Roma (Fellini's Roma) poster & wallpaper
Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites

Peter Gonzales Falcon, Fiona Florence, Britta Barnes, Pia De Doses, Marne Maitland ...( see more  see more... ) , Renato Giovannoli

ROMA, the Federico Fellini-directed benchmark of the Italian New Wave, explores the city of Rome from several different perspectives, giving it a mystical life of its own that hangs in the balance bet...( read more  read more... )ween its rich history and its modern identity. With no real chronology, ROMA is a tapestry of bizarre scenes and familiar images (Fellini peppers the film with easily identifiable references to his earlier works) that blend together into a gorgeous visual carnival. Typical of Fellini, with the carnival comes a critique--and ROMA tears through the city's political and religious history, satirizing the Catholic church and various faces of Italian government from Renaissance times through Mussolini's reign and on into the 1960s. While the camera lavishes affectionately over Rome's art and architecture and is clearly a tribute to the Eternal City, most of the sets in the film are constructed, reinforcing Fellini's narrative imagination and keeping viewers caught in a perpetual contradiction between reality and fantasy, history and the present, fact and fiction.

Flixster Users

83% liked it

5,294 ratings

Critics

58% liked it

12 critics

Unrated, 2 hrs. 8 min.

Directed by: Federico Fellini

Release Date: October 15, 1972

Invite friends to see

Stats: 247 reviews

report incorrect info

Photos

Roma (Fellini's Roma)
Upload a Photo |

View All Roma (Fellini's Roma) Photos (1)

Your Rating


clear rating

Flixster Reviews (247)

  • her69eyes
    August 15, 2009
    her69eyes
    Through films like "La Dolce Vita" and "Nights of Cabiria", Federico Fellini had already become wed to Rome in the eyes of movie-goers worldwide. In his 1972 film, "Fellini's Roma", a joyously self-indulgent essay on his city, Fellini consummated the marriage.

    In 1970, Fellini f...( read more)irst used his name in the title of a film in "Fellini - Satyricon" - a decision he had to make to differ itself from an Italian film of the same title. He followed that with "Fellini's Roma", but the title in this case is not just a clever form of branding - this IS Fellini's Rome. The film has virtually no narrative, it simply drifts from episode to episode, sometimes feeling as natural as a documentary and other times being a complete orgy of the surreal as in the iconic scene depicting a Catholic fashion show.

    The film very much explores the contrast between ancient Rome and modern Rome. We see it through the last shot, following a hoard of motorcycles driving to the Colosseum, and also when a Roman house is discovered underneath a subway. The frescoes are discovered fresh in all of their glory, but it's not long before the foreign air forces them to disintegrate.

    Fellini provides a vocal narration for the film, and he also casts a version of himself as both a child and as a wide-eyed 18-year-old young man. His character doesn't have much of an arc, and we only get to know him by his appearances in these disconnected episodes. The protagonist of the film isn't Fellini, but Rome himself, and Fellini as a character in the film is a supporting part at best.

    There are some tremendously funny episodes, such as a scene at an outdoor restaurant. Fellini tells us that it is law that nobody dine alone, and therefore a baffled Fellini sits down and eats with a large Italian family. They shout across tables, bits of food coming out every which way, and mention that no matter what you eat it still turns into shit.

    Perhaps the most memorable setting is a brothel in which middle-aged woman parade themselves in front of a rambunctious group of young men. These women become his lovers, his mothers, Rome herself. What is most startling is the woman that were cast - they are not glamorous, certainly not the sort of prostitutes you expect in any movie not directed by Fellini. They are tired and thick, but yet they still flaunt with their heads held high.

    "Fellini's Roma" was a film criticized as Fellini just running on empty, a criticism people had with many of his later works. To me, however, "Roma" still represents Fellini as very much alive - full of extravagant visuals and unforgettable episodes.
  • DrBenway
    June 29, 2009
    DrBenway
    Can become a bit tiresome but cannot be judged from the point of view of plot and acting. It's a personal celebration of what the city of Rome means to the director, with its' history and its' huge variety of wild characters in the neighborhood. One can't deny the director's sta...( read more)rtling visuals.

