What to read after Federico Fellini?

The films of Federico Fellini (1920-1993) deal equally with truth-tellers and pretenders, realists and fabulists. His colorful, surreal vision of cinema is so distinctive that the term "Felliniesque" is common among film buffs, even those who have not seen any of his films. This collection of interviews spans the director's entire career from 1957 to 1993.

Fellini began making films shortly after World War II, working in a style similar to the Italian neorealists Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica, but he soon distinguished himself from them by introducing elements of his dreams into his movies. While his earlier masterpieces--such as I Vitelloni, La Strada, and The Nights of Cabiria--are realistic in setting and plot, his post-1960 films are baroque and surrealist. Even 8 1/2, one of his recognized masterpieces and widely regarded as a veiled autobiography, is deeply fantastical.

Fellini's feverish imagination is evident in interviews as well. His friends and enemies alike were quick to call him a buggiardo--a big liar. It is perhaps more accurate to note that Fellini understood the inherent theatricality of all performance, including the interview form, and that artifice is just as revealing as plain truth. In his conversations with interviewers and the media, he often blurred the line between truth and sheer invention.

Bert Cardullo is a professor of English and American literature at Fatih University in Istanbul, Turkey. He is the author of In Search of Cinema: Selected Writings on International Film Art and Vittorio De Sica: Director, Actor, Screenwriter, among other books.