Product Description

Five young men linger in post-adolescent limbo dreaming of adventure and escape from their small seacoast town. They while away their time spending the lira doled out by their indulgent families on drink, women, and nights at the local pool hall. Federico Fellini's second solo directorial effort is a semi-autobiographical masterpiece of sharply drawn character sketches. An international success and recipient of an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, I Vitelloni compassionately details a year in the life of small-town layabouts struggling to find meaning in their lives. Criterion's DVD also includes an exclusive documentary featuring interviews with late actor Leopoldo Trieste and other actors, technicians, and scholars; the original trailer and newsreels from the time of the film's release; a collection of stills, posters, and memorabilia; and more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62560 in DVD
• Brand: Image Entertainment
• Released on: 2005-08-30
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: Italian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 104 minutes

Amazon.com
Federico Fellini's breakthrough film, the 1953 I Vitelloni, is one of the cinema's seminal stories about slacker males, and a highly entertaining one at that. Following the unfortunate failure of his comedy The White Sheik, Fellini prepared to shoot La Strada (he would release that early masterpiece in 1954), but decided at the last minute to make an autobiographical feature about mischievous, drifting, 30-ish losers in a small, seaside town. I Vitelloni clicked with international audiences and remains an obvious influence on such later classics as Breaking Away and Diner. But there's nothing like Fellini's almost self-mocking fusion of gritty neo-realism with the audacious, illusionary style he would later be entirely linked. The ensemble comedy follows the ever-diminishing fortunes of five young men who can't define, let alone jump-start, their dreams, particularly the caddish Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), who thinks nothing of molesting the wife of his father-in-law's best friend. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

A Candid and Warm Cinematic Event...
Trapped in a timeless sphere without pressure of accomplishment, maternal love nurses five men way past their adolescence in a small tourist town by the Adriatic Sea in post-war Italy. These five men drift around dreaming of an escape from the town, but a lack of motivation keeps them prisoners at the seaside location. The mutual motivations for the five men that keeps them adrift are women, wine, and the stories they tell each other. However, each character has his own motivating factor that drives him forward in daily life.

The group of the five men consists of Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), Alberto (Alberto Sordi), Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste), Riccardo (Riccardo Fellini), and Moraldo. The group's leader Fausto, a perpetual flirter, has gotten a young beautiful woman pregnant. Fausto's father insists that he do the right thing and marry the girl before she is disgraced in public. The lazy Alberto is the groups clown who is dependent on his mother whom he will never leave. Alberto frequently pleads for money from his sister as he is continuously broke. Eventually Alberto finds out that his sister has a married lover and it angers him. Leopold an aspiring writer and the intellectual of the group dreams of fame and success. The singer Riccardo follows the group on its nightly adventures. Moraldo is a philosophical moralist that wanders the streets at night deep in thought as he sees faults in the way they all live life. However, Moraldo has not yet found the courage to leave the small seaside town.

I Vitelloni is the second film that Fellini directed by himself which he also co-wrote with his talented brother, Riccardo Fellini. Riccardo and Federico based the script on semi-autographical accounts from their home town and a life which they both were very much inclined to depict. Unlike many of Fellini's later films I Vitelloni displays some of the Italian neo-realistic cinematic qualities that were common in the period when the film was shot. The realism brings an honest and warm atmosphere to the film which emphasizes the true nature of the characters. Realism in the script allows the audience is to experience an examination of the different characters in the film. This character study brings the audience candid emotions and a brilliant cinematic experience that warms the heart as there are hopes and dreams for us all.

neorealism hits a comfortable stride
A group of middle class "yoots" hang out together, bonded by common roots and experience, but also by the process of self-discovery as the onset of adulthood face them with the coming of responsibility and the isolation of individuality. The focus of this fracturing process falls on one guy who discovers that his girlfriend is pregnant. If the plot sounds familiar, well it's because coming of age is a universal experience that crosses generations and cultures, and rarely fails to to produce an intense sense of nostalgia.

What differentiates Fellini's film (beyond the fact that it pre-dates similar fair from the French New Wave, British 60's, Graffiti-Flatbush-Diner, etc. whose original accessibility make them more familiar) is simply the sheer talent of the story-teller. The man could present characters and situations that still move and enlighten us. His later, more famous epics of excess were well grounded in this same exquisite sense of humanity. This is the first excellent film by one of film's most excellent directors.

The Master Looks Back To His Roots
Fellini's most intimate and most autobiographical film. Set in his hometown of Rimini, at the Adriatic coast, it masterfully captures the spirit of place then and now. Also, it's the key work to explain the Northern Mediterrenean phenomenon of the "mamma's boys" (the said I Vitelloni from the title): the relaxed, sophisticated boys of Southern Europe who just rather do nothing (la Dolce Vita) and stay at home, often well into their 30's and 40's. The wintertime of course brings with it the tedium of provincial life in which nothing happens, but lo and behold, come next spring, the wonderful women from the North will come once again and worship the race that knows how to live and enjoys life the way it finds it.