    Photobucket
  • jaynyca1
    June 4, 2007
    jaynyca1
    This is a classic Fellini film basically about a young man's early adulthood from later on in life, the storyline jumps around but it's typical for a Fellini film.
  • g1pp4l
    September 9, 2009
    g1pp4l
    Surreal and funny (= felinesque), but the cinematography is awful, and that is a very important aspect in Fellini's cinema.
  • jimbotender
    October 4, 2008
    jimbotender
    Fellini's obsessiveness ultimately became his nemesis.Roma is an homage,cameos and fantasies (maybe his dreams and nightmares parading) and a hypnotic altogether atmosphere circulating between past and present.In order to show a prophetic future,Federico embarks on an unsafe jour...( read more)ney of image which is successful despite the many flaws.
  • rajiv23gooners
    October 12, 2009
    rajiv23gooners
    in this film, fellini showed us his vision of roma through a series of small stories and events.,
    what i love about this movie is the humor, i never seen a quite like this before, so i find it quite refreshing.,
    but fellini portait of roma seems only dedicated to roma people, yes...( read more) it tells us about the culture of rome, but only on the surface, beside that the movie never really got into me along the way, maybe because fellini's style of storytelling is kinda new to me (it is a little bit surrealist, and also in the opening scene the narrator tells us this is not a normal film in the traditional storytelling sense).,
    i guess maybe second shot of this movie will give me the better view of this movie..
  • Arianeta
    September 25, 2009
    Arianeta
    Great film great soundtrack by Nino Rota.
  • nkkigrrl28
    August 16, 2009
    nkkigrrl28
    A plotless, dreamy, hypnotic, visual ode to old and (then) new Rome. It thrilled me to realize I had walked the same steps as Fellini from a trip to Rome several years ago. Favorite moments: the discovery of the frescoes, the outdoor dinner scene, the papal fashion show (yowza!),...( read more) and the subtle and small but adequately handsome presence of Peter Gonzales Falcon as the young Fellini.
  • gerard19841
    July 3, 2009
    gerard19841
    Fellini examines the fall of Roman Empire. 1931 to 1972.
  • Budgeburgess
    April 14, 2009
    Budgeburgess
    From its Daliesque opening images of pollarded trees, caught in silhouette like the blasted stumps of an Ypres battlefield, Fellini plunges the viewer into a world which is both real and surreal, which is both a living city and an historical allusion ... if not illusion.

    Fellini...( read more) often invokes themes of how we understand the narrative of our life - our memories, fantasies, dreams all become blended into some sort of logical whole. Here he explores Rome as a city of myths and illusions. The Fascists (who taught him as a child) presented ancient Rome as an ideal, as the eternal statement of civilised values. Yet the Rome they venerated was frozen in alabaster statues and decaying architecture. The Fascists' own illusion of permanence was to be rapidly swept away, yet they live on in the child's (now the man's) memories as a frozen statue of Mussolini.

    Education for Fellini was regimented by the Fascists and the Church. The Church, of course, also venerated Rome as the eternal city, the heart of the Church. Rome, it seems, had eclipsed Christ.

    And Rome dominates so much of popular culture - the cinema still celebrates gladiatorial epics. Fellini contrasts this with the popular culture of Roman vaudeville, a lengthy vignette playing on the bawdiness and vulgarity of the theatre going masses ... so different from the elegance of high culture theatre!

    "Roma" is delivered in a series of vignettes, images, flashbacks, sketches which capture both Fellini's own memories of the city and some of its 'classic' representations. It is, we see, a living city, but one which Church, State, tourists and academics are trying to ossify, to reduce to an institution which can be controlled and used to justify power, history, politics, culture, religion, life itself.

    For Fellini, Rome is a circus - and not the crumbling ruins of the amphitheatre. It is a living, ever changing circus of real life, of vivid imagination, of intellectual discovery and popular culture. It cannot be defined, it cannot be explained. It lives by day, it lives by night.

    We dive beneath the city streets to find engineers tunnelling, building a new subway system. Every so often they have to stop as they unearth more archaeology. Every time they stop, the archaeologists are called up to preserve, to save, to delay and postpone. Finally, the tunnelling breaks through into a room resplendent in beautiful Roman wall paintings. As the onlookers watch, the paintings crumble to dust. Sic transit gloria.

    And in the end ... the city is given over to youth. Late into the night, the city is taken over by young people on motorbikes. It's fun. It's a playground. It is a living international city, not the dead hand of history. The beauty that was Rome has decayed, as must we all. Fellini celebrates life, and so does "Roma".

View All Roma (Fellini's Roma) Reviews

Critic Reviews

October 23, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Fellini isn't just giving us a lot of flashy scenes, he's building a narrative that has a city for its protagonist instead of a single character. full review

View more Roma (Fellini's Roma) reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

This board looks lonely. Be the first to talk about "Roma (Fellini's Roma)" !

Post A Comment | View All Comments

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

All Rotten Tomatoes content is used under license from Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes, Certified Fresh, and the Tomatometer are the trademarks of Incfusion Corporation, d/b/a Rotten Tomatoes, a subsidiary of IGN Entertainment, Inc.

Official Trailer

View Larger Roma (Fellini's Roma) Trailer

Cast

More Like This

Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

  • Fellini - Satyricon (The Degenerates)
    Fellini - Satyricon (The Degenerates) (100%)

More Movies like Roma (Fellini's Roma)

Facts

No facts approved yet. Be the first

Roma (Fellini's R... : Watch Free on TV

Roma (Fellini's Roma) Trivia

  • Fellini's salute to his childhood city of Rome?  Answer »
More Roma (Fellini's Roma) Trivia

Movie Quizzes

No quizzes for Roma (Fellini's Roma). Want to create one?

Video Clips

No video clips yet. Want to upload one?

Meet Other Fans

Add Roma (Fellini's Roma) to favorites

Recent News

No recent headlines. Got one?

Recent Lists

Make a List |

View All Lists

Most Popular Skin

No skins yet. Interested in creating one?