10 Films to Watch if You Like: Amarcord

Three decades have passed since the death of Federico Fellini. Cinema Paradiso pays tribute with a look at his last masterpiece, Amarcord, which marks its half centenary this year.

'Last night I dreamed of the port of Rimini opening on to a green, swelling sea, as threatening as a moving meadow, on which low clouds ran close to the surface.' So began Federico Fellini's 1967 essay, 'Rimini, My Home Town', in which he reminisced about the seaside resort where he had been born and raised. He had set his debut feature in the town, I vitelloni (1953), and returned two decades later for Amarcord (1973). Linguists call the title a 'univerbation', as it combines two words in the Romagnol dialect ('a m'arcôrd') to form a single new word. This has since come to mean 'nostalgic remembrance' in Italian, although there's a satirical edge to Fellini's semi-autobiographical hark back to the Fascist era that makes it clear that fondness doesn't extend to all his memories. Indeed, he further distanced himself from the propagandised mindset discussed by Mark Cousins in his bafflingly unavailable documentary, The March on Rome (2022), by domiciling his cast of eccentric characters in the nearby village of Borgo San Giuliano and adopting what critic Peter Bondanella called a 'stylistic playfulness' that enabled him 'to fluctuate between humorous images and serene depictions of human existence'.

A Lot to Take In

Spring arrives in the village of Borgo San Giuliano, as poplar seeds float on the breeze and a bell rings in the distance. Elderly drifter Giudizio (Aristide Caporale) jumps up to catch one of the 'puffballs' and turns to recite a poem directly into the camera lens:-

'In our town puffballs and spring arrive together.

These are puffballs that drift around.

They go here and they go there.

Soaring over the cemetery, where all rest in peace.

Soaring over the beachfront and over the Germans, who do not feel the cold.

Drifting, drifting.

Swirling, swirling, swirling.

Drifting, drifting, drifting.'

Each year to mark the start of spring, the villagers build a bonfire in the square and burn an effigy of the Old Witch of Winter. Giudizio stands atop the pyre arranging the branches and bric-a-brac that have been collected and a wag pinches his ladder so that he can't get down after setting La Vecchia on her throne. Firecrackers erupt, as the band plays and young and old gather to view the spectacle, although some have come simply to gaze at Gradisca (Magali Noël), the elegant hairdresser, and Volpina (Josiane Tanzilli), the local nymphomaniac. Everyone has fun, apart from the lawyer (Luigi Rossi), whose attempts to relate a little civic history are drowned out by a heckle of off-screen raspberries.

At school, the teachers are eccentric and the students spend more time playing pranks than learning during their uninspiring lessons. Titta (Bruno Zanin) and his portly pal, Ciccio Marconi (Fernando De Felice), pose for a year photo. But the latter is more interested in Aldina Cordini (Donatella Gambini), a pretty classmate who has no idea he exists.

Titta's father, Aurelio Biondi (Armando Brancia), is a building site foreman who comes home for a peaceful meal with his family. However, he is forever bickering with his wife, Miranda (Pupella Maggio), who threatens to poison the soup, while the maid chastises him for treating her derrière like a lucky charm. Frustrated by the table manners of Grandfather (Giuseppe Ianigro) and Uncle Lallo (Nando Orfei), Aurelio blows a gasket when a gentleman calls to report that Titta had urinated on his hat from the cinema balcony the previous evening.

The piazza becomes a hive of activity once darkness falls, with the cinema being the social focal point. For once, however, Gradisca is upstaged by a carriage full of women heading to the nearby brothel. The youths pull faces through the windows, a motorcyclist zooms through the streets in his black leathers, and the parish priest chats earnestly with the village Fascist leader, as they discuss how to win hearts and minds.

