Frank Burke attempts to explain the decline in Fellini’s reputation after the release of “8 ½” in his article “Fellini: Changing the Subject.”  Burke argues that after “8 ½” Fellini’s directorial style becomes more imaginative, dreamlike, and ultimately repetitive.  A brief history of arguments about the auteur follows.  According to Burke the idea of the creative auteur dies about the time “8 ½” is made.  As a result of this movement away from the creative auteur, Fellini changes his style of film.  While his early films deal with the idea of individuality, his later films become more confusing.  They often do not have main characters, or if there are, then the characters tend to lose their subjectivity or identity.  Burke walks through many of Fellini’s films after “8 ½,” dissecting them in order to show how Fellini changed and eventually declined.  In the middle he discusses “Fellini Satyricon” where he points out that it is a great example of the death of the character.  In “Fellini Satyricon” Fellini concentrates of the gaps of the narratives, and searches to find actors with faces that increase the spectacle he is trying to create.  In this way he places the visual aspect of the cinema over the narrative or plot driven aspect of it.  The result is a movie that is hard to follow, with fragmented characters and events. 

“Fellini Satyricon” is just one example of how Fellini moves more towards reproducing instead of creating his movies.  Burke argues that after “8 ½” Fellini tries to delve into the world of autobiographies, dreams, and remakes of novels like Satyricon.  Burke’s main point seems to be that Fellini began to decline after making “8 ½” because he tried to tweak the relationship between the author and subject.  The end product of these modifications is a decline in the quality of Fellini’s work. 

Sander L. Gilman exams Fellini’s use of religion by looking at one of his films in particular, “I Clowns.”  Before analyzing the religious intent of “I Clowns,” Gilman mentions the Erich Segal’s critique of “Fellini Satyricon.”  Segal finds “Fellini Satyricon” to be a failure because Fellini cannot create a life without Christian morals even though the characters in his movie are supposed to be pagan.  Gilman argues that Segal’s view of “Fellini Satyricon” is influenced by the fact that Segal was comparing “Fellini Satyricon” to the novel Satyricon.  Gilman instead views “Fellini Satyricon” on its own, and praises it as and imaginative and original piece of film. 

The article then continues to explain the religious content of “I Clowns” because Gilman argues that the themes found in “I Clowns” are relevant to most of Fellini’s movies.  “I Clowns” focuses on the art of spectacle.  The clowns amuse the spectators by being the opposite of what is socially acceptable.  Sometimes this verges on the oversexed or violent.  Fellini believes that the circus copies the real world.  This could be why he chooses to use the grotesque in so much of his films.  He finds honesty in the flawed aspects of people and situations.  The reason that Fellini chooses to represent the circus could also be because of his childhood obsession with it.  Fellini finds connections not only with the circus and real life, but also between the circus and the movie.  Both require rehearsals, careful thought and direction, and costumes and acting.  Another aspect of Fellini’s childhood is his attachment to the Catholic Church.  In adulthood Fellini split from the Catholic Church, but this did not stop him from harboring an obsession with morals.  Gilman points out that ignoring the religiosity of Fellini’s films does not do them justice.  Even though his main argument points towards “I Clowns” he also references other Fellini films like “La Strada” and “Fellini Satyricon” to prove that his points are true for multiple works.      

In “The Individual, the World, and the Life of Myth in ‘Fellini Satyricon’” A.J. Prats discusses how myths are used in the movie “Fellini Satyricon.”  Prats begins by quoting Joseph Campbell’s views on how movies can be the new form of the myth, in order to save the form as it is in decline.  After referencing this argument, Prats continues by delving into “Fellini Satyricon” and showing what an important part myths play in the narrative.  Prats focuses on Encolpio, one of the main characters in the film, and describes how his life, in the movie, involves interacting with different myths.  Prats further argues that in order for Encolpio to grow as a character he needs to live a life outside of the one made up of familiar myths.  Prats follows the movie through each of its uses of myths, describing how each myth effects the Encolpio.  An Encolpio travels through myth after myth, he is never able to find the freedom and direction that he finally finds in the end.  Encolpio is an observer in the mythical world that he travels through.  He is a scholar and has thus heard of these myths, and yet is unable to use this knowledge to his advantage.  When Encolpio encounters a myth it teaches him nothing about himself or his environment.  He is a passive spectator in his world until he is forced to encounter a present myth, instead of a historical one.  Here, when Encolpio finds the witch that gives him his sexual prowess back, he does not have the safety of a story to follow but instead has to make up his own.  This journey into himself allows him to begin to identify a strength of character, which he lacks throughout the rest of the movie.  This change allows him to make decisions for himself, instead of allowing the environment to force decisions upon him. 

Prats article helps to make sense of the haphazard plot of  “Fellini Satyricon.”  Even though the narrative may not make complete sense, Prats presents a different, and organized, way to look at it. 

A.J. Prats and John Pieters join together to explain Fellini’s directorial changes when he moves to color movies in their article “The Narratives of Decharacterization in Fellini’s Color Movies.”  They begin the article by defining their term “narratives of decharacterization.”  Although this definition seems broad, it can be narrowed down to mean how Fellini uses his own imagination in order to add freedom to his plots and to break away visually from his work in black-and-white films.  The characters in these movies grow in an unusual way so that by the end of the movie they do not identify with their original identity but rather with an image.

