Il bidone had a notable influence on Giuseppe Tornatore's 1995 film, L'uomo delle stelle - about a con man who defrauds Sicilian peasants with dreams of becoming movie stars in Rome. Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion, Federico Fellini 1955.The film also has a 100% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes from 6 reviewers. Broderick Crawford's performance as the swindler is heavy and sodden, with a particular flair for postured histrionics in the swindle scenes." But it contains some very strong Fellini phases and accumulations of moods that make it well worth seeing. Reception Critical response įilm critic Bosley Crowther gave the film a mixed review, calling it "a cheap crime thriller." He added, "For this film, which is often mentioned in estimations of the master's works, is notable as a false step in his movement toward the development of a type of story material. On a snowy hillside, they leave him to a slow death. Wife Julietta Masina’s performance makes Nights of Cabiria a must-see for fans of Italian cinema, it’s a rare gem. Stripping him, the crooks find he has concealed the takings in his clothes. Fellinis Casanova (1976) 842 Many prefer the metaphor-laden surrealism of 8 ½, but I think I lean toward the realism of the decadent artists portrayed in La Dolce Vita. A row develops and he is battered to the ground. Based on the directors life during the Mussolini years, the comedy-drama features a loose, nonlinear structure where the ever-shifting vignettes evolve in. Her plight touches him, and when the gang come to share out the gains he says he gave it all back. Federico Fellinis Roma sees the authoritative Italian director turning his cameras on Rome to deliver an impressionistic and dazzling portrayal of Italys capital city: the Eternal City. After swindling a large sum out of a farming family, he talks to their polio-afflicted teenage daughter. When released he forms a new gang to work the clergy scam among peasants. However he is recognized in a cinema with her, arrested and jailed. Another member, Augusto, meets his teenage daughter Patrizia who he has not seen for years, and his conscience is also awakened. It follows a woman’s mental suffering while shes attempting to reveal the truth about her suspicions on her husbands infidelity, and it soon evolves into an excursion of self-discovery.
His conscience is pricked and he decides to quit. Federico Fellini’s first feature-length colour film is gushing with so many stylistic abundances as to border on the limits of self-parody.
One member of the gang, Carlo - nicknamed Picasso in being an aspiring artist - pretends to his faithful wife Iris that he is a traveling salesman, but after a New Year's Eve party among criminals she stops believing him. The proceeds are spent on flashy cars, champagne and prostitutes. Another scam in a shanty town is to pretend they are officials taking deposits for apartments. In the country outside Rome, a group of swindlers dress up as clerics and con poor farmers out of their savings.