The Latest Collaboration Between Nino Rota and Federico Fellini

By Simone Perugini

In this essay the author tries a possible analysis and interpretation of the music composed by Nino Rota for "Orchestra Rehearsal", the documentary film made in 1979 by Federico Fellini.

The author of this essay, for its proposal of analysis and interpretation of Fellini / Rota masterpiece, refers to the latest analytical methods of film music (especially the ones taken by Sergio Miceli, from which it takes its cue for Perugini your work) considering incidental music, in effect, as a major artistic resources of the twentieth century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simone Perugini
• Release date: Feb 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9788826021386

Book preview

Fellini

The Latest Collaboration Between Nino Rota and Federico Fellini

The latest collaboration between Federico Fellini and Nino Rota [1] , Ended, as we know, because of the sudden the musician's death, seemed born quietly, for a film that the director of Rimini took less demanding and tiring than its previous. In 1978 he was released, after a very troubled path, The Casanova di Federico Fellini, very expensive and challenging film, the processing of which was for the very tormented and almost painful director. The subject on which he would work after this exhausting trial, had necessarily to be lighter, more agile and would also result in a linear processing and, to some extent, as relaxing as possible. A production commitment economic, also, very relative.

These we might call minor production, they must be understood as such only on the investment plan. Almost always, these films were produced by RAI, so there was the urgency of the economic return. [2]

The public release of the film was preceded by a screening at the Quirinale, specifically requested by the then President of the Republic Sandro Pertini and was combined for the day October 19, 1978 in the presence not only of the head of state, but also to that of the representatives of various parties. This preview appears, curiously, incardinate perfectly the last Fellini's effort in a highly political context that, after the public release of the film, marked deeply, directing it, the interpretation of the film, regarded by critics as a giant allegory.

In this paper we do not want to provide further interpretation of Orchestra Rehearsal, Nor we are interested to precisely record of all that time was said and written about the film; we will just mention that, whatever the real intention of its author, the film is suitable for his choral and deliberately ambiguous, to multiple interpretations. It can be viewed alternately as a metaphor for society(Italian or Universal does not matter) in the constant alternation between revolution and restoration or as equally compelling metaphor of human life, of the individual's relationship with himself, with his own neuroses and those of its similar / dissimilar. But, as anticipated, it is not of these interpretations that we want to deal, comforted by the same opinion Fellini:

With Orchestra RehearsalI have not intended to make a political film, but only a movie. A film of an orchestra rehearsal. Any interpretation of Orchestra Rehearsalsecond special codes - political, sociological, psychoanalytical, etc.. - Is simplistic, false film. And 'why I do not want to talk about it. I will not be forced to share this or that interpretation. [3]

In this paper, we will limit ourselves to indicate, through the analysis of drama / musical instruments [4] , In which the relationship lie sequences and music, identifying and placing their work in relation to the images and the diegesis trying to offer a possible interpretation of the contribution from rotiana music in this new project of Rimini. Through the display of the path that led the Milanese composer to interact with this production, we want to offer to those who come after us, new insights which seem necessary today, starting from the right redeployment of sound dimension in connection with the meanings of the film.

My collaboration in this Fellini film [...] as well as more intense, was also more timely. We had to make music before the movie, because the test is done on music already composed. Fellini was in need of an original soundtrack, and moving away from the idea of wanting to make a very realistic film from the perspective of the actual test is