Pieters and Prats then continues by defining what a traditional hero is in order to explain Fellini’s characters.  The traditional hero acts in a particular way in order to reach their end result.  Fellini’s characters are decharacterized which means that they lose their identity in order to gain freedom in the world they live in.  Prats and Pieters continue by making the claim that Fellini’s movies also lack a main character that is the focus of the movie.  Fellini sacrifices the traditional character in order to create more powerful images.  The article then moves on to track Fellini’s directorial changes by analyzing his color movies.  His main mode of growth is the use of his imagination in terms of how characters can be used in less traditional ways.  In “Fellini Satyricon” for example, the characters are supposed to represent how hard and confusing adolescence can be.  His characters wander without a specific aim or end in sight.  In the end Pieters and Prats praise Fellini for his capacity to change throughout his directorial life and completely revamp his definition of “the character.”  Pieters and Prats lightly allude to Fellini’s critics and how they need to be more open to how movies can change, and how Fellini has accomplished this change by using his imagination. 

Bernard F. Dick reviews Peter Bondanella’s novel The Cinema of Federico Fellini here.  It is clear from this review that Bondanella is very fond of Fellini. The beginning of the review is devoted to why Fellini is regarded as great and different.  It also gives a little of Fellini’s background, as he is not only a director.  The middle of the review seems to reflect some of Dick’s own views on Fellini.  He credits Fellini as a brilliant director that evolved throughout his career.  This is illustrated perfectly with “Fellini Satyricon” because when Fellini releases this film, people think that he is a different director.  The main stylistic changes that he adopts are that he makes his film more dreamlike and fantastic.  Dick does not address whether this is a good or bad thing, but rather continues by talking about how he interpreted the movie.  Dick sees “Fellini Satyricon” as a film that works in different ways.  It not only retells Petronius’ story complete with its stylist digressions, scene changes, and gaps in the storyline, but it also does more.  It disguises itself by showing the history of Rome, when really it is showing the decadence of a particular part of his present culture, that of the 1960’s.  In this way Fellini is able to make a point about how the 1960’s culture needed to be changed.  Without knowing about 1960’s culture, at that time, it would be nearly impossible to identify this counter theme in the movie.  With this new knowledge about Fellini’s intent of the movie, “Fellini Satyricon” could be viewed differently than just as an adaptation of a novel, but rather as a social commentary of his time period.   

David I. Grossvogel inspects “Fellini Satyricon” in his article “Fellini’s Satyricon.”  He begins his article by writing about Petronius’ Satyricon so that he can make comparisons to Fellini’s work and show why Fellini may have chosen to re-make this novel.  Grossvogel finds Petronius’ novel to be fragmented, full of digressions, and conscious of being literary.  He also points out that Petronius is too fond of characters to let the novel develop the way classical satires do.  It is this interest in their characters that is a similarity between Fellini and Petronius.  Another reason that Fellini may have been drawn to Satyricon is the characters in it.  Grossvogel writes about Fellini’s attraction to characters that have to perform in their profession.  Petronius’ novel is full of such characters, which may have attracted Fellini’s interest

Grossvogel continues by writing about “Fellini Satyricon” as a film.  He posits that Fellini’s purposeful detachment from his characters in the film makes the movie suffer.  He mentions that Fellini purposefully tries to stay detached from his characters because he was trying to represent a pre-Christian era.  This time period is something that he cannot relate to, and thus lets his characters become bigger monsters than they need to be because Fellini does not have strong feelings towards them.  In essence the characters become a characterization of themselves, which is personified in their masks, which don’t really hide anything.  Grossvogel position on “Fellini Satyricon” seems puzzling at times.  He does not mind that the movie and novel are not similar contextually, yet criticizes Fellini about his characters.  He seems to say that “Fellini Satyricon” is an odd movie even for Fellini himself.

John Simon berates Fellini in his article “A Spanking For ‘Fellini Satyricon.’” From start to finish, Simon argues that “Fellini Satyricon” is Fellini’s worst film in his career that is slowly diminishing. Simon’s article is split up into three sections where he makes three different points. The first section is devoted to how Fellini’s movie is so unlike Petronius’ Satyricon. According to Simon, “Fellini Satyricon” lacks a plot and includes more of Fellini’s dreams or fantasies than the events from Petronius’ novel. Simon chastises Fellini not only for inserting his own dreams, but also for then leaving them unfinished and confusing. The images are random and do not coincide with Petronius’ well thought out plot. The second section points out a specific scene in “Fellini Satyricon” where one of Fellini’s characters is reciting a poem. Simon criticizes Fellini because the poem is not used in the proper way, and is not even read completely. Simon views the insertion of this ancient piece of writing as a way for Fellini to show of his knowledge of Classical history. The third and final section of the article deals with the fact that the film focuses on the visual instead of the aural. He claims Fellini does not care about the story that his film is telling, but rather what it looks like. Then he continues by pointing out visual continuity errors throughout the film, thus showing that it is not even that great a film visually.

