Cary Fukunaga

The visionary is the only realist. — Federico Fellini

I don't like the idea of "understanding" a film. I don't believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn't. If you are moved by it, you don't need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it. — Federico Fellini

I was influenced by Ray Harryhausen and Lotte Reiniger, with her twitchy, cutout animation, which I happened to see at a very young age, but also by the Warner Bros. cartoons, 'Tom and Jerry,' and of course Disney. And also by Fellini's 'Giulietta of the Spirits' and Kurosawa's 'Ran.' And by other American illustrators and painters. — Henry Selick

With a few exceptions, Fellini's films have failure and despair running through them: Life continues, but I can't imagine 'Felliniesque' as an exclusively uplifting adjective. Fellini's best films are the ones that distill this essence
the paradoxical quality of melancholic ecstasy, a surreal, bittersweet vitality
to perfection. — Damian Pettigrew

For people who live in the imagination, there is no lack of subjects. To seek for the exact moment at which inspiration comes is false. Imagination floods us with suggestions all the time, from all directions. — Federico Fellini

For me, Fellini was like a watermelon. It is there. A watermelon cannot die. — Roberto Benigni

I like so many different directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, Woody Allen and the greats like Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky and among current filmmakers von Trier, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Fellini was more in love with breasts than Russ Meyer, more wracked with guilt than Ingmar Bergman, more of a flamboyant showman than Busby Berkeley ... Amarcord seems almost to flow from the camera, as anecdotes will flow from one who has told them often and knows they work. This was the last of his films made for no better reason than Fellini wanted to make it. — Roger Ebert

I see wonderful films by Bertolucci, Visconti, and Fellini. — Vincente Minnelli

No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite. — Federico Fellini

I spent my life trying to cure myself of my education. — Federico Fellini

You have to live spherically - in many directions. Never lose your childish enthusiasm - and things will come your way. — Federico Fellini

Going to the cinema is like returning to the womb; you sit there still and meditative in the darkness, waiting for life to appear on the screen. One should go to the cinema with the innocence of a fetus — Federico Fellini

I think that one can have luck if one tries to create an atmosphere of spontaneity. — Federico Fellini

McKee's a genius. And hillarious. You'll like him, too, Charles. He's all for originality, just like you.
He says that we have to realize that we all write in a genre and we must find our originality within that genre.
As it turns out, there hasn't been a new genre since Fellini invented the mockumentary.

My genre's thriller, what's yours? — Donald Kaufman

Everyone knows that time is Death, that Death hides in clocks. Imposing another time powered by the Clock of the Imagination, however, can refuse his law. Here, freed of the Grim Reaper's scythe, we learn that pain is knowledge and all knowledge pain. — Federico Fellini

Oh, no. This has "marriage" written all over it. Travis, read my lips: remember that Fellini film with the prostitute who says that every new sunrise makes her a virgin? It doesn't work that way with me. Even the sun thinks I'm a slut. — Steve Kluger

Don't forget that costumes, like dreams, are symbolic communication. Dreams teach us that a language for everything exists - for every object, every color worn, every clothing detail. Hence, costumes provide an aesthetic objectification that helps to tell the character's story. — Federico Fellini

What I want to do is make films that astonish people, that astound people, and I hope you want to do that too. It's easy to make money. It's easy to make films like everybody else. But to make films that explode like grenades in people's heads and leave shrapnel for the rest of their lives is a very important thing. That's what the great filmmakers did for me. I've got images from Fellini, from Bergman, from Kurowsawa, from Bunuel, all stuck in my brain. — Terry Gilliam