Her mother (Caterina Boratto) is an icy, ageless beauty one sister (Sylva Koscina) is an attractive TV hostess, the other (Luisa Della Noce) is puritanical and pregnant, insisting that Juliet hire a private detective to get the goods on Giorgio.Īs various gurus, including an androgynous Eastern mystic (played by pioneering performance artist Valeska Gert) are telling Juliet what to do, she is at once flooded with childhood memories and drawn to the hospitality of her gorgeous blond neighbor Suzy (Sandra Milo), who lives in an Art Nouveau-ish palace with her Greek tycoon lover and whose parties would not be inappropriate for a bordello. Juliet is intimidated and overwhelmed on all sides. Surely only a group this talented could have hoped to keep all this visual splendor light, floating and beguiling.
Fellini designed the chic, understated wardrobe for Juliet while Gherardi created amazing costumes for the other actresses, decking them out in outsize picture hats, and miles of feathers, ruffles, chiffons and silks. In addition to Masina, he draws upon his formidable familiar collaborators: co-writers Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Brunello Rondi cinematographer Gianni De Venanzo composer Nino Rota production and costume designer Piero Gherardi. Thus commences Juliet’s odyssey of self-liberation, which Fellini expresses with wit, grandeur and humor. This occurs just as she has reason to suspect that her glib husband, who has become sexually indifferent to her, has a mistress. But he shows up with his entourage in tow, which includes, among many others, Val (Valentina Cortese), a medium who persuades Juliet and others to participate in a seance that has a decided, if mysterious, effect on Juliet.įrom this point on, the film flows freely between Juliet’s daily life and her newly unleashed imagination, alternating between dreams and fantasies.
Having carefully planned a candlelight dinner for two at her dollhouse-perfect home near the sea, Juliet is greeted by Giorgio, who has forgotten their anniversary. Now in his dashing, expensively tailored, silver-haired 40s, Giorgio is a successful PR impresario who travels a lot, almost certainly not only for work, and attracts a retinue of frivolous, bizarre socialites who seem straight out of “La Dolce Vita.” On the eve of her 15th wedding anniversary, the demure Juliet has spent her marriage in a state of gratitude to the handsome Giorgio (Mario Pisu) who asked her to marry him. For Fellini admirers, Cooper Square Press is releasing a paperback edition of Charlotte Chandler’s invaluable 1994 interview book “I, Fellini” in conjunction with Rialto Pictures’ release of this magnificently restored 35-millimeter print of “Juliet of the Spirits,” which also has newly translated subtitles.
#Juliet of the spirits full#
To see this film again or for the first time is to feel both the full measure of Fellini’s talent and also the great loss to world cinema with his death in 1993, with Masina’s passing occurring only five months later. With Fellini’s own wife, the great Giulietta Masina, as Juliet, and with his unique command of fantasy and spectacle in full force, “Juliet of the Spirits,” Fellini’s first film in color, is at once an eye-popping display of bravura and a work of compassionate insight. Federico Fellini’s 1965 “Juliet of the Spirits” remains a timeless, major work of a master, a portrait of a dutiful wife plunged into crisis that triggers her spiritual awakening.
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