Les clowns

As far back as I can remember, I was always scared by clowns. Literally, my "coulrophobia" (that's the right word) happens to be my first life's episode I ever remember. So, allow me to start this review like Fellini did in his semi-documentary "I Clowns".

My first encounter with clowns was on TV (still a big screen from children's eyes) and being a sickly timid boy, I have always been unsettled by abnormality, let alone these creepy chalky faces with bright make-up. A few days later, during my 3rd birthday party, I saw one of my cousins being made-up as a clown and as fast as I could, I ran immediately to my aunt's knee and pretended to sleep, forcing my eyes to stay closed. Clowns became the incarnation of a devil I ignored all about.

And they were everywhere, I could hear their irritating voices on circus TV programs, watch them bullying poor "Dumbo", or hanging in these ugly paintings. The year after the birthday episode, my school's holiday party featured the two most famous clowns of my country. And I had to hide somewhere waiting for my Dad to take me, but the nightmare wasn't over yet: the same night, he bought me a 'memory' card game, and guess what? There were clowns there too, especially one picture that scared me so much I didn't even have the courage to throw it, I only left in a drawer. My cousin, who knew about my phobia, found it one day, and put it right before my eyes, laughing hysterically.

And I still remember the nightmares that picture gave me. Well, you got the point, clowns can truly affect a child, and coulrophobia is no joke. So, I could easily respond to the kid's traumatic experience in the opening sequence of Fellini"s "I Clowns". Their shadowy silhouettes as soon as the fanfare starts seemed to announce an ominous coming and as soon as they get in the spotlight for a four or five minutes of grotesque mayhem and ugliness, epitomizing everything I hated about them, I wanted the show to stop. Thanks, lord, I wasn't the only one, Fellini was scared by clowns, and hell, even Bart Simpson, the coolest boy ever, didn't want to sleep, fearing that the creepy clown-like bed would eat him.

My phobia slowly faded out, and I started to look at clowns more like pathetic characters, supposed to make us laugh of their ridicule aspect. And the point of Fellini's documentary is to try to understand the psychological roots of those half-repulsion half-fascination reactions clowns generally inspire. The study starts by exploring the probable causes of the child's fear: clowns reminded him of real eccentric people from the neighborhood: retarded, buffoons, creeps, freaks, genuinely hideous and irritating, but their personalities was even scarier because they were real while clowns are not.

Clowns are rooted in theater's history; their masks embody the least noble of human condition, allowing us to laugh at them, instead of fearing them. They have a cathartic power that probably inspired most of Fellini's approach to life. As I titled in my review of "Amarcord", we're all clowns in the big top of life. And Fellini's world can be regarded as a great circus, where the protagonists are all trapped in their own clowns' masks, while we watch their show. A clown can be a prankster, naive, well-mannered or mean-spirited, the purpose is to make us laugh, as if the ultimate aspect of life was absurdity and if life is all a joke, let's end with a fitting punch-line. That's the core of Fellini's philosophy.

And Fellini is the Ringleader of this Circus, driven by Nino Rota's turbulent fanfares. And only Fellini could have made such a jovial and poignant tribute, exploring in a semi-documentary format (he plays his own role) the historical steps that forged the clowns' archetypes. From Comedia del Arte's pantomimes, Pierrot's eternal figure, and some personal creations, two preeminent figures will emerge and constitute the pattern of most clowns' shows: the gentle and clumsy Auguste, and the elegant, sophisticated and serious white-faced clown, the obligatory straight man. Basically, all the clowns' icons: Medrano, Zavata, Bozo or those who scared the hell out of you as children, carried the essence of today's comedy.

There are a lot of insightful moments in "I Clowns", which works as an educational film. It doesn't provide a definite answer about clowns, but only a sad report on today's detachment. The last climactic sequence where veteran clowns (who've been interviewed before) pay tribute to a late colleague whose name sunk into oblivion is the perfect illustration of that loneliness innate to the clowns reflecting our own cruelty. I almost felt guilty for having hated them so much, and I like to picture them as misunderstood outcasts. A film about them was long overdue, and only Fellini could have made such a vivid, absorbing portrayal, almost working on a self-referential level.

Indeed, look at that head-shot on IMDb, it's probably the most eloquent illustration of Fellini's vision: he's half a clown, half a man. He incarnates this duality that prevails in clowns, both as the creators of their own caricatures, as artists, and victims of it, as men. And their conditions are driven by the audiences, and sometimes, meaner and more cruel than any clown in any number. The fate of "Gelsomina" in "La Strada" is the most tragic illustration of clown's conditions. And after the film, I guess I had more respect to clowns for their daringness to embody the unpleasant traits of human condition.

But from that courage blooms something absolutely endearing and irresistible, elevating the notion of clown to a state-of-mind. It's not just about make-ups and circuses, Fellini, just like Chaplin, was a clown, embodying the only real truth about life: it a serious thing that shouldn't be taken seriously.

And when you get that, you can get any Fellini's film.

