Review of Ginger And Fred

Introduction

Ginger and Fred, or to give it its original Italian title "Ginger e Fred" is Italian auteur Federico Fellini`s satire on modern tv culture. Music-hall performers Amelia and Pippo (Giulietta Massina and Marcello Mastroianni) are reunited after years in the showbiz wilderness to recreate their old act impersonating Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Guilietta Massina (Mrs Federico Fellini) is most definitely the star of the show. The movie focusses on her as she finds herself swept back into the showbiz life and partnered with her old stage oppo for a brief appearance on a Christmas tv special.

To a certain extent, the movie channels the 1975 Neil Simon comedy The Sunshine Boys, substituting two ageing hoofers for comedians. The relationship between the two principals is similarly strained but based on love rather than hatred, and their singular inability to articulate it to each other.

Mastroianni`s performance is loaded with pathos as the broken-down old hoofer who hit the bottle once his fifteen minutes of fame were over, while Massina`s character got on with her life and can live without the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd (it`s a cliche but I likes it).

Video

Although listed as a 1.66:1 aspect ratio picture, Ginger e Fred was made for Italian television, so 1.33:1, as the movie is presented here may be the correct aspect ratio. It certainly looks right.

Audio

Bog standard Dolby Digital 2.0. Nothing to write home about.

Features

The movie is subtitled throughout with player-generated English subtitles which can be switched off, but which default on.

The extras disc contains La Felliniana: Final Show and La Felliniana: Silence, two RAISat Cinema documentaries about Fellini`s work. Like the movie, these are fully subtitled in English while retaining their original Italian language soundtracks. The subs can be de-selected from the menu. The third documentary is Marcello Mastroianni: A Self Portrait (aka I Remember, Yes I Remember) which is presented as 14:9 letterbox.

Conclusion

You either get Fellini or you don`t. Certainly he`s one of if not possibly the greatest movie director Italy has ever produced. Ginger and Fred is a charming satire on the state of television which has if anything got even more relevant with today`s trend for freak-show television.

Veering off at a tangent, in preparing this review, I read other comments from various sources and I came across a comment from some deluded IMDb user who said that Ginger Rogers wasn`t that great a dancer and without Astaire wouldn`t have amounted to much. I`d like to paraphrase Ginger`s own words. Not only was she as good a dancer as Fred Astaire, but she did it backwards.