Ginger and Fred tells the story of Amelia (Giulietta Masina, Fellini's real-life wife) and Pippo (Marcello Mastroianni) two aging, second-tier hoofers who used to go by the stage names of "Fred and Ginger." Years past their primes, and having completely lost contact with each other, they're invited to participate in a televised variety show that will include such "acts" as a priest who has married and will kiss his new bride on the air, a troupe of dancing midgets, a transvestite who offers sexual favors to horny prison inmates, and an inventor who eats his new-and-improved edible panties off of a model. (Any resemblance to the Fox network is purely coincidental...if not visionary.)
Amelia and Pippo try to rehearse, but it becomes clear that Pippo is an alcoholic who has only shown up for the quick money. Amelia grows less and less enthusiastic as the freak show nears; both Fred and Ginger seem unsure of whether they want to participate. The two will become nothing more than cogs in a bizarre, belittling ritual, exactly the sort of thing that Fellini could orchestrate in high style. Still, he knew how to tap very real human emotions amidst the foolishness.
In yet another paradox tied to this production, Ginger and Fred began its life as a concept for a TV movie. It was originally meant to be part of an anthology film in which Masina would play six different roles and be directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Franco Zeffirelli, and Fellini himself. For his installment, Fellini created a character named Ginger, a sensitive former vaudeville dancer who became a grandmother and the owner of a small business. When Mastroianni agreed to play Ginger's over-the-hill partner, Fellini decided to turn the story into a feature film that would brutally dissect modern television. The final version is filled with ridiculous commercials, most of them for sausages, the implication being that the human participants in the TV show are nothing more than disposable products, pop cultural flotsam.
Fellini stated that he originally wanted to recapture "the essence of those old variety shows" that he saw when he was young, and that the story was to take place in "this labyrinth, enchanted palace of TV." This enchantment would not hold, of course. There were simply too many ripe targets waiting to be zapped.
Needless to say, the tube has grown even more Fellini-esque in recent years. Fellini was forever tapping into a more imposing zeitgeist than most audience members recognized on their own. During the filming of Ginger and Fred, critic Richard Corliss looked back on the director's storied career and noted: "What may once have looked like outrageous cartoons of sensuality and sacrilege have become, in retrospect, previews of a moral system spun wildly off its axis...his pictures celebrate what they criticize; they amount to a cautionary blueprint for survival in the Atomic Age."
In I, Fellini by Charlotte Chandler (Cooper Square Press), the director shared his own views on Ginger and Fred: "Our little picture was about people who worshiped Rogers and Astaire. The title Ginger and Fred was meant as a compliment, and I just could not believe it when I was told that Ginger Rogers had reacted with anger and was trying to stop the film from being shown. The damages being asked for were more than the cost of making the film. I never believed she was the one responsible. She must have listened to other people who said the film ridiculed her. Some critics even said I was making fun of Rogers and Astaire. I never mock what I do. I see what is funny about my subjects, but I never make fun of them. I laugh with my characters, not at them....The person who was really hurt was Giulietta, because she had so identified with Ginger, and the movie was really made because of Giulietta...In the Italy of the thirties, Ginger and Fred had comforted us, especially those of us who lived in the provinces. In the world of fascism, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers showed us that another life was possible, at least in America, that land of unimaginable freedom and opportunity."
Directed by: Federico Fellini
Screenplay: Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra, and Tullio Pinelli
Producer: Heinz Bibo and Alberto Grimaldi Cinematography: Tonino Delli Colli and Ennio Guarnieri Editing: Nino Baragli
Music: Nicola Piovani
Production Design: Dante Ferretti
Costume Design: Danilo Donati
Principal Cast: Giulietta Masina (Amelia/Ginger), Marcello Mastroianni (Pippo/Fred), Franco Fabrizi (show host), Frederick Ledebur (Admiral), Augusto Poderosi (transvestite), Martin Maria Blau (producer’s assistant), Toto Mignone (Toto), Jacques Henri Lartigue (Flying Priest).
C-128m.
by Paul Tatara
