Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0014381477825
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Image Entertainment
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Publisher: Image Entertainment
Release Date: September 14, 1999
Running Time: 140 minutes
Sales Rank: 119938
Studio: Image Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: November 03, 1965
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Description:
Writer/director Federico Fellini tells the tale of a woman (Giulietta Masina) dealing with her husband's possible infidelity. The result is a surreal and wild investigation into the psychology of a modern woman. Powered by Nino Rota's haunting score, 'Juliet of the Spirits' was the winner of five Best Foreign Film of the Year awards and received Academy Award nominations for Best Art Direction and Costume Design in 1966.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Solid
Federico Fellini's first color film, 1965's Juliet Of The Spirits (Giulietta Degli Spiriti), which was written by Fellini and longtime collaborators Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, is, simply put, the female and color companion piece to 8½. Unlike that prior film, often considered Fellini's best, Juliet Of The Spirits was a critical and financial failure when it came out. The criticism of the film was too harsh for, while it is not as great nor good a film as some earlier Fellini classics, it is still Fellini, which makes it better than the overwhelming majority of films by others, for even when Fellini fails he succeeds at more things than most. However, like many of the first color films made by directors who started in black and white, Fellini seems to overdose on the new medium, with color schemes that seem off the charts, and which tend to bleed over into one another. However, given the oneiric quality of the film, this is not necessarily a bad thing, especially since this was at the start of 1960s psychadelia, and Fellini was supposedly affected by an LSD hit at the time.
Basically, Juliet Boldrini (Giulietta Masina- Fellini's real life wife) is a bored housewife who rightly suspects her wealthy public relations husband Giorgio (Mario Pisu) of infidelity, after their anniversary, when he mumbles another woman's name- Gabriella, a 24 year old model he's squiring around. Whereas the film, before this scene, was realist in the way that much of La Dolce Vita was, the ... Read More
Rating:  - A French-Suburban Fantasy
This is my favorite Fellini film and I dissagree with most of the reviews which suggest it's not as complex or fulfilling as his earlier work; though, being an artist, I probably have a different perspective on it than most. First of all it's a very ironic film and I see it as a quietly dark comedy. This is Fellini playing with visions of 60's suburbia, the supernatural and sexual mores as seen through the eyes of a "proper" stay-a-home wife who is no longer satisfied with her limited role, especially in the face of her fillandering husband's neglegence.
Roger Ebert compaired this film, which he dedicated to his wife and the movie's star Giulliette Massino, to a husband who buys his wife the gift he really wants for himself. I find that view really annoying. This is a movie about a woman who is finding her strength and independance apart from her husband and stepping into a larger more spiritual world. To me it's as pure and lively a work of art as anything by Van Gogh or Monet. Even taken simply as a set piece it's worth seeing. The cinematography is stunning.
Rating: - Trippy
Not as powerful as several of his other films but Juliet has always been a fun watch for me. Arguably the weakest flimsiest plot of any Fellini movie and that's saying something. Even Satyricon and 8 1/2 have discernable plots that figure into the overall understanding of the film's intent or message. In Juliet a woman hallucinates about her suspicions about her husband and her childhood. That's it. That's the entire plot. Fellini might be trying to say something deep about loneliness, longing, disillusionment and betrayal but the message seems to be subordinate to the images in this case. It is as if Fellini had all of these bizarro images floating around in his head and needed some excuse, any excuse, to put them on celluoid for his first shot in color feature. Consequently, the viewer is treated to over two hours of loosely held together intriguing, beguiling, provocative, confusing, funny, fascinating and beautifully filmed images. I'd like to watch it high sometime.
Rating: - Accessible film about a Fantasy life transforming and informing reality.
One of Fellini's most accessible films (his use of color really helps), he once again plays reality against an active fantasy life... fantasies that combine memory, fears, fleeting desires and the way we imagine the lives of others. For me, one of the things that makes a film 5 star is that it provides something that only film can provide, and this is it; while the presentation is very theatrical, this quick intercutting of time/memory/mood can only be done in film.
While the overall message is a very conservative (pre/anti-feminist) one of it's day, Fellini DOES liberate a woman's fantasy life, and this is the essence of his leading "little woman." The predominant action of the film is in her imagination.
This was the day when middle/upper class Italian women did not work, and Masina represents the "good little woman." Rich enough to have servants, there was little to occupy her time or mind, other than similar friends who have veered to the outre and wierd just to have something to do. Masina's character searches more internally, and her fantasies color her vision of the lives of others. (Note that her usual circle of friends are equated with a fantasy of death, and you'll be clued into her psyche as these begin.)
I think you have to have lived a bit to "get" Fellini - I didn't like his work when I was younger - I love this. Also note his use of color as "percieved color" not literal color and this is worth many viewings.
And finally, if you are ... Read More
Rating: - My favorite film
This was the first Fellini film I ever saw and I was awestruck. I saw it ironically on a videotape that my English teacher had taped it off of public television- channel 11 here in Chicago. However, she had erased over it(the first 3/4 of the movie), as I had asked her if she could tape the season finale of the first season of "Twin Peaks"-whoa, I'm dating myself! Thank you Mrs. Cantrell for introducing me to a master director and shaping me into what I am today; though I always tended to favor the weird, whimsical and offbeat. So, I immediately rushed to the video store and rented out a copy of "Juliet"("Giulietta degli Spiriti,") so I could watch the first part. The print on the video was pretty old and faded but I've been enjoying Criterion's excellent remaster. This dvd is stunning and the colors are so vibrant. It just reminds me of an Easter, pastel fantasy- all that is transgressing in Juliet's disturbed mind.
In the opening scene, Juliet sets up for a romantic evening with her husband to celebrate their wedding anniversary but instead is disappointed when Giorgio comes home with an entourage of their freinds. Later, Juliet and freinds engage in a seance session with the assistance of Genius, the mystic. It is determined that Juliet is also gifted and has sort of a sixth sense and gravitates to spirits. Iris, a spirit that has surfaced from the seance follows Juliet throughout the film and becomes her conscience. Juliet escapes in her fantasies and hears so-called spirits may lead ... Read More
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