Prova d'orchestra (1978)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Federico Fellini

Writers:

Federico Fellini (story)
Federico Fellini (writer) ...

Release Date:

22 February 1979 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama | Music

Tagline:

The Decline of the West in C# Major

Plot:

An orchestra assmbles for a rehearsal in an ancient chapel under the inquisive eyes of a TV documentary crew, but an uprising breaks out.

Plot Keywords:

Conductor | Orchestra | Classical Music | Chaos | Breaking The Fourth Wall

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Balduin Baas	...	Conductor
Clara Colosimo	...	Harp player
Elizabeth Labi	...	Piano player
Ronaldo Bonacchi	...	Bassoon player
Ferdinando Villella	...	Cello player
Franco Iavarone	...	Bass tuba player (as Giovanni Javarone)
David Maunsell	...	First violin
Francesco Aluigi	...	Second violin
Andy Miller	...	Oboe player
Sibyl Mostert	...	Flute player
Franco Mazzieri	...	Trumpet player
Daniele Pagani	...	Trombone player
Luigi Uzzo	...	Violin player
Cesare Martignon	...	Clarinet player
Umberto Zuanelli	...	Copyist

Also Known As:

Federico Fellini's Orchestra Rehearsal (USA) (poster title)
Orchesterprobe (West Germany)
Orchestra Rehearsal (USA)

Runtime:

70 min

Country:

Italy | West Germany

Language:

Italian | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:PG | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-12

Filming Locations:

Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Radiotelevisione Italiana

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When they are interviewing the first violinists, you can see that the harpist in the background is not playing but you can hear harp music playing.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Cinecittà: La casa di F. Fellini (2004) (V)

Unique, hyper-significant, Fellini over himself

Some fully creditable critics deemed "Prova d'orchestra" as being Fellini's main masterpiece. Although recognizing their slight exaggeration, I still can fully empathize with their point. The movie is one of the most intelligent, stylish and personal instances of the much used (and abused) recipe of the "social microcosm". Of course, Fellini's trick to build up a parable of society by using the orchestra parallel is not only original, but also very efficient: the metaphors and symbols resulting from this are both powerful and humorous, in an atrociously satyric vein.

Also, it's very interesting to note the gradual glissando from realism to hyperbole, and from cold detachment to paranoid hysteria; as such, what started as a pseudo-documentary, impartial and technical, gradually turns into a major pandemonium, to culminate with the hallucinatory profiling of the demolition iron ball, as an omen of doom - that being the point where the artist really meets the divine, both as meaning, and as means.

One should also notice the masterfully style of shooting the orchestra, the people and the instruments, to build up the cinematographic symphony layered over the musical one, and to create that irresistibly fast-paced narrative in images, that makes the movie so exciting and captivating - it's literally to be watched on the edge on your seat, although nothing more spectacular happens than an orchestra rehearsing in a disaffected church... all being the result of Fellini's skillful cinematography.

At last, one couldn't depart any reference to this masterpiece without mentioning at least in passing the haunting finale. Although I always regarded with political objectivity and historical honesty the national-socialist ideology, goals and means, I must confess that I fully assimilate Fellini's powerful warning about any dictatorial excesses. Balduin Bass' voice rising in a Hitlerian monologue is an efficient and pointed mean of expression and style - and his last line after fade out, "Signori... Da capo!", indeed MAKES A POINT!