Le Casanova de Fellini

While Don Juan and Lothario are literary constructs, entirely fictional, Giacomo Casanova like De Sade {15 years his junior} was a flesh and blood historically verifiable person. Casanova was born in Venice 286 years ago in 1725 and he died 73 years later in 1798 having witnessed the fall of the Age of Decadence and the transformation brought by the French Revolution. That his name is synonymous to this day with the successful pursuit of sexual conquest is due to the fact that Casanova was a great writer who recorded his life in a 12 volume opus titled "The Story of my Life". This episodic work of literature apparently describes in detail Casanova's amorous victories on the sexual battlefield claiming and describing the seduction of at least 120 different woman.

Fellini, the year after Pasolini made his illustration of De Sade's literary perversity in Salo, brought this illustration of some of the episodes of Casanova's sexual exploits. The movie opens with the masked Carnival depicting Venus, {the goddess after whom Venice was named} rising out of the sea as her ancient Greek source goddess Aphrodite did before her. The masking of the revellers was an encouragement for the participants to ignore class differences and thus increase the scope of orgiastic interaction sponsored by the patron goddess of Love, Venus,

A masked man receives a letter proposing an assignation on an island palace with a woman masquerading as a nun, Casanova, revealed to us as a Dandy in extravagant attire of opulent and decadent fashion. Although historically dark haired Fellini portrays Donald Sutherland, {with false nose and jaw}, as a convincing Casanova, a foppishly ringletted blonde. As this is a cinematic examination of the life and technique of one of the most outrageous ladies man in modern history, the viewer is immediately introduced to Giacomo's modus operandi or seduction formulae. Casanova is not a bully but is much more adept at exploiting female gullibility with poetic declarations of deep and undying love which he combined with his peacockish appearance and intimate confessions of ardent desire and you have the story of his life in a nutshell, Other attributes that also helped garner his reputation was the reputed size of his penetrative organ and the athleticism of his ability to maintain sexual intercourse for long extended periods with an economy of repeated but unvaried thrusts leading eventually to orgasm. This delaying technique similar to "karezza" and tantric practices helped spread the name of Casanova as the ultimate stud of all time.

Apart from his reputation as a sexual libertine Casanova was eloquent and funny. The ability to make people laugh has always had aphrodisiac stimulation. After the conquest of the pseudo-nun Casanova has success with a neurotic young girl whom he cures from constantly fainting with a dose of sex magic. In a later episode we are introduced to the soirée' of Madame D'Urfee who believes that impregnation by Casanova would lead to the passing of her soul to a male child and then onto immortality. Casanova had performance problems with her as she was an ancient wrinkly and his ability to raise an erection had to be assisted by one of his lovers who had to amusedly stand by his side and wiggle her rear in order to facilitate his potency. It worked and Casanova made off with one of the many fortunes he made and lost during a life of spontaneous and opportunistic self-invention.

Among the most memorable set pieces that Fellini orchestrates is a wonderful dance in exquisite costume at the dinner provided by the hunchback and a young male ballerina. The costumes throughout the movie are fantastic. After the dance Casanova voices his disagreement with the notion that the male is the tempter. Henrietta, his lover at the time {played by the gorgeous Tina Aumont} is to leave him in one of the great blows he suffered in his sexual adventures. She managed to bring some sense of emotional loss which went beyond Casanova's usual rhetorical protestations of besotted love.

The Nino Roti score of sad music box lament and Casanova's most prized possession - his phallic winged mechanical toy which like a metronome allowed Casanova to keep a steady thrust. Apart from overwhelming woman with the false flattery of his supposed personal interest Casanova also reveals in the sex competition at the Prince Del Brand's Palace that he has an energy drink containing raw eggs and ginger and cinnamon, which he uses to keep his erection for up to an hour.

What happens to the ageing Casanova hundreds of years before the coming of Viagra? In Freud's theory the sexual energy with no capacity for expression becomes channeled to more productive outlets. In Casanova's case his last 12 years were spent writing and revising his major work "The Story of my Life"

Fellini chose to give the mood of the movie a certain disappointment as if Casanova was never satisfied and always a depressive in nature, but this does not make sense, as it stands to reason that as a young man part of Casanova's attraction was as a bon vivant, raucous, bawdy, randy and full of life. However the movie is styled as Fellini's Casanova and the odyssey it depicts - the life of Casanova - has been described as the greatest autobiography ever written.

That such a man existed is historical proof that some men are closer to the gods than anyone else. Fellini gives you sumptuousness and thought, {it is reputedly Fellini's personal favorite of all his oeuvre}. However, Bunuel on viewing the movie walked out before the end. I found it interesting as a working study of satyriasis and nymphomania which are fields rarely examined by auteurs.

Fellini's cinematic vitality was undeniably on the ebb in his later years of filmmaking, and when a director's name can blatantly headline in the film's title, a common demonstration is that he has the autocratic power over his work without any compromise, so it is a good sign for the director's devotees, but sometimes, it is also prone to backfire often due to the auteur's unbridled ego. And FELLINI'S CASANOVA is an exemplar of both cases.

