Creative Marriages
Cinema’s great husband-and-wife carnival act, Italian maestro Federico Fellini and actress Giulietta Masina gave birth to a new form of filmic expression that blended earthy realism with extravagant flights of surrealist fancy. This double bill—two of the ten Fellini films that are available to stream on the Criterion Channel—captures the style that would come to be known as “Felliniesque” at its poetic roots in their international breakout La strada and at its colorful, kaleidoscopic extreme in the Freudian riot Juliet of the Spirits. Critic Michael Sragow explores the way that these twin masterworks document the evolving creative and personal relationship between two indispensable artists whose legacies are forever entwined.
Critic Michael Sragow explores the creative and personal relationship between two indispensable artists whose legacies are forever entwined.
Directed by Federico Fellini • 1954 • Italy
There has never been a face quite like that of Giulietta Masina. Her husband, the legendary Federico Fellini, directs her as Gelsomina in La strada, the film that launched them both to international stardom. Gelsomina is sold by her mother into the emp...
Directed by Federico Fellini • 1965 • Italy
Cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo's masterful use of Technicolor transforms Juliet of the Spirits, Fellini's first color feature, into a kaleidoscope of dreams, spirits, and memories. Giulietta Masina plays a betrayed wife whose inability to come to te...