Don Balosa (Gianfilippo Carcano) is more concerned with how the flowers are being arranged in a side chapel than he is in the sins that Titta tries to conceal during confession. The majority relate to the impure thoughts he has whenever he sees the tobacconist (Maria Antonietta Beluzzi), his maths teacher (Dina Adorni), or Jean Harlow. However, his biggest crush is on Gradisca and he recalls swapping seats in the empty cinema so that he could sit next to her. She was far from impressed by his clumsy attempts at seduction, but Titta leaves the church with a nominal penance and a clearer conscience.

When a Fascist dignitary comes to the village, the band turns out and a crowd forms. Three red-shirted veterans from Giuseppe Garibaldi's campaign in 1860 stand to attention as the reception party jogs through the streets. Gradisca gets particularly excited, as the local party leader boasts of the number of children in the youth organisations and the visitor is suitably impressed as the boys and girls put on respective drill displays with rifles and hula hoops.

Every pronouncement is cheered, even a claim that the sun shines more brightly on a Fascist Italy. A giant likeness of Benito Mussolini made up of red and white flowers is erected to energetic salutes and Ciccio imagines the floral lips pronouncing his marriage to Aldina. Titta is part of the show, but Miranda has locked the gate to prevent the anarchist Aurelio from getting into trouble.

When the lights suddenly go out later that night and a gramophone record of 'The Internationale' is played from the campanile, the blackshirts run into the square and start shooting indiscriminately. Lallo (who had been part of the Fascist entourage) spots Titta amidst the chaos and recommends that Aurelio is brought in for questioning. He protests that he knows nothing about politics, but avoids saying anything complimentary about Mussolini's regime. Consequently, he is forced to drink castor oil by a Fascist commander in a wheelchair before being sent home after a severe beating and a noxious dousing. Miranda sobs, as Titta taunts his father, who knows that Lallo had set him up in order to ingratiate himself with the elite.

Continuing to act as an unofficial chorus, the lawyer shows off the Grand Hotel and relates a story about how Gradisca was persuaded to sleep with a visiting prince. He also recalls the day a diminutive emir had arrived with 30 concubines. After darkness fell, they had thrown down knotted sheets to entice Biscein the vegetable seller (Gennaro Ombra) into climbing up and joining them in their quarters. However, the lawyer doubts the tale is true.

One summer's day, Aurelio assembles the family to take his brother, Teo (Ciccio Ingrassia), on an outing to a farm from the asylum where he lives. Apart from a mishap during a comfort break en route, Teo behaves well and his father compliments him on his intelligence. After lunch, however, Teo climbs a tree and refuses to come down until they fetch him some female company. Titta suggests getting Volpina after his uncle has thrown stones at everyone trying to coax him down. But, as dusk falls, a petite nun climbs a ladder and gives Teo such a stern talking to that he clambers down and shuffles docilely into a waiting ambulance.

As autumn approaches, news comes that the grand liner, SS Rex, is going to sail five miles off the Adriatic coast. The village is left empty, as every vessel is commandeered to paddle or chug out to sea. Gradisca gets emotional while waiting, as she craves affection and children. But her neighbours trade anecdotes or break into song to keep up the spirits, as time ticks on. Eventually, at around one in the morning, the decoratively lit ship passes the little flotilla and a wave of national pride sweeps over everyone, even though the swell threatens to capsize them.

A heavy fog descends upon Borgo San Giuliano, with expressionist shapes rising out of a shroud that means no one can see clearly. Meandering home, Grandfather grumbles, 'If death is like this, I don't think much of it.' Titta and his friends decide to bunk off school and go to the Grand Hotel, which is deserted. Nevertheless, they sneak through the gates and imagine themselves dancing with their partners on the terrace in the enveloping mist. Fortunately, conditions are significantly better when the competitors in the VII Mille Miglia road race speed through the streets at midnight. Titta imagines arriving at the finishing post to find Gradisca waiting for him. But Ciccio has given up on Aldina and pictures himself giving her the bird, as she watches from a balcony. From his vantage point at a roadside café, Lallo spots an ear in the road after the cars have passed.

