I am almost done with my Fellini boxset, stopped on Amarcord although I saw it earlier this year on the channel. So including that film I have watched 12 films by Fellini and he is a director who continues to surprise me.

His run of more conventional drama based films of the 50s host some of the best films in that country's cinematic decade such as I Vitelloni, La Strada and Nights of Cabiria. But I find that his films from the 60s and onward to be even more engaging, a sentiment I do not see with some observers of Fellini's filmography. Films such as Roma and Satyricon I find to be excellent and Juliet of The Spirits I find to be worthy of inclusion along with La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2.

Fellini is regularly regarded as self-indulgent, and while that can be true, I do not personally see his indulgence as any kind of detraction. At worst, he presents an understandably biased perspective on certain topics but they come from a childlike passion and mastery of the camera. He uses the art of the camera, of framing, of fantasy like constructions and in some cases beautiful colors to present a world through his eyes that appears as caricatures both enticing and yet horrifying. But yet through those caricatures a deep humanity is able to burst through them, at points almost moving me to tears.

Fellini was once a director that I admire from a distance only having seen a couple of his films, but like with every director once I explore his greater oeuvre a passion is ignited. But with Fellini it feels far different than Robert Bresson or Akira Kurosawa or even Ingmar Bergman whose filmographies I have either completed or intensely explored. I feel a sense of joy, even when there is tragedy, after watching his pictures, a great sense of fulfillment that I can only look on with brightness.