With the current state
of affairs in the world and the recent death of Italian composer
Carlo Savina - also conductor for Philippe Sarde (Polanski's Tess,
1980; Annaud's The Bear, 1989) and Nino Rota (Coppola's The
Godfather, 1972; Fellini's Casanova, 1976), one movie
deserves to be unearthed at last. This unfairly forgotten film is
Federico Fellini's Orchestra Rehearsal (1979). It depicts
the artistic and political struggle between a (German) conductor
and his (Italian) orchestra. A movie about music, absolute power,
terror and humanity.
This film is also Nino
Rota's last score (he passed away after the recording sessions)
and it is consequently the ultimate work of Felini-Rota - after
several masterpieces such as 8 1/2 (1963), Roma (1972),
Amarcord (1974). "The most precious collaborator
I have ever had, I say it straightaway and don't even have to hesitate,
was Nino Rota," Fellini claimed, "between us, immediately,
a complete, total, harmony."* Orchestra Rehearsal
takes place in a music studio from beginning to end, and all the
characters are musicians. Could there be a better supreme achievement
Usually, even in fiction
or documentary movies about music, the orchestra and musicians are
just part of the set, merely background. Here, they are the heroes,
they all have their lines and each one of them has an importance
in the story. This movie is a rich and vibrant tribute to music
and its performers (Carlo Savina was in fact hired on this film
to show the main actor how to conduct the orchestra). Fellini's
truly underrated Orchestra Rehearsal is likely one of the
most exciting films ever made on the art of music - a topical movie
able to enlighten us all in these turbulent times.
The chaos as the beginning
Showing the musicians
in an orchestra was the desire of Fellini in making this motion
picture. Fellini, in effect, confessed to French film critic Michel
Ciment: "When I attended the scoring sessions of my own
films, I was always struck, amazed and also moved because I felt
each time like I was the witness to a miracle. Very different persons
would arrive in the music studio with their various instruments
but also with their personal problems, their bad mood, their illness,
sometimes their radio." **
As soon as the opening
titles of Orchestra Rehearsal come through, the idea of chaos
appears to us as the very main theme. Fellini did not begin his
movie with the traditional musical overture (as he often did with
Rota), or the sounds of musicians warming up their instruments before
the show. While the names of the performers and technicians are
presented on the screen, one can hear the noises of urban traffic
(although none of the film takes place outside).
It is thus a sort of
"melting pot" made of city sounds, with firemen's sirens,
roars of motorcycles, car tires skidding noisily on the asphalt,
tramway bells, the motors of planes. Fellini makes us imagine here
an army prepared to go off to war. All these sounds are eventually
mixed up. Fellini compares in a way the circus of contemporary life
to the circus of movie making and scoring sessions.
The impatient drivers
that we hear in the opening credits of Orchestra Rehearsal
are in a sense the musicians of the orchestra we are about to discover
and the means of transport are the musical instruments.
Immediately, the magic
of the sound/image relationship is already effective. In a long
interview given to Giovanni Grazzini, Fellini admitted: "As
for me, I feel a personal need to give the same importance to sounds
and to images, creating a sort of polyphony."* But it does
not mean, like in most of today's films, that it must have as many
sounds as there are images. It is in fact not the idea of chaos
that really interests Fellini, but, more probably, the idea of polyphony,
the true Ariane's thread in Orchestra Rehearsal.
The film opens as a
war alert; an announced danger and an upcoming apocalypse. But this
opening "war of sounds " (it is something of a techno-like
musical overture) reveals perhaps also the difficult relationship
between master Federico Fellini and the grand world of sounds.
Fellini and Rota, two worlds
When you research Fellini,
it clearly appears that Music had never been vital to him, a rather
surprising fact for such an Artist. "In private",
Fellini said, "I must confess I prefer not listening to
music. Music conditions me, worries me, possesses me as a reproachful
voice that tortures me because it shows me a dimension of peace,
of harmony and completion in which I feel excluded, exiled. Music
is cruel."* Fellini's Orchestra Rehearsal deeply
tackles this personal suffering, as the amazing confession of over-sensitivity
vis-a-vis music from one of the most musical film makers ever.
