Juliet of the Spirits

Federico Fellini partnered with his wife and muse, actor Giulietta Masina, for this phantasmagoric character study, the director’s first color feature. Drawing on details from her personal life, Masina plays a woman dabbling in spiritualism whose hold on reality begins to slip when she learns that her husband is having an affair, sending her on a hallucinatory journey of self-discovery in which memories, dreams, and supernatural forces merge in a kaleidoscopic gestalt. With virtuosic cinematography from Gianni di Venanzo and a fearless lead performance by Masina, JULIET OF THE SPIRITS is one of Fellini’s most visionary films, an opposite number to 8½ that examines the director’s central preoccupations—sex and love, life and death, fantasy and reality—from a woman’s perspective.

Starring Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Mario Pisu, Valeska Gert, Sylva Koscina, Frederick Ledebur, Valentina Cortese, José Luis de Villalonga, Caterina Boratto, Lou Gilbert