Il bidone

Black and white, 35 mm
Italy, France, 1955, 112 min
Section: Treasures from the Film Archives

Synopsis

Fellini initially planned Il bidone as a bright story à la Lubitsch about three crooks who try all sorts of ruses to con gullible people out of their money; the tale takes a dramatic turn when the film starts examining each character’s individual circumstances. The director’s triumph La strada was still doing its lap of honour round the world when he suffered the greatest catastrophe of his career: the virtually unanimous rejection of Il bidone. Fellini had paid the price for refusing to draw on his hitherto success, ignoring calls from producers that he give the public a "new Gelsomina”. What is surprising is that very few of the more seasoned critics took into account the fact that they were watching a mutilated version of an almost two-hour-long film which had screened at Venice. All the more reason, then, to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the maestro’s birth at Karlovy Vary this year with a profile of his most underrated film. Visitors to Bologna’s Immagine Ritrovata had the opportunity to fully appreciate the film back in 2002 when the festival held the first ever screening of the complete, digitally restored copy which we present here at KVIFF.

About the director

Federico Fellini (b. 1920, Rimini – 1993, Rome), the most famous Italian filmmaker of the 20th century. His early work was shaped by his collaboration with Roberto Rossellini and the Christian interpretation of Neorealism he represented. This inspiration, steeped in poetic tragedy, still dominated Fellini’s films from the 1950s, which ensured him international renown, particularly La strada (1954). He fully developed his unmistakable style for the first time in La dolce vita (1960), where he revealed the depths of his imagination, his observations of society becoming increasingly introspective, almost dream-like. Following the culmination of his artistic career with 8 1/2 (Otto e mezzo, 1962), the Baroque visions of Fellini’s mature period constitute a series of brilliant variations on fundamental compulsive themes.