"I cannot listen
to someone tapping a table with his or her fingers: I am immediately
disturbed, struck by this sort of breath led by rhythm." Fellini
continued : "As for Nino Rota, he was able to hear another
tune in the middle of an empathic fanfare of his. He was in a way
an overwhelming fakir."*
In contrast to Fellini,
Nino Rota (composer on Fellini's films since 1952) had, as for him,
a "non-relationship" with the world of images - hence
maybe the absolute complementarity between both men! Fellini explained:
"He [Rota] had a "geometric imagination"; a musical
approach worthy of "celestial spheres". He thus
had no need to see images from my movies. When I asked him about
the melodies he had in mind to comment one sequence or another,
I clearly realized he was not concerned with images at all. His
world was inner, inside himself, and reality had no way to enter
it."* Rota seemed to be so far from the film itself that
it might bring him a total freedom of creation.
amused Fellini who, after the editing of his films, recorded Rota's
music; their artistic duo then turned into a charming old couple:
"After having put so many feelings into my movie, so much
emotion, so much light, he [Rota] would turn back to me and ask
me (about the main actor of the film): "Who is this guy?"
"It is the main actor", I answered. And he would say,
on a reproachful tone: "And what does he do? You never give
me explanations." Our friendship was really based on sounds."
Many critics have talked
about the artistic harmony between Fellini and Rota, but this unique,
colorful harmony was actually based on a huge artistic conflict:
Fellini and Rota belonged to two different families, the world of
sounds and the world of images. Can love and friendship be explained
The worlds of the instrumentalists
One sometimes hears
anecdotes about the more or less important differences between certain
movie makers and their film composers, but there are at times also
some inner problems among the musicians of the orchestras, as Fellini
shows in Orchestra Rehearsal. "Before writing the
script", Fellini noted, " I interviewed a lot of
musicians, a good hundred maybe. I met the greatest Italian soloists.
I managed to keep in mind their crazy identification with their
instrument." (1) Here are a few extracts from some musicians'
THE FLUTE. In the
film, the woman flutist sees the flute as the closest instrument
to the human voice. "Ironically", she says, "the
chorus consider themselves as a very instrument." To another
woman, "the flute can tame wild beasts", and she reminds
everyone that Apollo "awoke the dead with a flute."
"It is the instrument of spells, a solar and lunar instrument",
THE TROMBONE. "An
irreplaceable instrument used for accompanying the clowns when they
fall on the ground" the trombone player indicates. "It
is also the angels' instrument. In the Renaissance paintings, there
were often angels playing the trombone sent by God Himself perhaps."
THE PERCUSSION SECTION. One percussionist complains about the other musicians because they take
too much time warming up their instruments. The timpanist blames
the piano for being a "chatterbox". "In Italy",
says another player, "one pays too much attention to the
singers and not enough to rhythm. Neapolitan people, though, have
a good sense of rhythm, they are the best percussionists! Who invented
the tarantella? The Neapolitan!"
THE FIRST VIOLIN. "It
is the brain, the heart of the orchestra." a man claims.
"And the clarinet is the penis!" another musician
cries. "No, the violin is the most virile instrument of
the orchestra because it is penetrating, phallic! It is not feminine
but lovesick, vibrant and always actual ; it is still the favorite
instrument at conservatoire. It is the diva of the orchestra, the
Fellini and Rota at work
After all these "mini-portraits"
Fellini films the arrival of the conductor. The musicians sit down
and start to play. Four superb pieces have been composed by Nino
Rota for the film: "Twins in front of a mirror";
"Little, melancholic laughs"; "Little waiting"
and "Grand galop." Fellini confessed: "Working
with him [Rota] was a true joy. You could feel so well his ability
to create that he would communicate to you a sort of exhilaration.
That was so powerful of a feeling that it gave me the impression
of writing the music on my own." *
Fellini of course has
never written music, but he used to shoot his films with it, as
if music was to him like a non-verbal explanation for his actors
and actresses. "When I shoot a film", Fellini admitted,
"I am accustomed to playing certain discs on the set. Music
can condition a scene, bring a certain rhythm to it, suggest a solution,
or a character's attitude." Fellini often used for instance
"Titine" song from Chaplin's Modern Times (1936).
"These melodies are linked to precise emotions, to secret
themes of mine."*
But how did Rota write
his original scores for Fellini's movies ? In fact, Rota used to
improvise some "tunes" on the piano according to Fellini's
first impressions. Sometimes, after a couple of hours, the director
would suddenly cry: "Yes! This is it, this is the music!