Fellini is quite antipathetic towards his center figure, the Venetian gadabout Giacomo Casanova, maybe partly originates from jealousy, it is a man who is an emblem of libidinal licentiousness (with women), any heterosexual man has the right to be envious.

So loosely based on Casanova's autobiography HISTOIRE DE MA VIE, Fellini unleashes his uncurbed visual creativity to conjure up a series of spectacular mise-en-scène with a hankering for irony and symbolism, often in the form of a theatric piece. The opening gambit, a Carnival in Venice, is onerously undertook to be stupendous and eye-opening, and it is really hard to resist the enthralling allure in Casanova's each and every episode, sex activity is presumably the norm in it, but his on-screen virility brings some visual fatigue pretty soon (due to an R rating) and his action fades into mechanical repetition (certainly, the change of head-wear is a great diversion). After all, the avant-garde production design (using plastic bags to imitate a choppy sea), the 18th Century exquisite art decoration (whether accurate or not), the outlandish period costumes and flamboyant make-up (especially during the lavish banquet set) usurp the crown as the legitimate attention-grabber. With garnishment like Nino Rota's stirring score and literature reference such as Tonino Guerra's La Grande Mouna, 2 hour and 35 minutes is not that long at all.

It is also a career-defining role for Donald Sutherland, although never really being heralded (so does his lengthy and unceasing career), under some visage alteration (a fake nose and a shaved head) his Casanova is not devilishly handsome, may not even physically resemble his character, but he exerts his devotion thoroughly through his bulged eyes, which fixate on his preys with torrid resolution, simultaneously sinister and passionate. Fellini is in no mood to give Casanova a hagiography treatment, so chiefly, Sutherland's effort has been unfairly debased to ridicule and grandstanding, Casanova is much more than a womanizer who is unable to love, willfully, Fellini refuses to disclose the other side of his life, such as a bold adventurer and a luminous writer.

Female objects are never the focal point of the film, they are the objects of desire in the menagerie for our hormone-driven protagonist to conquer with intercourse, only the Angelina the giantess (Sandra Elaine Allen) and Rosalba the mechanical doll (Leda Lojodice) shed dim light on certain pathos for the fate of Casanova besides their eye-popping presence.

Altogether, FELLINI'S CASANOVA is majestic on scale, burlesque on appearance, biased in its stance, but never an awkward anomaly in Fellin's absurdist cannon.

A beautiful and melancholic film. I've seen it only now, in a special exhibition on cinema, for the first time. Worth the while. Funny, I also used to prefer the earliest Fellini, but this film makes me, at least in this case, rethink my position. It is clear, anyway, that after 8 1/2 he could only go this way - towards a progressive abandonment of any kind of mimetic "realism".

For those that find this film "strange", I suggest to start with the early Fellini (Lo Sceicco Bianco, La Strada. Cabiria) and go more or less in order, it will probably make more sense. Or not.

I totally disagree with the critical trend of discrediting Fellini's later films as symptomatic of his decline. Instead, I believe that Fellini's last films were actually his best. And Casanova, by far Fellin's worst reviewed film, is Fellin's masterpiece-- a sad, funny, wistful, grotesque, Rabelisian epic of a film.

In a way, Casanova is a foil to Fellini's earlier classic La Dolce Vita-- the main difference being that the former is more pessimistic in tone, while the latter is enfused with a youthful optimism. In a way, that's how the films of Fellini have progressed; his earlier films were filled with an almost child-like love for life (albeit with some very dark edges), while his later films became increasingly darker and more depressing. Strangely enough, Fellini's later films were also his best, both on a technical level, and in terms of thematic depth.

Casanova is not only the story of a man, it is also about a whole era-- an era of grand opulence and grand waste. Like in many of Fellini's other films, the protagonist of Casanova serves as a guide for us through a phantasmagoric carnival-like world. Casanova is depicted as a sexually-ravenuous, and deeply cynical man. He is constantly searching for some kind of image of the perfect woman-- an ideal which eventually leads to his own destruction.

Casanova is not a film for everyone-- despite having the usual Fellinisque scenes of ribaldry, Casanova is for the most part slowly paced (it reminds me of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon). Ultimately, Casanova, like Fellini's And the Ship Sails On, is about the passing of a golden age into oblivion. One leaves Casanova feeling both depressed, and yet somehow hopeful. Why?

Perhaps because like all great artists, Fellini realizes that in our darkest hours, we still can hold on to our memories of happier times.

If you have ever found yourself watching a movie like Emmanuelle and thinking: "This would be great if it were an 18th century costume drama with less nudity and enough nightmarish surrealism to make even David Lynch weep for mercy," then this is the movie for you.

Donald Sutherland plays the infamous Count Fucula, a man who tries to have sex with everything he sees that resembles a female, and whose sexual technique generally consists of laying on top of a woman and bouncing up and down on her like he's humping a trampoline - and all without ever even taking off his pants!

Short girls, tall girls, blonde girls, brunettes, girls with hunchbacks, female robots.. you name it, he tries to screw it. At one point, I thought he was going to try to make it with a giant turtle. A missed opportunity, if you ask me.

Until now, I thought Satyricon was the weirdest Fellini ever got, but this one makes it look square in comparison.