Fellini on and as Fellini : MOVIE REVIEW : Director’s Bravura ‘Intervista’: Gorgeously Cinematic Doodle

Because a filmmaker of genius can create wonders with nothing for a subject, Federico Fellini’s flimsy “Intervista” overflows with seductive warmth and charm even though it’s as insubstantial as the dream it finally is.

This unapologetic fuzziness of structure has held back “Intervista’s” domestic progress, and despite being completed in 1987 it is just now getting American distribution. But though it sounds hopelessly self-indulgent, this is a magnificent trifle, such a gorgeously cinematic doodle, in fact, that it’s impossible to care about film and not be won over by Fellini’s casual, all but effortless directorial skill.

And if “Intervista” (at the Sunset 5) is about anything, it is about Fellini’s lifelong love for the movies. Made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Cinecitta, Rome’s city-within-a-city film studio, even its most casual shots (of which there are many) bear the indisputable mark of a master filmmaker, someone who creates cinema with a naturalness few can equal.

While a less bravura director might have conceived of “Intervista” as a film within a film, that was much too mild for Fellini. His script (written with the collaboration of Gianfranco Angelucci) has so many movies going on at once that audiences will be hard-pressed to figure out where they are at any given moment. But Fellini brings all this off with so much elan that getting your bearings finally seems less important than just reveling in the small pleasures he provides.

“Intervista” starts simply enough, with a Cinecitta crew setting up the lighting for a new (and fictitious) Fellini film, a movie version of Franz Kafka’s “Amerika.” As the lights go on, a Japanese film crew also appears, intent on doing a documentary on Fellini himself and hoping for some candid glimpses of the great man at work.

And soon enough, Fellini, playing himself with the most grand style, does appear, very much the maestro in a checkered hat and an air of imperturbable command. But once the fact of his directing a new film is established, “Intervista” more or less forgets about Kafka’s “Amerika,” instead wandering off in any number of intriguing directions.

First off, making good use of Cinecitta’s status as a home for Rome’s energetic commercial makers, “Intervista” visually eavesdrops on a few, showing us, for instance, scenes of gaudy drum majorettes for no other reason than that they happen to make gorgeous images when shot by the veteran Tonino Delli Colli.

Also on the lot for a commercial assignment is Fellini’s veteran alter ego, Marcello Mastroianni, and more or less on a whim Fellini decides to take him, the Japanese and anyone else who’s around out to see the actor’s reclusive “La Dolce Vita” co-star, Anita Ekberg, who lives surrounded by angry dogs in a suburban villa.

This turns out to be the first time Ekberg, dressed in a bright orange towel outfit of uncertain provenance, has seen Mastroianni since that classic film. And in a magical scene that blends and contrasts current footage with the past, the pair reunite in a way that is possible only in the movies.

Parallel with this visit, Fellini reminisces about his first visit to Cinecitta, when he showed up as a journalist assigned to interview one of the reigning glamour queens of the day. Suddenly we are on that very tram to the studio with him, and the most memorable part of “Intervista” (Italian for interview ) displays that magic world of cinema as it looked to the dazzled young Fellini (played by Sergio Rubini), who, not surprisingly, remained movie-struck from that day to this.

Like some kind of eccentric family album, “Intervista” (Times-rated Family) cuts casually back and forth between all these different real and re-created realities. Part Valentine, part memory lane, “Intervista” may not qualify as a great film, but it is the kind of film only a great filmmaker could create.

‘Intervista’

Sergio Rubini: The Reporter

Lara Wendel: The Wife

Paolo Liguori: The Star

Marcello Mastroianni: Himself

Anita Ekberg: Herself

Federico Fellini: Himself

A Aljusha Productions production, in association with RAI Channel 1/Cinecitta, released by Castle Hill Productions Inc. Director Federico Fellini. Line producer Pietro Notarianni. Screenplay Fellini. Screenplay collaborator Gianfranco Angelucci. Cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli. Editor Nino Baragli. Music Nicola Piovani, with a tribute to Nino Rota. Production design Danilo Donati. Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes.

Times-rated Family.