The Clowns

Fellini's documentary celebration of the dying art of the clown is his best film in years. As overtly personal as his autobiographical Roma, it has little of the self-indulgence of that film, mainly because of Fellini's relentless pursuit of his elusive subject. Made for the RAI TV company, it includes much interview material with once-famous clowns now long forgotten; reconstructions of scenes from Fellini's own childhood, attempting to explain his obsessive fascination with the circus; and a final tribute to the clowns themselves, a slapstick funeral staged in a circus ring. The final image in this funeral sequence, with pathetic trumpet music across an empty ring, is memorably touching.