Shortly after an amorous encounter with the buxom tobacconist, Titta falls ill and Miranda nurses him. He asks about her courtship with Aurelio and she reveals that they had eloped because her parents had not approved of the match. That night, it starts snowing and the villagers are intrigued to see their streets turn white.

Miranda is in hospital, with Volpina in the adjoining bed. Aurelio and Titta take her flowers and she urges her son to help his father, who shuffles mournfully when his wife mentions that her wedding ring no longer fits her finger. Titta promises to try, but is next seen with his friends in the piazza. They are busy snowballing Gradisca when a peacock from the count's estate lands on a pillar of snow and spreads its train. Everyone stops to admire the bird, while also marvelling at its vanity and folly.

Shortly afterwards, Miranda dies and Titta is distraught. He guides Aurelio through the funeral service and rides in a hansom to the cemetery with the younger members of his family, as the other villagers walk behind the horse-drawn hearse. They are also in attendance at the outdoor wedding breakfast when Gradisca marries a Carabiniere named Matteo (Bruno Bertocci). The blind accordionist (Domenico Pertica) plays, as the puffballs glide on the wind. But it's only after the happy couple have driven away that somebody notices that Titta has also left Borgo San Giuliano.

Memory Fellini Style

'Amarcord is a look into the world of my memory,' Federico Fellini declared in his autobiography I, Fellini. Being Fellini, however, this wasn't a definitive statement. Elsewhere, he claimed it to be 'an invented, adulterated, secondhand sort of memory'. But, what is often overlooked in discussions of this satirical scrapbook is that Fellini was not its sole author.

Sharing the writing credit was Tonino Guerra, who had been born two months apart from Fellini in 1920 in the nearby town of Santarcangelo di Romagna. Two years after their birth, Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Party had come to power under King Victor Emmanuel III and changed the face of Italy. In addition to making the trains run on time, Il Duce had also persuaded Pope Pius XI to sign the Lateran Treaty in 1929, which saw the formation of Vatican City and ended a dispute between the government and the Catholic Church that had lasted for almost 60 years.

The relationship between the church and the state is frequently commented upon during Amarcord

, with Titta's education being emblematic of the national 'lapse of conscience' that 'imprisoned Italians in a perpetual adolescence'. Fellini takes every opportunity to mock the imperiousness of the blackshirts and the bombastic rhetoric and rigmaroles that were used to lull the public into a sense of trusting well-being. As the Catholic Church sought to impose a morality that would bring about conformity, it became a useful tool in the Fascist armoury. But confessing impure thoughts didn't stop people having them and the screenplay is stuffed with references to the sniggering innuendo and lustful ogling that symbolised the abnegation of moral responsibility that had allowed Mussolini and his cohorts to grasp and maintain power.

The lack of control that the teachers have over their students, as they drone their way through droning lessons, is contrasted with Aurelio's inability to maintain order in his own household. This implies that Fellini's generation had recognised the imbecility of Fascism. Yet, Titta and his classmates were still corralled into regimented lines to impress the visiting dignitaries with their discipline. Moreover, there was a dark and dangerous side to the pompous pageantry, as Aurelio discovers when he is tortured for supposedly being behind the playing of the socialist anthem from the bell tower.

Another danger that Fascism posed was a readiness to go along with the myth that Il Duce knew best and that contentment would only come from obedience. According to Fellini, this legacy was long-lasting and pernicious. As he later wrote: 'Fascism and adolescence continue to be, in a certain measure, permanent historical seasons of our lives: adolescence of our individual life, Fascism of our national life. That is, this remaining children for eternity, this leaving responsibilities for others, this living with the comforting sensation that there is someone who thinks for you (and one time it's mother, then it's father, then the mayor, another Il Duce, another time the Madonna, another time the Bishop, in short other people): and in the meanwhile, you have this limited, time-wasting freedom which permits you only to cultivate absurd dreams - the dream of the American cinema, or the Oriental dream concerning woman, in conclusion, the same old monstrous, out-of-date myths that even today seem to me to form the most important conditioning of the average Italian.'

