Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (Fellini's Casanova) poster & wallpaper
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Donald Sutherland, Tina Aumont, Cicely Browne, Olimpia Carlisi, Adele Angela Lojodice ... see more see more... , Margareth Clémenti , John Karlsen , Peter Gonzales , Chesty Morgan , Reggie Nalder , Daniel Emilfor Berenstein , Mary Marquet

Fellini's Casanova is played by Donald Sutherland. The film takes great pains to debunk the myth of the Great Lover by presenting him as an ordinary human being swept up in extraordinary circumstances... read more read more.... This Casanova breezes through his various political and amorous adventures with an air of bored detachment, allowing the audience to "fill in the blanks" regarding motivations and emotions. Though the film's plotline hop-scotches all over Europe, Fellini lensed the picture entirely within the lavish confines of Rome's Cinecitta Studios. Danilo Donati won an Oscar for costume design, while Nino Rota (of Godfather fame) should have won for his musical score. A sumptuous visual treat, Fellini's Casanova is something of a chocolate Easter Bunny: delicious going down, but hollow on the inside. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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2,631 ratings

R, 2 hr. 46 min.

Directed by: Federico Fellini

Release Date: January 1, 1976

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Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (Fellini's Casanova)
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Flixster Reviews (127)

  • fb1142797643
    December 17, 2011
    fb1142797643
    Federico Fellini's renowned directing touch seemed shakier after "Casanova," an overlong, erratic portrait of the legendary lover.

    Donald Sutherland is the unlikely star, and the problems start there. Not only is his familiar growl overdubbed with a harsh Italian voice (disorien... read moreting, to say the least), but his androgynous persona is near laughable. With his powdered complexion, lined eyes and shaved hairline, he looks less like a womanizer than a cold-creamed housewife on her way to bed. Meanwhile, his vivid, frilly outfits are often ridiculous, and the wispy half-shirt and bloomers he wears underneath -- while probably period-accurate? -- are downright girlish. It's a creepy characterization. Then again, the film won the Oscar for Best Costume Design, so others obviously appreciated these excesses.

    Like many Fellini movies, "Casanova" is a series of intricate set pieces rather than a linear story, but the action seems more repetitive this time. Seduction scenes dominate, naturally, but the couplings are shot in such a crass, exaggerated way -- from the woman's perspective, as Casanova slams into her from above as if pedaling on an exercise bike -- that the sex is totally unappealing. Perhaps this is the point. We aren't meant to admire this shallow rogue who boasts about his virility, pathetically grovels for acceptance as a scholar and swoons lovestruck hyperboles whenever he happens to meet a beautiful woman.

    Otherwise, the inevitable highlights are the festival settings, where Fellini's visual imagination runs amok with his usual, bacchanalian genius. An early scene with a giant, carved head emerging from a canal is dazzling. A chaotic orgy that suggests an earthquake is delightful insanity, as is a musical segment where multiple keyboards haphazardly feed a single organ's cacophony. There's also a homoerotic operetta (an interesting test for composer Nino Rota), a walk-in whale carcass marketed like a circus sideshow and a seven-foot woman who wrestles doomed male challengers (as if that weren't enough, her handlers are midgets). Casanova also woos a humpbacked woman and a delicate, life-sized robot. On a more subtle level, his eventual decline is exquisitely symbolized by the aftermath of an opera, where the emptied house leaves him alone on the bare floor as the chandeliers are lowered and systematically fanned out by the crew. Another clever metaphor is the toy bird that repeatedly stretches and chirps during his bedroom romps.

    "Casanova" is a strange mix of realism and theater, as elaborate sets clash with obviously faked buggy rides and a sequence where a stormy ocean is simulated with rippling plastic tarps. The chronology sloppily jumps around -- the story is initially told via flashbacks as a jailed Casanova contemplates his life, but this structure is soon abandoned -- and women who enter the plot as pivotal characters are discarded minutes later without ceremony. Nothing hangs together as smoothly as it should. Casanova turns a bit more sympathetic near the end as he ages and is humbled to become a modest estate librarian, but the film's imagery remains far more affecting than its human insights.
  • jsbond008
    January 31, 2010
    jsbond008
    Astonishing
    Overtly sexual filthy
    Mesmerizing
    However just like all fellini, a man's film
    I care not to discuss plot holes or issues with continuity, I am not a director I am a an admirer of film. Film is not real life nor is Fellini attempting to reproduce anything but fantasy.
    ... read moreHis Casanova is a biopoic exploring a man of letters, a man who is sure he is a philosopher of body and mind. He is so fond of his stature as an explorer, he lives life apart from the men around him, engulfed in the women, always passionate about the women.
    He takes part in the physical yet lives in the spiritual, which to him is one. Visually few films come near it.
  • jazzmonk
    June 13, 2007
    jazzmonk
    Great performance by Donald Sutherland and some of Fellini's best visual work. I wish someone would release this on DVD in a US format.
  • vrtualme
    May 24, 2007
    vrtualme
    i really wanted to like this, but didn't. i almost feel guilty listing this one cuz i only sat thru 2/3 of it's 3 hour 30 minutes. visually it?s a stunning film. but the subtitles run much too fast to keep up with, and the story was boring. i?ve heard before that donald suthe... read morerland hated working with fellini on this film.
  • girlanachronism13
    January 8, 2007
    girlanachronism13
    I feel like there was something big that I didn't 'get' about this film. I seem to walk away from a lot of Fellini feeling this way, but this picture in particular. The entire vehicle for the film seemed to be getting Casanova from one person's bed to another--or is that the poin... read moret? The sets, makeup, costumes, and (to a certain extent) characters were interesting, though. But for one reason or another, I left this picture scratching my head and wondering what I missed.

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