The question of "who is my audience?" is an essential one for any filmmaker, including makers of documentary films like The Magic of Fellini. While some topics naturally have a more narrow audience than others, there's still a lot of power in the filmmaker's hands to shape just how narrow and specialized that audience will be. Some seemingly obscure topics can be made accessible and inviting to a wider audience by virtue of an excellent presentation, while a poorly handled presentation can make potentially interesting material into something that's only worthwhile for the purest aficionados.

The Magic of Fellini falls squarely into the latter camp: while the subject matter, focusing on an extremely influential and admired "master" of Italian cinema, would seem to be of interest to anyone who enjoys movies, the presentation kills the documentary stone dead in its role as an informative piece.

This 55-minute documentary is basically a compilation of interviews with people who knew Federico Fellini or worked with him, clips from his films, and snippets of interviews or behind-the-scenes moments with Fellini himself. A loose chronological structure is followed, starting with clips and interviews about Fellini's directorial debut, and moving on from there to touch on examples of his work like La Dolce Vita, La Strada, and Satyricon. The various people who offer thoughts about Fellini include Anthony Quinn, Claudia Cardinale, Anita Ekberg, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Lina Wertmuller, Paul Mazursky, Ettore Scola, and Giuseppe Tornatore; we also get a few clips of the late Fellini discussing his own work. There's one constant theme that's harped on throughout all the interviews: how peculiar Fellini was, and how great he was. Nothing of real substance is communicated about his career, however.

If you are already thoroughly familiar with Fellini, know exactly what films he's made and what his contribution to the evolution of cinema was, then you may find a few elements of interest in The Magic of Fellini. But if you started off watching The Magic of Fellini without knowing anything about Fellini, that's pretty much where you'll be when the end credits roll.

The DVD

Video

The Magic of Fellini is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. I've given it a strictly average mark for image quality, which cuts it some slack for the age of the film clips and older interview footage. The older material ranges from fair to very poor condition, usually with a great deal of print flaws and wear. The newer interview footage is, not surprisingly, cleaner, but it's nothing to write home about; sharpness is average, and colors are sometimes a bit off. It's watchable as long as you don't expect too much.

English subtitles are burned into the image. They're provided not just for the Italian dialogue, but also for several clips that are in English but are difficult to understand because of the speaker's accent or the quality of the audio track.

Audio

The same general comments apply to the Dolby 2.0 soundtrack as for the image quality. The sound is generally adequate; the newer footage sounds better (though fairly flat) and the older footage ranges from practically inaudible to reasonable.

Extras

There are no special features on this DVD.

Final thoughts

Devoted fans of Federico Fellini's work may find something worth seeing in The Magic of Fellini, but even then the most I'd suggest for this lackluster, poorly organized film is a rental. It's an extended but strangely light-weight tribute to Fellini rather than a genuine documentary about his work, revealing almost nothing about the man or his career. If you want to learn more about the Italian maestro of film and his career, then you'll have to look elsewhere. Skip it.