In Fellini and Guerra's eyes, therefore, Borgo San Giuliano is Italy in microcosm. This enables the pair to mix fact and fantasy. Titta, for example, is not based on the co-scenarists, but on Fellini's childhood pal, Luigi 'Titta' Benzi, who remained a close friend as he grew up to be a lawyer. The use of the lawyer to guide viewers around the village is canny, as we should be inclined to trust someone whose profession depends upon the sacrosanct nature of truth. But he is considered a bore by his neighbours and confides that his anecdotes might sometimes be more fanciful than factual. He insists that the story of how Nanola earned the nickname 'Gradisca' (which translates as 'May it please you') is true, yet follows it with the obviously specious yarn about Biscein and the concubines.

We know Gradisca existed from Titta Benzi's contribution to the 2006 documentary short, Fellini's Homecoming. 'Gradisca was a beautiful girl from the neighborhood of San Giuliano,' he explained, 'the separatist part of town. It was an anti-Fascist neighbourhood under Fascism. They were sailors who thought only about their own existence, without another thought in their heads, but they wanted to be respected for their principles. Gradisca lived in this neighbourhood, a young girl who dressed in the tight clothes in style at the time. She'd start out there and cross the Tiberius Bridge to the main street in Rimini. The boys would yell out, "Gradisca's coming!" Everyone would clap their hands and kid about with her.'

But what of Volpina or the unnamed tobacconist? What to believe? And does a wisp of fabrication make the action any less compelling? Bearing in mind that it was Fellini rather than a chubby friend who had been besotted with Aldini (whose real name was Bianchina), should we be ready to believe his accounts of the mammarial initiation offered by the tobacconist and the encounter with Gradisca during a screening of Josef von Sternberg's Morocco (1930) - although there are those who swear it's William A. Wellman's Beau Geste (1939), even though the VII Mille Miglia dates Amarcord's action as 1934.

Even here, there's a teasing disregard for factual accuracy. We see posters outside the Cinema Fulgor for Norma Shearer, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. There are also references to Greta Garbo, Wallace Beery, and the peerless partnership of William Powell and Myrna Loy. But Gary Cooper never made films called La valle dell'amore ('The Valley of Love') or Il sole del deserto ('The Desert Sun'). That said, Coop did headline the 1926 and 1931 versions of Zane Grey's Fighting Caravans, which were respectively released in Italy as Fiore del deserto and Il fuciliere del deserto.

In a probably accidental neat touch, the silent adaptation co-starred Ronald Colman, whose moniker was appropriated for the nickname of the Fulgor's manager. But where are the Italian films of the day? Did the 'white telephone' sagas that epitomised Art Deco chic not come to Rimini or did Fellini simply choose to disremember them? Memory can play tricks, of course. When the local bigwig accuses Titta of widdling on him while watching a Western, he claims the youth had been in the balcony. But it's clear from the scenes filmed inside the Fulgor that the auditorium doesn't have an upper row!

Other venues are recalled with more precision. 'In the evening,' Fellini wrote, 'the Grand Hotel became Istanbul, Baghdad, Hollywood. On its terraces, curtained by thick rows of plants, the Ziegfield Follies might have been taking place.' In another passage, he reminisced: 'We would roam around it like mice, trying to get a glimpse of the inside; but it was impossible. Then we would peer into the big yard behind (always well shaded by its palm trees, which reached the fifth floor), full of cars with indecipherable number plates. An Isetta Fraschini: Titta would whistle with admiration. A Mercedes Benz: another soft whistle…The chauffeurs, in their gleaming boots, smoked as they paced up and down, holding tiny fierce dogs on their leads…Only in winter, in the damp and darkness and fog, did we manage to gain admission to the grand terraces of the Grand Hotel. But it was like coming to a camp where everyone had left a long time ago and the fire was out...The Grand Hotel...stood for riches, luxury, and oriental opulence. When I read descriptions in novels that did not quite raise my imagination to the heights I thought they should, I would pull out the Grand Hotel, like a scene shifter in the theatre using the same backcloth for every situation. Crimes, rape, mad nights of love, blackmail, suicide, torture, the goddess Kali: everything had to be set in the Grand Hotel.'

