I Vitelloni - Critical Response

Critical Response

Italy and France

Screened in competition at the Venice Film Festival on August 26, 1953, the film was awarded the Silver Lion by Italian poet Eugenio Montale who headed the jury, along with a public ovation and acclaim from the majority of critics. "Belying all doubts about its appeal", the film opened on September 17, 1953 to both commercial and critical success.

Reviewing for La Stampa, Mario Gromo argued that it was a "film of a certain importance because of its many intelligent moments, its sound portrayal of provincial life, and because it is the second film of a young director who evidently has considerable talent... The Italian film industry now has a new director and one who puts his own personal ideas before any of the customary traditions of the trade. Fellini's is a fresh approach". "It is the atmosphere that counts most in this unusual film," wrote Francesco Càallari of the Gazzetta del Lunedi, "an intensely human and poetical atmosphere altogether estranged from the provincialism of the setting... Fellini has something to say and he says it with an acute sense of observation... Here is someone apart from the other young directors of post-war Italian cinema. Fellini has a magical touch." First published 31 August 1953 in the Gazzeta del Lunedi (Genoa). After praising Fellini's Venice triumph, Ermanno Contini of Il Secolo XIX outlined the film's weaknesses: "I Vitelloni does not have a particularly solid structure, the story is discontinuous, seeking unity through the complex symbiosis of episodes and details... The narrative, built up around strong emotions and powerful situations, lacks solid organic unity, and at times this undermines the story's creative force, resulting in an imbalance of tone and pace and a certain sense of tedium. But such shortcomings are amply atoned for by the film's sincerity and authenticity." Arturo Lanocita of Corriere della Sera wrote: "I Vitelloni gives a graphic and authentic picture of certain aimless evenings, the streets populated by groups of idle youths... The film is a series of annotations, hints, and allusions without unity... With a touch of irony, Fellini tries to show the contrast between the way his characters see themselves and the way they really are. Despite its weaknesses, the film is one of the best in recent years." For Giulio Cesare Castello of Cinema VI, the film proved "that Fellini is the Italian film industry's most talented satirist, and an acute observer and psychologist of human behaviour. Like any good moralist, he knows how to give his story a meaning, to provide more than just simple entertainment".

Fellini's first film with international distribution, I Vitelloni did reasonable box office in England and North America while performing "huge in Argentina". Opening in France on April 23, 1954, it was especially well received. André Martin of Les Cahiers du Cinéma insisted that by "virtue of the quality of the narrative, and the balance and control of the film as a whole, I Vitelloni is neither commercial nor does it possess those traits that usually permit a work of art to be consecrated and defined. With a surprising and effective sense of cinema, Fellini endows his characters with a life both simple and real". Film critic Geneviève Agel appreciated the maestro's symbolism: "Fellini films a deserted piazza at nighttime. It symbolizes solitude, the emptiness that follows communal joy, the bleak torpor that succeeds the swarming crowd; there are always papers lying around like so many reminders of what the day and life have left behind."

United States

I Vitelloni opened in the United States on November 7, 1956 to generally positive reviews. In his New York Times review, Bosley Crowther reported that Fellini, with "his volatile disposition and a desire to make a stinging film... does certainly take a vigorous whiplash to the breed of over-grown and over-sexed young men who hang around their local poolrooms and shun work as though it were a foul disease. He ridicules them with all the candor of his sharp neo-realist style, revealing their self-admiration to be sadly immature and absurd. And without going into reasons for the slack state of these young men, he indicates that they are piteous and merit some sympathy too". For John Simon, Nino Rota's music was one "of the most brilliant features of the film... The first is a soaring, romantic melody that can be made to express nostalgia, love, and the pathos of existence... Slowed down, becomes lugubrious; with eerie figurations in the woodwinds it turns sinister. The quicksilver changes in the music support the changing moods of the story".

The film was re-released internationally on the tenth anniversary of Fellini's death in 2003. For the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle noted that I Vitelloni was "a film of sensitivity, observation and humor – a must-see for Fellini enthusiasts and a worthwhile investment for everyone else. Those less taken by the maestro may find I Vitelloni to be a favorite among his works". Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune wrote: "In Italy, it remains one of Fellini's most consistently loved movies. It should be in America as well... If you still remember that terrific drunk scene, Alberto Sordi's pre-Some Like It Hot drag tango or the way the little boy balances on the train track at the end, you should know that this picture plays as strongly now as it did in 1956 or whenever you first saw it. I know I had a ball watching I Vitelloni again. It reminded me of the old gang."