Intervista (1984)

It's a shame "Intervista" wasn't Federico Fellini's last film, because it would have been a perfect farewell. Mostly autobiographical, it features the director himself as a prominent onscreen player. Fellini described the film as an informal chat among friends, and "Intervista" indeed has an enjoyably meandering, conversational structure. Not just a movie-within-a-movie, it even becomes a movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie. A chirpy Japanese crew maneuvers to interview Fellini as he shoots a retelling of Franz Kafka's "Amerika." He soon introduces actor Sergio Rubini, who will be portraying Fellini as a young man. Fellini advises a makeup girl to add a pimple to Rubini's nose for comic effect, but a short time later, the pimple is "real" and Rubini is dramatizing Fellini's memories of visiting a major Italian film studio for the first time. Innocent, awestruck Fellini sees various scenes being shot and eventually has trivial dressing-room dialogue with an aging movie queen. Once that section closes, the narrative moves to backstage sequences including a depiction of how Fellini casts his legendary "faces," a surreal attack by Indians wielding TV antennas instead of spears and, most touchingly, a reunion between Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg. Twenty-seven years have passed since the two splashed in a fountain during a famous "La Dolce Vita" scene, and Ekberg is much heavier and no longer a hot property. Of course, Mastroianni has become a superstar, but Ekberg shows no competitive bitterness. Their misty-eyed viewing of the old footage -- their tears require no acting, I'm sure -- is usually cited as "Intervista"'s highlight.