Episode Details

Federico Fellini began as a neorealist filmmaker documenting postwar Italian poverty and ended as cinema's greatest dreamer — a director who abandoned narrative logic entirely and made films that felt like wandering through someone else's subconscious. La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and Amarcord were not stories but visions, and the word "Felliniesque" entered the language because no other word could describe what he created.

This episode traces Fellini from his provincial Rimini childhood through the neorealist apprenticeship, the creative crisis that produced 8 1/2, and the increasingly fantastical films that made his name synonymous with cinematic imagination.

• Fellini's Rimini childhood and the provincial memories that fed every film he ever made
• The neorealist beginnings with Rossellini and the early films that established his reputation
• La Dolce Vita and the cultural earthquake it caused in Italy and beyond
• 8 1/2 — the film about not being able to make a film that became his greatest achievement