Federico Fellini (1920-1993)

Standing 1.82 metres, Federico Fellini was not only tall, but also left a huge imprint on the history of Italy.  It was said that, other than the Pope and the President, the person tourists visiting Rome wanted to see most was Fellini.  While he was as appealing as a tourist attraction, his films were also set up as firm as boundary tablets in the cultural and historical map of Italy.

He did not belong to Neorealism of the former generation, although he had written a lot of scripts for the father of Neorealism, Roberto Rossellini.  Neither did he belong to the new left wing of the next generation, although he brought Pier Paolo Pasolini from literature to film.  In fact, he did not belong to any school or –ism.  He was on bad terms with Luchino Visconti, he was not close to Michelangelo Antonioni.  Being absolutely egoistic, he only portrayed his own life, memory and dreams, no matter whether it was in the Neorealist film look-alikes The Road and Nights of Cabiria, or the fin de siècle The Young and the Passionate and The Sweet Life.

He moved from circus to vaudeville to comedy to comic strip to broadcasting and finally to film, so his films were always filled with circus, vaudeville, comedy, comic strip and broadcasting.  When the world was modern, he was already post-modern.  However, now that we look back at him in the post-modern age, we would discover that he is in fact eternally modern.