AMARCORD (1973), dir. Federico Fellini

And Fellini said, “Gradisca (Gratify Yourself).”

The title, literally translated, means, “I remember.” And in fact, “Amarcord” is presented like a series of memories. Plotwise, there is very little that connects each episode. The only similarities are the location—a picaresque Italian town that has stood since 268 BC—and the town’s numerous inhabitants, who behave in that trademark Fellini-esque way: theatrically.

“Amarcord” starts off as a history, told directly to the camera by a gray-haired gentleman, referred to as Mr. Lawyer (Luigi Rossi). Then it becomes a story about the trials and tribulations of an unremarkable family, the Biondis. The head of the household is Aurelio (Armando Brancia), a portly, balding, middle-aged man who frequently erupts into utter bedlam. A master builder by trade, his domestic life runs far less smoothly than his professional one. His wife Miranda (Pupella Maggio) nags him, and in one scene, gives him the silent treatment. Occasionally, she’ll offer him a sharp verbal jab, which leads him to throw his hands up as if to say, “Look what I gotta put up with.”

Frequently, it is Aurelio’s two sons, especially Titta (Bruno Zanin), the eldest, who give him fits. A pair of out-of-control juvenile delinquents, they and their pals make for a cruder, Italian-speaking version of the Dead End gang. They torment their schoolteachers, smear their faces against storefront windows. During the first of the movie’s many large-scale set pieces—the burning of a witch in effigy to commemorate the end of winter—the gang explode firecrackers behind unsuspecting adults. When the adults attempt to chastise them, they quickly give lip in reply. “That’s nothing compared to the sound my father’s ass makes,” Titta’s little brother says, after a particularly loud firecracker.

Since Titta and most of his pals are teenagers, their brains are consumed by sex. The town’s strong religious climate, and regular visits to confession, cannot keep the gang from piling into an empty car, and masturbating in unison (An act which causes the entire car to shake). To the priest, Titta plays down how often he attends to himself, repents, then moves on. The priest has to coax the confession out of him by mentioning how his impure acts make the saints weep. For Titta, however, the weeping of the saints is no match for the allure of women. Oh, the women in his town!

Through a montage of flashbacks, Titta reveals the many fateful encounters that have stimulated his mind and set his blood a-boil: His brief interactions with the tobacconist (Maria Antonietta Beluzzi), who has enormous bosoms, each one larger than the lad’s head; a french kiss at the lips and tongue of Volpina (Josiane Tanzilli), the local blonde beauty who is literally feverish with her lust for men. And of course, Gradisca (Magali Noel), whom he encountered in a movie theater and tried to put the moves on. She left an indelible impression upon his memory, though Titta was so awestruck he could nary speak.

The townspeople treat Gradisca like a local celebrity. During a visit to a shuttered hotel, a lounging Mr. Lawyer reveals what events made her a legend. It involves the same hotel, glorious during its heyday, and a visiting prince. Though specifics are never mentioned, we infer that Gradisca, by offering her substantial charms to the prince, performed a great service for the town. The scene where she “offers” is a truly magical piece of cinema. Done almost entirely without words, Gradisca removes one article of clothing at a time, then gently bends at the knees and waist, the absolute incarnate of a sexpot. She repeats this motion with the drop of each successive piece of dress, resulting in a montage that doesn’t imply sex so much as screams it from the top of a mountain.

Everybody in the town has a fantastic story to tell, if they aren’t living it already. Like Gradisca’s, their tales overflow with bawdiness, and revel in earthly joys. There is Biscein, a relatively minor character, who makes his living selling fruits and spices out of his cart. But even Biscein was once tossed a bone in life. According to legend, he made love to twenty-eight concubines of a visiting emir. It happened in a single night; he was driving past their hotel, when the love-starved women, initially dressed in sheets concealing their bodies, motioned to him from their windows. They lowered a rope made from bedsheets, and beckoned him to climb up. After ascending the makeshift rope several stories, Biscein entered the harem’s chamber, where the women performed an elaborate dance routine that resembled something from the stories of Scheherezade.

For the most part, Fellini infuses “Amarcord” with a kind of giddy energy. This can be a blessing at various times. Early on, there is a dinner table scene where Aurelio erupts at Titta, whom the night before defiled an important politician’s hat. In Fellini’s hands, a potentially-disturbing scene becomes somewhat charming. Aurelio chases Titta from the house, then argues with Miranda. She argues back, and he stands there and takes it, holding in his rage until his eyes bulge and his face starts to change color. The father-mother screaming match disturbs with its intensity. Luckily, the director uses two other characters at the table, Miranda’s brother Lallo (Nando Orfei), and Aurelio’s father (Giuseppe Ianigro), to offset the seriousness of the argument.

The latter wanders into an adjacent room, where he paces back and forth, and breaks wind at every count of three. The former, meanwhile, soldiers on with his dinner like a meathead. Aurelio’s father’s bizarre behavior distracts us from the arguing. At the same time, Lallo’s relatively blasé reaction goes a long way towards convincing us that this intra-family bickering is normal. By the time Aurelio returns to—shall we say—clear the table, we can chuckle a little. Fellini has defused the tension by giving us other things to focus on.

There is one other scene that crosses into the realm of the disturbing. After Lallo, a devout Italian fascist, reports that Aurelio has expressed doubts over the direction of the country, police raid the house. They drag Aurelio away in the dead of night. The fascists torture him, forcing castor oil down his throat until he vomits. It is not a pretty scene. However, Fellini balances out the unpleasantness by depicting the fascists as goons or fools. In the interrogation room, an elderly officer in a wheelchair prattles on to no person in particular; meanwhile, Aurelio’s chief tormentor hops up and down, shouting like an angry five year-old. The hunt for dissentors, which Aurelio found himself ensnared in, was precipitated by a gramophone that appeared in the center of town. The police managed to shoot it off its perch at the top of a clock tower. But they wasted an inordinate number of bullets on the stationary, defenseless object. Not exactly the kind of show of strength that reflects well on Italian fascism.

So what if “Amarcord” didn’t win the director any friends among surviving fascists? Clearly, Italy’s old political climate doesn’t sway his affection for the people themselves. “Amarcord” features an overflowing cast, but Fellini manages a semblance of order by bringing all the characters together at different points, just like Robert Altman would in “Nashville” (1975) and “Short Cuts” (1993). There is the aforementioned effigy-burning at the beginning, which the entire town attends. During the middle of the film, everyone spends an evening out at sea, in order to catch a glimpse of the Rex, Italy’s largest oceanliner. Finally, there is the wedding that closes the picture, mostly notable for the absence of certain characters.

Since Fellini has such a large cast to juggle, we never get to know any single person very well. Aurelio might be the possible exception. With him, we catch a glimpse of a soul not entirely devoid of poetry, despite his routine day job. During the glorious night on the water spent looking for the Rex, he stares up at the night sky, and wonders how the stars manage to stay suspended in the heavens. “With a house, it’s a certain amount of mortar, a certain amount of lime,” he says. But those stars… “Where do you put the foundations?”

“Amarcord” celebrates a town, a people, and a way of life. It depicts an Old World that still exists mostly in the memory. Here is a place to grow up, have adventures, and ultimately, depart. It is a place I will remember, quite fondly.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)