DVD The White Sheik - Criterion Collection
Federico Fellini's solo-directing debut seems like a pure excursion into the director's extravagant imagination, but its comedy, alternately ethereal and tumultuous, is grounded in reality. A honeymooning clerk (Leopoldo Trieste) and his big-eyed bride (Brunella Bovo) make a package-tour pilgrimage to Rome to have an audience with the Pope. There are bureaucratic delays, and the couple become separated. The still-virginal husband falls in with prostitutes (including Giulietta Masina's Cabiria, later canonized in Fellini's most enduring masterpiece). The bride finds herself in the world of her favorite fantasy-figure, "the White Sheik"--the hero of the photographic comic books, or fumetti, eagerly followed by the Italian populace. It was Michelangelo Antonioni who proposed the fumetti as a ripe film subject, and the film's central episode--dominated by Alberto Sordi's preposterous fantasy-figure and the Mack Sennett-like production methods of the fumetti company--is the first tour de force of Fellini's spectacular career. --Richard T. Jameson |
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Review(s): DVD The White Sheik - Criterion Collection | |
This is a glorious trasfer of one of Fellini's earliest films. This film is much more simple and light than many of Fellini's subsequent films, but it has a charm all of its own. The fairly straightforward story holds very few surprises or twists, but it also a nice exploration of fantasy vs. reality. The introduction of the White Sheik sitting in his swing, high in the air is a wonderful moment. As the film goes on, the dashing sheik just becomes to us an overweight and vain man and our illusions, like the young wife's, are dashed. Variations of this story have been done many times, but this is one of the most pure and enjoyable. The film is also notable for the introduction of Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) who would have her own Fellini film a few years after. It's not a very long scene, and it is included in its entirety on the "Nights of Cabiria" DVD by Criterion. Despite that, this is still a DVD worth owning to watch a master filmmaker get used to his craft.
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| FELLINI'S FINE FIRST FEATURE |
THE WHITE SHEIK is Federico Fellini's 1951 solo directorial debut. When I think of a Fellini movie, the first things that come to mind are: the image of someone in diaphanous material floating across the screen, people in antiquated circus-like costumes and a main character who escapes into a fantasy that turns out to have a poignant impact in his or her real life. All these elements are part of the texture of The White Sheik. A provincial couple come to Rome on their honeymoon. Ivan the groom has made an unromantic schedule of appointments for them. Wanda the young bride, an avid fan of the widely read soap opera photo-comic strips called fumetti, sneaks out of the hotel for a few hours to meet her comic book idol, The White Sheik, and give him a drawing she made. It's all innocent but one thing leads to another and she inadvertently gets taken to a distant photo shoot where the sleazy actor playing the sheik comes on to the bride, now dressed as a harem girl. Meanwhile in Rome, her distraught husband seeks to keep his bride's disappearance a secret from visiting relatives and a scheduled visit with the pope. Look for Fellini's wife, actress Giulietta Masina in a small role as the prostitute Cabiria. A few years later, Masina starred in Fellini's masterpiece, the heartbreaking NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (Criterion). Nino Rota, who became a long term Fellini collaborator, composed the evocative score. The White Shiek has suffered little over time. I think Fellini saw life as a bittersweet fantasy full of slapstick and hope. A pretty good definition. Additional material includes a recent interview with the two stars who reminisce about their magical time with Fellini in Rome half a century ago. Recommended
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Like Fitzgerald and his perfect Gatsby, Fellini learned early on how to set up a deeply satisfying ending. 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita. Cabiria. Wow! What wonderful endings.On that note, this movie is political. It seriously questions the idea of marriage. But we only realize this in the final scene. And we know it because of a few clues. First is the word play. The Taxi driver asks to be paid, and the uncle asks Ivan, "Are you done paying?" I'm guessing Ivan has just begun to pay for his decision - to get married. Then there is the classic Fellini image of procession. The couple is reunited in the end, they have gotten away with their little embarrassment, unscathed, and they run to catch up with the rest of humanity on it's insanely habitual march to who-knows-where. This is an image which comes back many times with Fellini and is certainly intentional. And finally is the obvious alignment up of the taunting flute-trill, at the end of the score, with the image of the statue looking down on man, creating a moment of laughter, or even mockery, from above. This moment is essential to understanding this movie, and is well intact in the VHS copy, but on the DVD the music has been shifted, so the music and image of the statue no longer line up! Seem trivial? Perhaps. God knows Criterion has made the world a much, much better place, so I don't blame them. But I believe the mistake is there. All the same this is a great movie and the extra features are nice.
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