Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Ginger & Fred (1986)
Director: Federico Fellini
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The absence of Fellini's name before the title seems a just indication of a return to something warmer, quieter and more intimate than his grandiose freak shows. Confirming this is his reunion with his wife Masina after a gap of some 23 years, and with Mastroianni, so often his alter ego in the past. They play a couple of old hoofers, who used to tour the boards doing a respectful homage to Astaire and Rogers; they are being brought together after all these years by a TV show in Rome. A long first half, chronicling Ginger's return to the city, shows the place to be in the grip of much general urban decay, and allows Fellini his usual wallowing in all the quirky sideshows (a dead pig, lit up with fairy lights, dangles from the railway station roof). But once the couple finally get together, a warmth which Fellini has not displayed for years gradually seeps all over the screen. She is still trim, a courageous old fighter; he is seedy, but with an ironic detachment. Not even Fellini's deadly sarcasm about TV's horrible degradation of all human values can quite dim the magic that they restore with their little dance. As usual, Fellini doesn't have a lot to say; but it amounts to considerably more than his usual marginal doodlings, and it is irresistibly charming. CPea.Author: CPea
Cast & crew
Director: Federico Fellini
Producer: Alberto Grimaldi
Cast: Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastroianni, Franco Fabrizi, Frederick von Ledenburg, Augusto Poderosi, Martin Maria Blau full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 127 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now