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Road to San Giovanni is also wonderful, especially "A Cinema-Goer's Autobiography" which is by far the most interesting thing I've ever read about movies (both what they are and what they've been to people) as well as a poignant, inevitably Cinema Paradiso-esque memoir. It's about golden age Hollywood at first, as trickled through to the Italian Riviera under Fascism, but then veers into discussing comic strips and Fellini. Apropos the latter, and modern (c. '70s) cinema in general, as distinct from the unique idealizings and escape offered by '30s films:

The cinema of distance which nourished our youth is turned forever on its head in the cinema of absolute proximity. For the brief span of our lifetimes, everything remains there on the screen, distressingly present; first images of eros and premonitions of death catch up with us in every dream; the end of the world began with us and shows no signs of ending; the film we thought we were merely watching is the story of our lives.

What I like best about that, apart from "the end of the world began with us and shows no signs of ending", is how well it describes the introduction from Fanny and Alexander ("Not for Pleasure Only"), usually the winner among the three movies I tend to think of as best (or anyway my favorite), and definitely the winner right now since we just rewatched the long version. Young Alexander goes into a sort of boredom delirium while safe and alone at home, hallucinates gentle movements in the statue of a naked woman, then glimpses a hooded Death down the hall walking steadily toward him. Works for Fellini too, sure--we saw La dolce vita this week, since Julie wanted to understand Nine a bit better, and the salvageable moments were just like that. La dolce vita was nowhere near as good as I'd remembered, though. It was one of the movies that awed me on Bravo back when I was a teenager and Bravo was Bravo.

The Death was handled perfectly, though it was a real cheese risk: we see him in close up, because he draws Alexander's attention, but also because it doesn't localize him. He's not there but coming there. The head bobs up and down. Taking his time but coming, darkness behind him, a beam at one point as though he's stepping from the nothing parts of a building into the something. Just a couple seconds we see him, Alexander watching in a wary trance. It's a Seventh Seal cameo, basically, but handled differently enough to be undistracting, like with the other allusions to previous films Bergman fills the movie with, to let you know he's putting it all together, that this is the one. Bergman never does too little or too much, though perfection is only the 19th best thing about Bergman.

I think Fellini did something similar in 8 1/2, echoing earlier films into it, but can't remember how well--we're waiting for the Blu Ray to be netflickable in a few weeks. I've never found Fellini to be up there with Kurosawa and Bergman, even in his memorable flashes, or even with Truffaut or Lynch, but after looking at him through Calvino's eyes (not always uncritical) I'll give him time to remake his case.

Nine was just okay, its high points being a performance by the actress from that terrible Edith Piaf movie that is outstandingly moving (therefore wasted, in this company) and a scene stolen by THE BEST EXTRA EVER.

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Actually I think the movie as a whole--a whole movie, I mean--wasn't as good as it was for me last time. That was the first time I saw the full version, though, a special gift, and it's only been three years [edit: six(!)]. Also I haven't been in a position to fully concentrate, which is perhaps part of why I've only been able to read Calvino for so long, since he's the best writer who never requires scrutiny, who reliably makes you feel he'll bring you in on whatever he's up to. I wasn't up to the work I was up to last time, the grateful reconstruction of a great whole from the unwinding sequence of fragments. But this time the film was more affecting, too affecting, frightening in a way films don't frighten me, and perhaps my losing sight of the structure, the edges, was part of why.

What was sleeping woke up when Isak told his story; it gave me a piece back, much the way getting to swim did. But what hit me even harder was the grandmother's description of loss, talking with the ghost of her dead son, which I'm sure I appreciated on previous viewings but was in no position to know just how right it is:

My feelings came from deep in my body. Even though I could control them, they shattered reality, if you know what I mean. Reality has remained broken ever since, and, oddly enough, it feels more real that way. So I don't bother to mend it. I just don't care anymore if nothing makes sense.

Funny how the pauses make it mean better, though the transcription still strikes me as exactly right, exactly what it's like.

Books are so clumsy with pauses, or rather readers are clumsy and the books are helpless to help.