"Fellini explained: "That was how the new motifs of
the film came to life. I was immediately captivated and I forgot
what the old songs I used on the shooting had suggested me."*
In other words, Rota was each time far better than any "temp-track"!
"He [Rota] was
someone who had a rare quality belonging to the world of intuition.
Just like children, simple men, sensitive persons, innocent people,
he [Rota] would suddenly say dazzling things"* Fellini
claimed. "As soon as he arrived, stress disappeared, everything
turned into a festive atmosphere; the movie entered a joyful, serene,
fantastic period, a new life."*
A definition of music: quest for the lost world
In one scene from Fellini's
Orchestra Rehearsal, you can see the conductor (played by
Baldwin Baas) bringing "life" and "breath" to
the music. After several takes, the musicians eventually manage
to perform the piece with intensity. The music is performed with
such passion that there is an impression of fever everywhere in
the studio. Some musicians even get up to remove their sweaters
very fast while the others keep performing wildly Rota's energetic
music. In fact, the musicians remove their clothes and transform
themselves, "sloughing" their skin and changing their
voice, metamorphosing and coming back to life.
In his book La Leçon
de Musique (2), French essayist Pascal Quignard, often concerned
with music origins, wrote: "Music composition, and its charm,
notably lies in a passionate and very intimate quest for the lost
voice, the lost key, the lost tonic." For Quignard, writing
music is nothing but a metamorphosis, or the will of returning to
one's original voice, a sort of lost Paradise. "Women are
seldom composers", Quignard writes, "they are not
physically concerned by voice changing, contrary to men."
Quignard forgot to note
that there are also historical and sociological reasons preventing
for a long time women from composing music, he may forget also that
the quest for metamorphosis is not only peculiar to music composition
but peculiar as well to music performance. This is one of the lessons
of Fellini's Orchestra Rehearsal, in which you can see the
musicians (men and women) changing their behavior and body moves
through music. They are shown in a trance; they almost dance while
performing Rota's music. Besides, "orchestra" originally
meant "place where to dance." Fellini's film may
be the most beautiful and compelling movie ever made on music's
" The orchestra is the terror, the conductor
is death "
The conductor in Orchestra
Rehearsal is first shown as a mother enabling music to come
into existence and the musicians to come back to life; he is also
shown by Fellini as an authoritarian father. The conductor in this
film is in fact a severe German conductor (whereas the musicians
of the orchestra are Italian). When the movie was released in 1979,
many critics saw that as a symbolic revival of Nazis in Italy, but
the President of the Republic of Italy declared: "[Fellini's
film] tackles not only Italy but also the whole world."
Fellini explored in
Orchestra Rehearsal the inner world of the musicians but
also, gradually, a social, universal and current reality. "Musicians
are workers like others", the orchestra union leader claims.
Fellini shows then the conductor's dissatisfaction about that :
"If Wagner had to obey to the strikes and union leaders'
demand, he would have never succeeded in writing his operas and
symphonies." A musician then retorts that " It
is not, in any case, the union leaders' fault if Wagner wrote pompous
The war announced in
the opening titles eventually breaks out. After an enforced break,
the conductor returns to the music auditorium and sees an authentic
and spectacular mutiny. The musicians have painted obscene graffiti
on the walls, some musicians play horrible and noisy music and others
cry vehemently: "The orchestra is the terror and the conductor
is death!" At times, the musicians' fury seems to provoke
small earthquakes in the studio.
Electricity has been
cut; several candles now light the whole studio, as in a prehistoric
cavern. Fellini films the musicians' shadows on the wall and on
the music sheets. It is an army of shadows. In the noisy and dark
chaos, you can see a musician sleeping, a couple making love under
the piano, a man listening to soccer with his radio, and a woman
saying to the camera : "A child once asked me where does
music go when music ends? "
Listening to the unconscious
rebelling musicians replace the conductor's music stand with a giant
metronome similar to a coffin, but it is quickly destroyed by other
musicians refusing any kind of leadership. But suddenly, one of
the walls crack, and dust and small rocks fall onto the musicians.