Simon’s clearly disliked “Fellini Satyricon” and is not quiet about it in his article. He does not include any positive remarks about it, and instead points out every aspect of why the movie disappointed him as a viewer.

            John C. Stubbs explains what makes a Fellini film Fellini-esque in his article “The Fellini Manner: Open Form and Visual Excess.” He begins by explaining that the two things that help to identify a director is their

narrative manner, or how they choose to represent the story to the viewer, and their visual style. In this well organized article Stubbs begins by addressing Fellini’s narrative manner, which he calls “narrative form of

revelation.” Stubs writes that Fellini believes life to be mysterious and unexplainable. These beliefs influence his movies in that he does not represent life the way the average viewer would expect it but rather in a

more unfamiliar and exciting way. Stubs continues by explaining how Fellini takes an individual sequence and reveals nuances from it that would otherwise go unnoticed. Fellini is free in this aspect of his film making

because of his belief that life is diverse and cannot be repeated, so its representation does not have to be accurate and can involve digressions or vagueness.

Stubbs then moves on to discuss Fellini’s visual style, which he calls “the style of excess”, which he breaks this up into four sections. The first is called “Layered Composition.” Here he discusses Fellini’s use of deep space and multiple layers of movement on the screen. The next section entitled “Galleries of Grotesques and Pairings of Characters” discusses how Fellini loves to use ugly or grotesque characters in his film to surprise him audience by making them uncomfortable and maintaining an abnormal aspect stressed in his movies. A similar effect is accomplished when he pairs large and small actors to create an uneasy effect. The third section, “Disjunctions and the Surreal Effect,” discusses how Fellini further surprises viewers by using odd props throughout his films. The last section, “Overflowing Forms, Texture, and Color” describes how Fellini likes to use colors and fabrics to make a statement in his scenes.

Overall, Stubbs tries to break down Fellini’s style so that the viewer can understand Fellini’s movies more, and why he chooses to make them the way that he does.

            Neal Oxenhandler’s article “Satyricon” defends “Fellini Satyricon” against the negative reviews that it has received. Oxenhandler is making a rebuttal against two critics in particular, Alberto Moravia and John

Simon,who claim that “Fellini Satyricon” is too dreamlike with repetitively boring characters that make the movie unsuccessful. Oxenhandler argues that the characters in Fellini’s film are portrayed in that type of

methodical way in order to contrast the constantly changing visuals of the film. In reference to the argument about the dreamlike quality of the work, Oxenhandler makes claims against the realistic quality of the original

work written by Petronius. Oxenhandler agrees that Fellini takes certain liberties with Petronius’ original novel, referring to the plot, and the overall tone and theme of the movie. The difference between Oxenhandler,

and Moravia and Simon, is that Oxenhandler does not find this disagreeable. He is enchanted by the ridiculously strange world that Fellini creates, yet refutes that it should be called dreamlike because it does not share

the characteristics of stereotypical dream images.

Oxenhandler harks on the style of the film and even goes so far as to say that it is Fellini’s greatest achievement in style because of its continuity and how carefully it is produced. He discusses how this distinct style helps to direct the viewer to the main theme of the movie, which is the idea of the monstrous, and how beauty can overcome it. Oxenhandler deems Moravia and Simon as close-minded because they do not understand the poetic vision of the movie or the way Fellini meant it to parallel negative aspects of society today. He writes that it is okay for Fellini to use him imagination in building this fake world because the film is about the behavior of people throughout history instead of just the characters in Petronius’ Satyricon.

Erich Segal’s article “Arbitrary Satyricon Petronius & Fellini” discusses the differences between Petronius’ novel Satyricon and Fellini’s cinematic adaptation of this novel, Fellini Satyricon.  Throughout the article Segal draws out these differences by concentrating on Petronius’ novel.  Segal views Satyricon as both a work of humor and satire with an overarching message of “carpe diem.”  Petronius depicts his version of “carpe diem” by making his characters celebrate sexuality and by being self-indulgent.  While is characters are seizing the day they quickly switch from one mood to its exact opposite, yet in the end the happier mood always prevails. This reinforces the novel’s lighter tone.  Segal is also quick to point out the Petronius does not shy away from issues of female sexuality which is impressive for an author during that time period.  Segal makes it clear that he appreciates and respects Petronius’ work for the first half of the article.

The second half of the article is devoted to showing how Fellini misrepresented or misunderstood Petronius’ novel.  According to Segal, Fellini’s work concentrates more on fearing death, than on living life to the fullest.  His only explanation as to why this may have happened is that Fellini Satyricon is “Fellini’s hell on Earth.”  The characters in Satyricon are pagans, and Fellini’s Christian past inhibits his ability to truly understand his characters.  Thus he misrepresents them as being more perverse and ugly than Petronius intended them to be.  Segal writes that Fellini’s characters are Christians and thus equate sex with sin, and then sin with ugliness.  With these kinds of connections there is no way that Fellini could give an accurate portrayal of Petronius’ novel.  In the end Segal suggests that Fellini should stick with topics that he does not have any moral opposition to, because it was this that in the end stifled the movie.