A sentimental journey shot in France and Italy, searching the trace of the great clowns of yesterday, by one of the few filmmakers that showed his love for these performers in his own films, an affection that dates from a childhood experience in his hometown Rimini, which is lovingly recreated in the dream-like opening scene. Made for Italian television, the film shows Fellini meeting a few survivors, talking to clowns' relatives and friends, visiting white clowns, and recreating the style of the old art, as the funeral of a famous clown, that closes the documentary. He even finds and films Anita Ekberg, the star of his 1960 masterpiece, "La dolce vita" (I always thought he saw her a bit as a joke); but what I find curious is that his film crew seems to be integrated by a clownish crowd without make-up. Nino Rota contributed one of his most cheerful scores.

This is an odd vanity project from the famed Italian director, Federico Fellini. It's quite different from his usual films--even though his flashbacks to his youth permeate the film like "Roma" and "Amarcord". This is because of general recollections of childhood, this one specifically is about clowns--something which seems like an obsession in this film. It's shot semi-documentary style and is quite episodic--showing various clowns around Europe and his recollections. In addition, often parallels to the clowns are given--real life situations and people who remind him of the clowns. If you are looking for anything more, then you're out of luck. And, it's a true testament to his fans that such a film STILL is highly regarded. As for me, I thought it was pretty boring and pointless. Sorry...but I just didn't see a lot of reason to watch this one except so that I could one day say I've seen all of Fellini's films (and I am darn close now).

I was going to skip this one in my survey of Fellini films, but then I read the littlest bit about it and realized that I needed to watch it. It fit far too well into Fellini's thematic wheelhouse and sounded like it carried some of his later stylistic choices in their earliest phase (notably including himself as a sort of character). So, after some searching, I did find a copy with English subtitles, and I'm actually quite glad that I watched it. It's far from one of his best works, but it's warmly endearing towards its subject and carries the same kind of infectious energy that the best of Fellini's later works were filled with so easily.

It's called the first mockumentary, but I Clowns (pronounced like the English E, not the English I) exists somewhere in between genres and never really rests comfortably in one or another, much like Fellini's imagination seemed to operate. It is uninterested in being a straight narrative, a documentary, or even a purely surrealistic expression. Instead it exists in all three realms at once with Fellini spinning them like plates in a circus act.

So, the story that is there is that the character of Fellini (played by himself) is interviewing retired circus clowns to record some kind of oral history of the dying art form, but the movie actually begins with a staged sequence of Fellini as a child watching a circus tent rise from his bedroom window. He sees the show and cries out of fear when the clowns come to the ring and perform their feats. This is the only time that Fellini explicitly relates a personal emotion towards clowns, fear, but here he is as an adult making a movie about them and their history. The movie gets peppered with similar dramatic moments full of Fellini's familiar handling of camera, costuming, and performance as he recounts people from his old town of Remini that he considers to be clowns, or dramatizing stories from clowns about the past.

What ties them together is Fellini going around Europe with his crew, his script girl summarizing things directly into the camera while taking direction from Fellini himself, as they find the retired clowns of famous European circuses. Now, this is the part of the film that feels the most "real", but I'm never quite willing to believe that any of it is actually real, that the people he's interviewing were ever clowns at all. That blurring of the lines between reality and cinema seems to be the point, which is an interesting development for a director whose previous few movies have embraced theatrical affectation over strict reality. In these interviews, we receive a brief lesson on the tradition of specific clown acts with a lot of name dropping about this performer did it this way and that performer did it that way.

The movie's final major section shows a clown funeral done in the large center ring with a bevy of clowns performing their stage-managed bouts of sadness in extended detail. This is like the centerpiece of an actual clown act in a real circus, and it ends up feeling like an elegy for a bygone era. There had been talk and heavy implication of the idea that clowning was a dying form from the interviewees, and here we get a funeral for a specific clown done by clowns themselves. The act is an extravagant one that includes men dressed as horses, a large carriage, a sock gag on the corpse's foot, and a lot of chaos including cannons. It's to note that Fellini is in this scene and he just quietly sits behind the camera giving the very occasional direction, but I have to imagine that he was, in every shot he did not appear, giddy with joy as he watched the chaos unfold. The tender affection for the form and those who performed it is tangible and it all unfolds in signature Fellini style.

I do find the overall picture entertaining, but I do wonder what a more straightforward take on the history of clowning might show. As it stands, I can't believe any of the history told, feeling like the "narrator" is completely unreliable and that the whole show is a form of clowning with the audience as the joke. Still, if I'm to be the butt of this little joke, I'm okay with it. At least I laughed along the way.

Fellini exposes his great attraction for the clowns and the world of the circus first recalling a childhood experience when the circus arrives nearby his home. Then he joins his crew and travel from Italy to Paris chasing the last greatest European clowns still live in these countries. He also meets Anita Ekberg trying to buy a panther in a circus.

The overrated "I Clowns" is the weakest movie of Fellini that I have ever seen. This documentary is an absolutely personal and boring homage to the clowns and the world of the circus. Maybe Fellini had had a great satisfaction in this tribute since the theme was his childhood obsession; however I found it extremely painful to hear and watch after thirty minutes. If this documentary was a short, it could be more watchable. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Os Palhaços" ("The Clowns")