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Together with Amarcord and 8½, I Vitelloni may be Fellini’s most personal film. Starting from the very first scene to the very last, this is a semibiographical account of Fellini especially his childhood and adolescence. Its cinematic vibrance and pure screen verve is comparable to François Truffaut’s 1950s debut film The 400 Blows. But while Truffaut’s film was a nostalgic French reflection of Italian neorealist cinema, Fellini’s opus is something of a moving forward (or even away) from neorealism and a critical turning point for the distinctive Fellini-esque artistry in his later films.

The film follows five men as they spend their lives dreaming for escape and adventure. They drink. They womanize. They play. In a way, this is some sort of Fellini-esque ennui – rural and festive as opposed to Michelangelo Antonioni’s more urban and somber version (see L’Avventura or La Notte). These five men are at a crossroads in their lives. There is the womanizing Fausto, who is forced to have a shotgun wedding. There is Riccardo, the ambitious baritone. There is Alberto, the “child” of the group. There is Leopoldo, the fame-hungry writer. Finally there is Moraldo, who contemplates on his existence and moral conscience.

At the surface, I Vitelloni is a work of mere character sketches. It is more than that – it is a masterwork of piercing character study and sociopsychological commentary. As Fellini’s first breakout international success (it was nominated for the Screenplay Oscar and won the Venice Silver Lion), this film is a glimpse of Fellini’s psyche. These five men are in fact the different aspects of Fellini. Fellini the lover. Fellini the performer. Fellini the dreamer. Fellini the storyteller. Fellini the philosopher. Yes, these five characters come to life onscreen as they compassionately struggle to find meaning in their lives. All the while, Fellini also slowly finds his unique creative vision and artistic style with I Vitelloni.

This is the first Fellini film I saw, and I think it’s a great way to start watching Fellini.

It has all the characteristic elements of the Fellini-esque: the little town that may-or-may-not-be Rimini, the sea, religion and the church, the carnival, the day after the party; and while it’s still a neo-realist exercise it’s much closer to his latter day work.

The connection to La Dolce Vita is pretty obvious, as Dolce Vita was originally titled “Moraldo in the City”.

A masterpiece.

Brilliant nostalgia piece from Federico Fellini, arguably the best film of his formative, post neo-realist years, about five man-child layabouts in a small country town who sponge off family, dodge responsibility, and revel in the joys of booze, women, and male friendship. When the most dashing of the group, Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), is forced to marry a girl he knocked up, and get a job at a local merchant shop, the remaining pack envy his seemingly adult choices, until he hits on the boss’s wife, steals a priceless statue from the inventory, and nearly destroys all the earned good will of the marriage. Fellini’s autobiographical examination of friendship, responsibility, and growing up is filled with joyous moments tinged with nostalgic yearnings and disappointments, like when the group intellectual (Leopoldo Trieste) dismays at the wasted opportunity of selling a play to a boozy fey actor from Rome, or when a rambling, drunken Alberto Sordi longs for his beloved sister, who has run away with a two-timing boyfriend; it’s a dreamy landscape of parties and loafing, perpetuated with deeply felt emotions of regret and loss, but not without a positive understanding for the hopes of future prosperity.