Equally imposing was the SS Rex. But the pride of the Fascist fleet sailed between Genoa and New York. The sole occasion it visited the Adriatic coast was in 1944 and it was bombed in Trieste. Yet, when researchers came to Rimini in the wake of Amarcord, they found several locals who swore that they had been part of the flotilla that had greeted the liner. Tullio Kezich reported in Federico Fellini: His Life and Work: 'When Amarcord was shown to the people of Rimini, they recognised everything, even this scene that never happened.' To balance things, a functionary from the Fascist Party's regional headquarters did come to Rimini and was treated to displays and a parade. One can only wonder how many of the boys drilling with rifles (ie Fellini's classmates) perished during Mussolini's colonial misadventures in Africa or during the Second World War?

It dismayed Fellini that so many lives were lost because a bunch of buffoons conned the populace into taking them seriously. But he knew that the blame had to be borne by everyone. In 'The Fascism Within Us', he mused: 'I have the impression that Fascism and adolescence continue to be...permanent historical seasons of our lives...remaining children for eternity, leaving responsibilities for others, living with the comforting sensation that there is someone who thinks for you...and in the meanwhile, you have this limited, time-wasting freedom which permits you only to cultivate absurd dreams.' Such an acute appreciation of the politics of the era and their impact on daily lives means that Amarcord is much more than a witty nostalgic wallow. It's both a lament for the ease with which idiotically false notions of heroism and romance seduced a nation and a warning for compatriots and viewers elsewhere to see themselves in the ordinary folks of Borgo San Giuliano and vow that the same mistakes can never be repeated.

Making Myths

Although Fellini wanted everyone to know that Amarcord was rooted in memory, he was reluctant to divulge how much fact was involved. 'I'm a liar,' he admitted, '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.' In other words, the film was an amalgam of memory fragments and imagination, as Fellini projected the past from the present in reflecting on his Rimini youth from the viewpoint of a fiftysomething who had come to understand himself and his fellow Italians.

As Bruce Jackson adroitly summed up Amarcord for Senses of Cinema, 'It is the only one of his films composed of remembered stories, fanciful stories, and stories within recited stories that are themselves remembered stories.' Fellini himself disclosed: 'I don't like to go back to Rimini. Whenever I do go back, I am assailed by ghosts. The reality goes to war with the world of my imagination. For me, the real Rimini is the one in my head. I could have gone back there to film for Amarcord, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. The Rimini I could re-create was closer to the reality of my memory. What could I have had, if I had made the trip with all my troupe to the real place? Memory is not exact. I discovered that the life I'd told about has become more real for me than the life I really lived.'

Having decided that incident would take precedent over character, Fellini and Guerra proceeded to structure the action around the calendar year and treat Borgo San Giuliano as a circus ring. The characters, therefore, became acts who had their moment in the spotlight before returning to the ensemble. In order to pull off this conceit, the lawyer became something of a ringmaster - as Peter Ustinov had been in Max Ophüls's Lola Montès (1955) - who wheels his bicycle into the piazza to provide a little background history into which the vignettes can slot. Some are intricate sequences, others mere sketches. But they keep coming and the viewer has no idea what will happen next.

