MovieChat Forums > Roma (1972) Discussion > I don't understand anything! Please help...

I don't understand anything! Please help!

posted 18 years ago by pumkin120
15 replies | jump to latest

I've seen La Strada and I think it's great. But this movie is so differnt.
I think this movie has many parts and he mixed them together,unlike La strada which told one story.

I try to understand all the things he put in but they kindda not continue,and I myself who isn't native speaking English I have to read from sub-title and that make things worse.

Too bad that my homework is to watch Fellini's works and compare with Antonioni's but how can I explain when I don't understand what he wants to say.

Anybody please help! What is he gonna tell us in this movie , This movie is about him and the changing of Rome?

Please please help! thanks a lot!!

[–] Mangog 18 years ago

My advice is to get some of the books written about his work, frank burke and
peter bondanella are very good authors to start. When people talk about fragmentation and a lack of center, postmodern ideas, it seems aplicable
to this movie. Really this movie bridges Satyricon and amarcord. Sorry I'm not being more help, but check out Burke and Bondanella.

-Crunchy Frog

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] custer58r 17 years ago

I wouldn't worry about not understanding 'Roma' (I don't either). Unless I'm mistaken, Fellini's 'Roma' is his most (or one of his most) critical failure. I didn't like it (it has a 50% on RottenTomatoes). I'm a huge movie fan of all genres but I have seen 3 Fellini films and I just do not get them (other 2 were '8 1/2' and 'La Strada'). I also heard that some people believe the world is split up of people who LOVE Fellini and those who HATE him, so there are other people in the world who don't get him.

[–] panzermeyer44 17 years ago

"I also heard that some people believe the world is split up of people who LOVE Fellini and those who HATE him, so there are other people in the world who don't get him."

That's a good observation and I agree. I think that dichotomy happens whenever a director makes films which are incredibly creative and simply "different" from the mainstream. You'll find the same phenomena occuring with other directors like David Lynch where people either totally love his movies or totally hate them.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] rosabelverde_1127 17 years ago

> I think that dichotomy happens whenever a director makes films which are incredibly creative and simply "different" from the mainstream. You'll find the same phenomena occuring with other directors like David Lynch where people either totally love his movies or totally hate them.

... and David Lynch is a big Fellini fan.

Regards, Rosabel

[–] worstfilmever 17 years ago

Its seems pointless answering a post written so long ago, but for Roma a year is hardly that long. Don't you see the immortality this film portrays? After seeing it how can one not stand on the streets of Rome and feel so insignificant while at the same time feel as though they are part of some greater purpose? Have you ever just thought about a object like a antique which was really old and imagine the people who owned it before?

I slept thru the middle of this movie only to wake up for the last 10mins. Up till then the movie made no sense, but when I got that feeling I couldn't imagine a better movie.

[–] k_gutman 17 years ago

I've lived in Rome for five years. I can't say the movie makes sense now, but it captures something of what it's like to live here.

[–] frequency-2 17 years ago

I have seen "Fellini's Roma" only once. I think you must view it as "Fellini's". The wild outlandishness that he was capable of is really small thing compared to Rome itself. I think he may have felt that way. Many people who with him say to be on his set was to be in the midst of a choatic party. Perhaps Rome cna be looked at this way?

[–] Shaolin_Apu 17 years ago

I enjoyed Rome thoroughly, I have also a deep Love/Hate relationship with Rome so I think I knew what it was about. But I don't claim that I understood everything there stood, nor I even want to.

The Apple Scruffs Corps, 05
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil

[–] SvenShameless 16 years ago

There's nothing to get. You pop on the DVD and you watch the movie. There's no plot so just forget it and merely watch the images and you'll get more from that. I mean really we can't be doing your homework but not all movies need plots and I'm glad this doesn't.

It's an auto-biographical picture in some ways, that I'll say but read up on Fellini and you'll understand.

[–] vodkovic 16 years ago

Just like the poster above me said: there is nothing to get. Roma isn't a movie that contains a plot or questions to solve. It's an (semi-)autobiographical movie about Fellini's impressions of the city of Rome. These impressions are translated into very absurd and grotesque (sp?) cinema, which aren't supposed to make any sense. That's just what Fellini in the 70's is like: absurd, more style than substance and nothing to get. Fellini just wants you to sit back, watch the movie and enjoy his style. Sure that isn't for anybody, there are probably more people who dislike this movie than like it, but just judge it for what it is.

[–] ltarex 16 years ago

Fellini evolved from a "post-neorealist" style to a unique and personal modern style. In his early neorealism-inspired works he tells linear stories with typifed characters like La Strada or La Notti di Cabiria. La Dolce Vita was a transition work between the two eras. 8 1/2 was a real unique work as it was a "mental journey" into Fellini's own mind in quite a theatrical and stylished form. "Julia of the Spirits" tried to copy it's success but failed big time.

After a four year hiatus Fellini created his own style of making "personal mythologies". His four modernist films from this era (Satyricon, Roma, Amarcord and Casanova) are set in historical, but fictional, mythological worlds, constructed from Fellini's own personal thoughts and beliefs. In Satyricon and Casanova he portrayed a mythical image of historical eras. Roma and Amarcord are much more personal as he created a mythical image of his own youth based on his own memories, anecdotes and fables. These films lack linear stories as they are constructed to show us these "personal mythologies" and not to tell a story. This is most imminent in Roma. As other films have a protagonist and are different episodes put together Roma is much more like an "animated srapbook" about the city as it was in the ancient times, in Fellini's youth and as it is now (in the early 1970s).

Hope it could help.

"A voice from behind me reminds me. Spread out your wings you are an angel."

[–] dromasca 16 years ago

I do not understand what you do not understand. This is not a fiction movie. This is a movie about a city, one of the most beautiful and fascinating in the world. The director describes the city, his feelings about it, his memories, the history and the people who live in it. Look at this film like you were looking at a painting of an old master, not like at a fiction film, and maybe then you will start understanding it.

[–] jtyroler 16 years ago

Here's my 25 lire (about 2 cents the last time I was Italy). It's Fellini's view of Rome at various times of his life. What's changed, if anything? Which did more damage, the allied bombing of someone's house or the digging of the subway tunnel? Did people become less obnoxious over time or more? Was beating up hippies any different than living under Il Duce? There were prostitutes in Rome 2000 years ago, during WWII, and when this was filmed.

No wonder it's the "Eternal City"...