Cool Stuff: Criterion Collection Announces Federico Fellini 15-Disc Box Set Packed With Special Features
Federico Fellini is one of the greatest Italian filmmakers of all time. This year marks the late director's 100th birthday, and in honor of his contribution to cinema, Criterion Collection has announced a 15-disc box set packed with 14 of his theatrical releases, a slew of documentaries about his life and work, feature commentaries, video essays, essays, and much more. It's the ultimate box set for the most hardcore Federico Fellini fans, and I can't wait to get it.
Criterion Collection Federico Fellini Box Set
The news of the Criterion Collection Federico Fellini box set comes on the same day that Criterion Collection released their new Agnès Varda box set. While the Fellini box set isn't quite as big (watch a trailer for it over here), it still comes chock full of his best movies and a bunch of other media that you'd have a hard time tracking down anywhere else. Here's the list of movies included in the box set:
Variety Lights (1950)
The White Sheik (1952)
I Vitelloni (1953)
La Strada (1954)
Il Bidone (1955)
Nights of Cabiria (1957)
La Dolce Vita (1960)
8 1/2 (1963)
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
Fellini Satyricon (1969)
Roma (1972)
Amarcord (1973)
And the Ship Sails On (1983)
Intervista (1987)
Having the movies is good enough for this box set, but beyond that, there are all these special features that come packed in the box set you see above. The special features include:
New 4K restorations of 11 theatrical features, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks for all films
New digital restorations of the short film Toby Dammit (1968) and the television film Fellini: A Director's Notebook (1969), with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
Feature documentaries Fellini: I'm a Born Liar (2002) and Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember (1997), the latter presented in its 193-minute version
Two-hour, four-part 1960 interview with director Federico Fellini by filmmaker André Delvaux for Belgian television
Four behind-the-scenes documentaries: Reporter's Diary: "Zoom on Fellini" (1965), Ciao, Federico! (1969), The Secret Diary of "Amarcord" (1974), and Fellini racconta: On the Set of "And the Ship Sails On" (1983)
Fellini racconta: Passegiatte nella memoria, a 2000 documentary featuring interviews with a late-in-life Fellini
Giulietta Masina: The Power of a Smile, a 2004 documentary about Fellini's wife and frequent collaborator
Once Upon a Time: "La dolce vita," a French television documentary about the film
Audio commentaries on six of the films
Program from 2003 on Fellini's 1980s television advertising work
Archival interviews with Fellini stars and collaborators, including Mastroianni, Sandra Milo, Anouk Aimée, and Magali Noël
Archival audio interviews by film critic Gideon Bachmann with Fellini, Mastroianni, and Fellini's friends and family
Video essays, trailers, and more
PLUS: Deluxe packaging, including two lavishly illustrated books with hundreds of pages of content: notes on the films by scholar David Forgacs, essays by filmmakers Michael Almereyda, Kogonada, and Carol Morley; film critics Bilge Ebiri and Stephanie Zacharek; and novelist Colm Tóibín, and dozens of images spotlighting Don Young's renowned collection of Fellini memorabilia
Though I haven't taken a dive into the filmographies of many classic foreign film directors, Federico Fellini is one of my favorite filmmakers. Fellini has influenced many filmmakers working today, including fellow Italian director Martin Scorsese, and if you look at these old films, you'll find some flairs of what Scorsese would bring to the table in his career.
The Criterion Collection Federico Fellini box set will cost $199.96, and it arrives on November 24, 2020.