Breaking the fourth wall, the lawyer addresses the audience directly, as does Biscein when he butts in to describe his dalliance with the harem and shoo everyone home as the wedding feast breaks up. An off-screen voice occasionally challenges the lawyer's recollections and some critics have suggested that this was provided by Fellini himself. Titta also introduces episodes, although some are left to tell themselves, such as the visit of the Fascist panjandrum, Uncle Teo's day out, and the passing of the Rex.

Despite featuring prominently, characters like the lawyer, the tobacconist, and the tetchy blind accordionist are left nameless. Similarly, we never discover the identity or the objective of the motorcyclist who zips through the village in his black leathers. The mystery of the severed ear is also left unsolved (is it human or canine?), while Titta's momentous departure is mentioned in a throwaway aside. One scene failed to make the cut, although it is available as an extra on the Criterion edition of the film. It centres on Carlini, the cesspit cleaner, who is tasked with recovering a diamond ring lost by the contessa. No wonder he bears the nickname, 'Eau de Cologne'.

Fellini cast fisherman Bruno Zanin as Titta and asked old friend Luigi Benzi (who had inspired the character) to play his own father. However, he reluctantly turned down the role, as he explained in Fellini's Homecoming: 'My second wife was afraid to let me go to Rome. Rome, and in particular the film environment, was like the hub of sexual delights. So she didn't want me going to Rome for that. Federico came to my office for one last entreaty. When I said no, he told me, "All right, you bum. Stay in Rimini and defend chicken thieves."'

None of the action was actually filmed in Rimini. An edifice in Anzio stood in for the Grand Hotel, while the rest of Borgo San Giuliano was erected on the soundstages of the famous Cinecittà Studios in the capital. Fellini once joked that 'life is a combination of magic and pasta' and production designer Danilo Donati merits mention for the way in which his sets convey this aura of everyday enchantment. The evocative nature of his exteriors recalls the pre-Neo-Realist genius of such master art directors of Lazare Meerson and Alexandre Trauner. See Cinema Paradiso's A Brief History of French Poetic Realism to discover more.

Donati was also responsible for the splendid costumes, which range from the green dresses worn by Volpina to the tobacconist's powder blue cardigan and the maths teacher's tight white sweater. Then, there are the glamorous red, white, and black outfits that enhance Gradisca's allure, while moral contrast is provided by the stern blacks of the Catholic cassocks and the Fascist uniforms. It should be noted that Gradisca's groom is not wearing party regalia, as he is a member of the Carabineri, the national police force that would help bring about the fall of Il Duce that would usher in the short-lived republic whose excesses Pier Paolo Pasolini would expose in Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).

Guerra knew much more about this side of the war era than Fellini. He had gone to Rome to study law and had drifted into cinema while writing fumetti comic strips for satirical magazines. While Fellini was collaborating with Sergio Amidei on the screenplay for Roberto Rossellini's Neo-Realist landmark, Rome, Open City (1945), Guerra was learning about the Romagna from his fellow inmates at the Troisdorf internment camp in Germany, where he had been sent for anti-Fascist activity. He started writing poetry during his detention and turned to screenwriting at the invitation of friend and future director Elio Petri, who was one of the co-scenarists of Giuseppe De Santis's Man and Wolves (1957), which would be the first of over 100 films on which Guerra would work before his death in 2012.

Despite the success of Amarcord, Fellini would only work with Guerra again on And the Ship Sails On (1983) and Ginger and Fred (1986). But the picture continued the wondrous partnership between the director and composer Nino Rota, who scored all of Fellini's features and shorts between The White Sheik (1952) and Orchestra Rehearsal (1978). As one might expect, all 19 films bore the Fellini imprint. As he once averred, 'If I were to make a film about the life of a sole it would end up being about me.'

