This pseudo-documentary on Fellini's work methods - produced after 8 1/2, and as a sort of personal essay while developing Satyricon. Here Fellini is exploiting an obvious hunger for information on how he comes up with "that wild stuff" and is exploring a sort-of post-modern idea of himself as star, but in a fictionalized set-up.

The film shows Fellini auditioning actors, directing apparently verite footage, and conversing with his producers. This is most illuminating as an exercise and practice piece for Fellini's Roma, which most clearly was about the director's view of the city, filtered through his memories (NOT the real historical Rome),and a few years later, Intervista, which is literally an "interview" done by Japanese television (and is even MORE fictional).

Fellini became very interested in the line between fiction and reality, and began putting himself into the titles (Fellini Satyricon, not Petronius, which is a clue on how to approach this film; Fellini's Roma) and then himself into the films (he makes fleeting and tantalizing appearances in Roma, to remind you this is more about Fellini's memories than about Rome).

Director's Notebook, produced for Italian T.V. and long lost and unobtainable, is now available on the Criterion DVD of 8 1/2, and is a welcome puzzle piece to Fellini's late 60's development on fictionalizing the truth, and exploring the force of personal memories and history on narrative.

This will especially appeal to Fellini fanatics or those who are thinking of taking film on seriously as a career. The latter, while going to hold a big place in my heart, isn't the career I'm pursuing(singing is my main passion) but I am a great admirer of Fellini. And I was intrigued after reading about Fellini: A Director's Notebook on Fellini's filmography. After seeing it, it was very interesting. The photography is not as fluid as in Fellini's movies, but it's still focused in how it's used. The scenery and such is beautiful, and musically it is cheerful and nostalgic. What was also fascinating about Fellini: A Director's Notebook is its blend of reality and fiction, blend of brilliant and very random, and how it keeps largely true to Fellini's nostalgic and thematically strong if not always subtle(satire, religion and women for examples) directing style. Many times it also comes across as very personal, as a lot of Fellini films are. The discussions are just fascinating, the best being (obviously) Fellini's with his comments of his movies and how he makes them as well as his reflective retrospect, Marcello Mastroianni, who comes across as idealistic and somewhat honest about his reputation as a womaniser and Genius, whose interview is where it is more reality than fiction. Giulietta Masina is lovely to see, though not as insightful or as understandable as the above. Overall, very well done and interesting if not quite a favourite, if anything I would have liked it to have been a little longer though that's probably just me. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The Director's Notebook, a very off-the-cuff, stream-of-consciousness documentary by Federico Fellini, reminds me of what Terry Gilliam said in his introduction on the 8 1/2 DVD, of which this is so generously included. He said that once he went and shot a film in Italy and more specifically in Rome, he guessed that perhaps Fellini was perhaps more of a documentarian of what he saw in Rome than he was making up incredibly outrageous and fantastical visions. This time we as the audience get about as close as that can be (though Amarcord, and to an extent La Dolce Vita, come close too in their own ways) to the Rome that Fellini sees as real. We may not, of course, but it is of course all part of subjectivity when going into many documentaries. This time, we get a view inside Fellini's film-making style, his actors, some memories and locations and shots and "lost" sets and footage, and the un-reality of it all just pours more truth to the gobbledy-gook that sometimes makes up the film.

As with even the lesser Fellini moments, he doesn't leave fans totally without some fulfillment. It's something that is very much what Fellini would do, given what he wants to show the audience as his techniques and approaches. Right away we know this will and wont be your usual auto-bio into a director, as he gets some comments off some 'hippies' who happen to be traipsing around the ruins of a film he planned to shoot (or not, as case may be, I don't know). Then he and the American narrator go on between seeing things being shot- and the sets of which shot by Fellini himself with the usual peering and following and moving camera- on Satyricon. But it's not just that, to be sure, as it is basically a look through notes, ideas, and much of what might be considered almost conventional in the Fellini-esquire sense. But it's still entertaining through it all, and I loved seeing a partial re-creation and look at Fellini's inspiration from the "Old Rome" he knew through silent films as a kid. Or the moments with Mastroianni. A nice diddy, which is now no longer a lost scene but now restored, is the sack-man scene from Nights of Cabiria hosted by Masina herself.

And all the while, in tricky English, Fellini leads us along in his very bigger-than-life though somehow modest way of talking to us as his audience, through Roman ruins, coliseums, actors in screen tests, scenes being shot, seeing some strange things (one of which, maybe not as strange, is his own office),and other fragments that are very reminiscent of Fellini's comedies and tragedies. Nothing too revelatory, but just enough to keep Fellini fans salivating.