You’ll be reborn

“Fellini: I’m a Born Liar” is a 2002 French feature documentary written and directed by Damian Pettigrew.

It’s based on Federico Fellini’s last interviews filmed by Pettigrew in Rome in 1991 and 1992. It abstains from straightforward biography to highlight the Italian director’s unorthodox working methods, conscience, and philosophy.

When Pettigrew brings up the barren rocky hillsides where Augusto (Broderick Crawford) is left to die at the end of Fellini’s “Il Bidone”, Federico names the place without batting an eye.

“Monte Marino, 15 kilometers south of Rome.”

Intrigued that the maestro’s memory was so exact, Pettigrew asks about Fellini’s “La Strada”.

“Bagnoreggio, Ovindoli, Ostia.”

And Fellini’s “8 1/2″?

“Ostia and Tivoli, the Palais del Drago in Filicciano, 90 kilometers north of Rome. The provincial train station was shot in a train washing shed in the via Prenestina near Porto Maggiore.”

The hotel lobby?

“The hotel lobby and staircase are based on the Plaza Hotel in Rome, except that I built a larger staircase and added a second lion. I had the elevator doors copied down to the last detail at great expense. The spa is a combination of the Chianciano and Montecatini spas in Tuscany.”

After a clip from Fellini’s “8 1/2″ in which a sleepless Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) worries that his latest film will capsize, owing to his own shortcomings – “What if it’s the end,” he asks himself, “of a big fat liar without talent or genius?” – Federico reflects that “doubt” is also a vital part of the creative process.

“Fear is a feeling you have to cultivate. A man cannot do without being afraid. A fearless man is, I think, a fool. Fear is inseparable from being human.”

Fear of death motivates Fellini to abandon, sometime around 1966, a poetic film about the afterlife called “The Voyage of G. Mastorna”. Terence Stamp encourages Fellini to make the film anyway.

“You think if you make this film, you will die. And you will! But not in the way you think. You’ll be reborn.”