Further On Down Memory Lane

Released in Italy on 18 December 1973, Amarcord drew comparisons with such recent Fellini outings as Juliet of the Spirits (1965), The Clowns (1970), and Roma (1972). Critic Giovanni Grazzini reckoned Fellini was at his artistic peak and claimed this 'macabre dance against a cheerful background' offered incisive insights into the national psyche and the deluded grandiosity of the Fascist era. The director himself restated his disdain for 'the ridiculous conditioning, the theatricality, the infantilism, the subjection to a puppetlike power, to a ridiculous myth' that had enabled Mussolini to exert his control over the populace. 'The pretext of being together,' Fellini continued, 'is always a levelling process. People stay together only to commit stupid acts. And when they are alone, there is bewilderment, solitude, or the ridiculous dream of the Orient, of Fred Astaire, or the myth of luxury and American ostentation. It is only ritual which keeps them together. Since no character has a real sense of individual responsibility, or has only petty dreams, no one has the strength not to take part in the ritual, to remain at home outside of it.'

Not always the most receptive of critics, Vincent Canby of The New York Times enthused about 'Fellini's most marvellous film', with its 'extravagantly funny, sometimes dreamlike evocation of a year in the life of a small Italian coastal town in the nineteen-thirties, not as it literally was, perhaps, but as it is recalled by a director with a superstar's access to the resources of the Italian film industry and a piper's command over our imaginations. When Mr Fellini is working in peak condition, as he is in Amarcord, he somehow brings out the best in us. We become more humane, less stuffy, more appreciative of the profound importance of attitudes that in other circumstances would seem merely eccentric if not lunatic.'

British cultural commentator Russell Davies placed the picture alongside the masterworks of Thornton Wilder and Dylan Thomas. 'The pattern is cyclic,' he explained. 'A year in the life of a coastal village, with due emphasis on the seasons, and the births, marriages and deaths. It is an Our Town or Under Milk Wood of the Adriatic seaboard, concocted and displayed in the Roman film studios with the latter-day Fellini's distaste for real stone and wind and sky. The people, however, are real, and the many non-actors among them come in all the shapes and sizes one cares to imagine without plunging too deep into Tod Browning freak territory.'

The latter reference to Freaks (1932) is a bit extreme, but the carnival connection holds good, as does Fellini's readiness to lampoon those with a superiority complex. That said, it isn't always easy to detect where Fellini's fondness for his 'imaginary, projected characters who are fragments, magnifications, caricatures, and grotesques' ends and his dissection of their collective delusionality begins.

No Italian director could rival Fellini when it came to the Academy Awards. Having shared writing nominations for Rossellini's Rome, Open City and Paisà (1946), he added to his tally with the scripts for I vitelloni, La strada (1954), and La dolce vita (1960). The latter brought his first nomination for Best Director and another followed for 8½ (1963), along with a sixth writing citation. A second double up for Amarcord was sandwiched between directing nods for Satyricon (1969) and Casanova (1976).

On discovering that he had missed out to Fellini for Jaws (1975) at the 48th Academy Awards, Steven Spielberg is supposed to have said, 'I can't believe it! They went for Fellini instead of me!' He might also have blamed Sidney Lumet for Dog Day Afternoon, Stanley Kubrick for Barry Lyndon, or Robert Altman for Nashville. But no one was going to trump Miloš Forman, whose adaptation of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest swept the major prizes.

Amarcord did win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, however, which gave Fellini his fourth triumph in the category after La strada, Nights of Cabiria (1957), and 8½. Despite the director's reputation inexplicably dipping since his death in 1993, Amarcord has continued to intrigue critics. In 2008, it was placed 50th in Cahiers du Cinéma's 100 Greatest Films list, while the Ministry of Cultural Heritage included it in the 100 Italian films that have 'changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978'. Four years later, it tied on 14 votes with Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931), Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura (1960), Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St Matthew (1964), Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II (1974), and Elem Klimov's Come and See (1985) in the survey of directors carried out as part of Sight and Sound's decennial poll. Wonderful company, indeed. A decade later, however, it didn't even make the Top 100. But Cinema Paradiso continues to sing Amarcord's praises and recommends below 10 related titles for users to explore.