Then, coming from outside or nowhere, an enormous bowl in steel
destroys the wall in front of the musicians. The fury is replaced
by the sound of wind. The sudden intrusion of this mysterious giant
bowl has the impact of a nuclear bomb. This subconscious image reminds
us of the big fish on the beach at the end of Fellini's Dolce
Vita (1960), or the big rhinoceros in And The Ship Sails
When Orchestra Rehearsal
was released, Fellini said something that seems strangely compelling
today in 2002: "All the horrible events we are living are
not politics, but confusions, disasters and deeper rifts. I don't
know what can be done to change society, what I want to show is
always directed at the individual. Then, instead of exchanging pieces
of political information, let's share the information of our unconscious.
The film [Orchestra Rehearsal] talks about the consequences of that
"super-consciousness" which is politics, instead of taking
care of our own unconscious." **
" Music saves us, let's hang on the notes
The harpist has been
killed by the collapse and evacuated. The conductor gets up and
says to everyone in the studio: "Music saves us, let's hang
on the notes." Without a word, one of the rebelling musicians
gives the conductor's music stand back, and all the musicians take
their instrument in silence. Everyone starts performing Nino Rota's
music in homage to the dead (fateful omen). Rota's music has a subtle
gypsy perfume, in an ironic opposition to the Nazi-like conductor.
Rota's music (as often
with Fellini) also reminds you here of the music written for circus
and silent films, as a return to the origins of cinema, questioning
its roots and thus the present day. Rota's music is the innocence
and childhood in Fellini's films. But for this last piece, Rota
used most of all a rather tragic theme and a tragic orchestration
as well. Behind the clown-like music, a deep darkness, a cry as
a secret, fateful farewell, the ultimate demonstration of Rota's
Despite the collapse
and the dust in the auditorium, the musicians play vehemently, all
standing in the middle of the chaotic studio. Some are crying while
playing Rota's music. Fellini: "I was just astonished to
note that after many takes, this heterogeneous group eventually
formed a unique, abstract, whole, which is music. That organization
made out of chaos just overwhelmed me." **
Rota's music is sublime
and very few directors have filmed music performance with such emotion
and respect. The conductor, the fakir, moves his hands like endless
waves, he is again the priest in front of his believers. Fellini
has never filmed the sky once throughout the movie, but the celestial
opening is in fact nothing but the music itself, as the light, the
air, and perhaps the true reality.
This is the end
did not choose what he called "an easy sentimentality"
for the end, though. The conductor takes his authoritarian voice
back and says to the orchestra, on a crescendo tone : "You
must put less colors in the music, noise is not music, nor a tramway!"
He starts yelling at them (fade in on the screen, we continue hearing
this Nazi-like voice in the darkness) : "Do you think you
are on a soccer field ? Am I a referee ?? Where are your lungs ?
your breath?! " The conductor's last words: "Da
end of the world may not exist: it does not stop repeating itself
as a sad leitmotiv. What occurred in the States in September 2001,
or what happens in the Middle East is more evidence. Fellini's Orchestra
Rehearsal tells a part of the story of our world, but Fellini
prevents himself from being too explicit at the end. Are all the
leaders necessarily monstrous? Are the people always innocent? But
are they born to obey? Who has to cultivate freedom: the leadership
or the individual? Both? How can we remain ourselves inside the
orchestra of life? Is the death of our relatives the only way to
make us understand the grandeur of life, the beauty of tolerance
and the necessity of listening?
"I refuse happy
endings", Fellini claimed, "because it prevents the audience
from having any responsibility. On the contrary, I prefer ending
my film with a question mark ; it is then to the viewer to find
the right end to my story. In all my films, I have been faithful
to these suspension points in the conclusion. Besides, I have never
written the word "End" on the screen." ** Fellini
does not bring a "final solution", he leaves us with our
own imagination, leaving us to interpret.
Tylski is the editor of Cadrage. He has written numerous articles
on the art of film music for filmscoremonthly and traxzone and he
also has directed two short-movie portraits on film composers Philippe
Sarde and Antoine Duhamel.
Thank you to TraxZone and Filmscoremonthly.
* in Fellini par Fellini, Ed. Flammarion, 1987.
** in "Positif", n° 217, April 1979.
(1) Song originally
written by Bertal, Maubon and Daniderff.
(2) Pascal Quignard, in La Leçon de musique, Hachette, 1987.
And our special thanks to Nina Rota (the maestro’s
nice and talented daughter).