This perception of Giuiletta/Juliet's withdrawn unhappiness adds a melancholy undertone to the movie. She's the party pooper. What was she thinking while she made the film? That first her husband flaunts his taste in grotesque eroticism, and then expects his wife to star in a movie where she's surrounded by it? The movie's last shot shows Juliette leaving her storybook home and walking off toward the nearby woods. The director and his wife argued about the meaning of this scene. To Fellini, this meant she was free. To Giulietta Masina, we learn, it meant that she was alone, abandoned and lonely.
This subtext makes the movie more interesting than it would have been if Fellini had been more in control of his fugitive thoughts and impulses. And it never less than dazzling to look at. It's all pretty pictures and the music of that promenading camera. In any Fellini picture and especially those from “La Dolce Vita” onward, characters seem to glide as if moving to unheard music. In fact, they were. Fellini, like all Italian directors of his time, did not record live sound on his sets, but dubbed all the dialog and sound effects later. That meant he was essentially making silent films, and he always had an orchestra or a record-player on the set to play music, instructing his actors to walk in time. The Nina Rota scores often sound like dance music, and frequently quote old standards; the result is a film that sometimes seems on the brink of bursting into a musical.
After “Juliet,” Fellini made “Fellini Satyricon” (1970). Now that both of these movies have been re-released in newly mastered and restored 35mm prints, we can see him as the master of his canvas. He was a storyteller early in his career, but became a painter of moving images, and those who fixate on plots or messages are hunting in the wrong field. “Juliet” movie was released in America in 1966, and some audiences no doubt attended in an expanded state of consciousness. They were in the right show: A head trip, as they said. Seen in 2001, when the party is long over, it's like a streamer from last summer's dances: Still bright, still gaily waving to echoes of forgotten music.
Fellini was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, but never won one. In 1993, he was given an honorary Oscar, presented by old friends Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren, and as he accepted it Giulietta wept happily in the front row. He died in October of that year. She survived him by five months.
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