Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
| Fellini: I'm a Born Liar | |
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| Directed by | Damian Pettigrew |
| Produced by | Olivier Gal, ARTE, Eurimages, Scottish Screen, FilmFour |
| Written by | Damian Pettigrew |
| Starring | Federico Fellini, Roberto Benigni, Terence Stamp, Donald Sutherland, Italo Calvino, Toscan du Plantier, Dante Ferretti, Rinaldo Geleng, Tullio Pinelli, Giuseppe Rotunno, Luigi "Titta" Benzi |
| Music by |
Nino Rota Luis Bacalov |
| Cinematography | Paco Wiser |
| Edited by | Florence Ricard |
| Distributed by | MK2 International |
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Release date
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Running time
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105 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language |
Italian English French |
| Budget | US$1million |
Fellini: I'm a Born Liar (French: Fellini, je suis un grand menteur) is a 2002 French documentary film written and directed by Damian Pettigrew. Based on Federico Fellini's last confessions filmed by Pettigrew in Rome in 1991 and 1992 (Fellini died in 1993), the film eschews straightforward biography to highlight the Italian director's unorthodox working methods, conscience, and philosophy.
A masterclass in cinema aesthetics, the feature documentary uses excerpts and behind-the-scenes from 8½, Juliet of the Spirits, Histoires extraordinaires, Fellini Satyricon, Amarcord, Fellini's Casanova, And the Ship Sails On, and City of Women. Also interviewed are Roberto Benigni (La voce della luna), Terence Stamp (Histoires extraordinaires), and Donald Sutherland (Casanova), among other notable Fellini collaborators.
The film was nominated for Best Documentary at the European Film Awards, Europe's equivalent of the Oscars.
A camera tracks crosswise alongside a wide, brightly appointed beach, in what appears to be the dead of winter. No bathers are in sight, only a rolling parade of empty cabanas, with a tranquil blue seascape in the distance beyond. The wistful, melancholy music of Nino Rota lends these vistas a dreamy familiarity. We then jump from color to luminous black & white, and a quick glimpse of Federico Fellini's 1963 masterpiece, 8½, in which the monumentally buxom harlot, La Saraghina, is preparing to perform her rumba on the beach for a flock of fugitive schoolboys. It's the very same beach we were just staring at, but magically denuded of 40 years of succeeding development, and made mythic through the eyes of a master. From this point of departure, Pettigrew juxtaposes archival footage and fresh interviews with Fellini's collaborators, interspersed with classic clips and the fruits of his own present-day visits to the haunting locales where I Vitelloni (1953), Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960), Fellini Satyricon (1969) and other cinematic wonders first came to life. The goal is to fuse these ingredients thematically, to a degree that may better illuminate Fellini's conscience and philosophies.
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