FEDERICO FELLINI and TONINO GUERRA’S ‘AND THE SHIP SAILS ON’ “That’s Not Human…”

by James Clark 2022

      As with the scatter gun presentation I’ve been using for the films, when it came into the little clutch of “Fellini” films (driven by film writer, Tonino Guerra), I once again shuffled the deck. The order would be: Amarcord  (1973); And the Ship Sails On (1983); and Ginger and Fred (1985). All three were marvels. But our film today, And the Ship Sails On, needed special attention. Here was a saga of both molten commitment to art and molten commitment to politics. What kind of magic will be in the offing?

The era is the instance of early filmmaking, silent and intensely impressive. Its dynamics seems to be driven by a slightly different world. Into this organic stance the players have to attempt to discover if they are frightened or delighted, lucid or lost. They convene at a luxurious ocean liner, in order to play a part in the last rites of a won-of-a-kind soprano. The presentation would involve placing the ashes, on the sea, at an island whom she had found to be apt. Though the clientele is dressed in great finery and taste, there are moments before embarking which cause a pause. A burly tenor, noticing a frigid soprano, gestures as if passing gas. These are paragons of sensibility, but despite the solemness of the moment, there has, at least in his case, a mismanagement of equilibrium, a failure of authority. Many penniless souls had been attracted to such heights. Perhaps two young boys there, in the industrial miasma, teach “authority.” The bigger boy twists the little one over his back, and then they both happily run away. That swift twist had casually upstaged the fancy-pants. Many currents will complicate this voyage. The ship is called, Gloria N. (Perhaps meaning, Nothing.) But withal, there is a steady input of enigma. The cherished few enter the ship by a long ladder, in view of the envious. It could be a sign of the important. But it is also similar of mounting the gallows. Closing out this scene, someone close to the steel wall and its tight ribbits patterns, asks, “They tell me: ‘Does the news tell what happens?’ And who the hell knows what happens?” A journalist, covering the august event, plays with his hat. He’s, our protagonist.

  

To the tune of “The Nutcracker,” a sumptuous range of fare was presented by a fine orchestra. The conductor was a vision of rather tight twists, which propelled through the room. Another vignette. Panning to a table, a mother (the diva targeted by the big mouth  ), complains, “What are you doing, Monaca?”/ “It’s very hot, Mommy!”/ “Wait for it to cool…”/ More. “Even if my husband agrees, it doesn’t mean anything…” (A perfect instance of being a star. The power in force, displaying one’s pretending to be opening an authority.) Queens and Kings, all in a row. This study of power coincides with a painting of Notre Dame. The massacre continues. Once again. “My husband is a great artist… But don’t get mad, darling. He’s simply a child, in business matters. I wouldn’t say so, however… I’m here to defend your interests…”/ Another big coup. “That’s not true! You didn’t act on his behalf in that contract…”/ “And I’ll tell you why. First: advertising. It’s not to his advantage…” (Advantage, being everything.) / “Change the soprano, she’s more prominent than my husband…” / “Charity or not, I won’t appear before a stupid bunch of kids…”/ “You’re here to advertise my film, nothing else.” / “… that if you look a tiger straight in the eye, she won’t attack you. Is that possible, Sir Reginald…?” / “No, the contrary. It’s the hardest thing in the world… especially if the tiger looks at you straight in the eye…” / “Where are all these beautiful people going…?” / “As I was saying, Where are all the characters? … They represent, as it were, the high of the highest…”/ “Now I’ll tell you why they are. The talented superintendents of the Roman opera… the one involved in scandal of ‘cats and rats’…”/ “And by this window, the legendary, Jan Deepest. He covers his face with his handkerchief…”/ “Out there is a seagull, it beats its wings like a conductor…” (A Guerra irony, small and large. The large irony is the core of this film. All this talent. All this feebleness.)

The journalist, Mr. Orlando, finds more to love. As we continue heavy weather in the form of neglect, we find touches of strength. His first serendipity involves the beloved. “Is it true that you were one who asked our divine singer to make her debut in London?”/ “Yes.” (Lovely shadows; creamy wall. Where will it go?) For one thing, Sir Reginald was happy to impart his gusto for astronomy. “And that’s Andromeda, and that small star, on the right… near Orion, was only discovered fifty years ago… That star is known as Cauda Pavonis (‘The Lovers’). It’s blue silver, see? But now it’s emerald and bright orange. And do you know who discovered it? A well-known surgeon, Reginald!” The “aristocrat,” stuffed with science, enjoys telling us, “Besides the myth of a great singer, she was a sensitive girl. One felt to help her, but mainly you’re interested in a few events of Edmea’s life.” “Few. It had to be few. It might seem that way [that Edmea was strong].  But she was terribly insecure. She was terrified of strangers.” The one who was speaking to the ‘expert,’ declared, “But you should stop telling stories about this girl!” Thirty years have gone by. Sir Reginald maintains British frozenness. On the cruise, it’s as always. He finds amidst the lover-of-the-day by his wife and whips the guilty crewman with a cloth as if a duel were happening. Amidst such dross, the moment creates something grand. The scene is the large kitchen. Two of the most senior musicians  have commandeered the glasses, in order to put into play tones by way of currents in the impacts of breath. Priorities.

     It would seem that we have had enough of the Knight’s arrogance already. But the nuances of this study require close and detailed attention. There is a ceiling being mangled. Therefore, the man of the depths tells her, “I caught him leaving the cabin. I thought he had an air of satisfaction. Was it worth it? Answer me, Violet!” (His face twisted with hate. Not the twist so satisfactory.) Her response is, “I’m so tired.”/ “Well, I want to know everything, every detail… Did you spot him at the docks? Or one of the crew?”/ “Be nice, Reginald, I’m sleepy!”/ “Oh, did you go too far?”/ (This transaction is in the bedroom. She has a Teddy Bear.) “You know that I’m afraid of the dark.” (He laughs.) / “You’re amazing!”/ She tells him, “Say, it with a little voice… Yes, Reginald, I’m a great whore!”/ “I won’t stand for it!” (All through this fray, there are two blue large circular presences on the curtains. The tourists never notice them.) Where are the seers? Where are the bold? Instead, melodrama. Instead, a Teddy Bear! (Consider the puffballs, in the Guerra film, /Amarcord (1973). / “Once again, ‘I won’t stand for it.’”/ “I earned it. Do anything you like…” / “You have needs. You’re a queen, my child, my boss… Please, Violet, do it…” (She yawns.) / “Always do it like this, more…  You’ll never be without… So many translations, so many words… They’ve written so many stories about you. But no one said who you really were… No one discovered your secret, my love.” (Heavy noise trying to reach the point.) “You’re a child who can sail the sea. Remember the poem I wrote you? Born from the sea, like a goddess… he the mystery boy…”

But while getting lost, there was a measure of treasure-trove. The Knight’s night, that wordy and empty day, when storming his wife, there was, as mentioned, an opportunity to be more than an arrogant pedant. The trek to Violet’s bed passed something beyond their grasp. They were in the toil of the uncanny. Willful blindness, in missing the blue mystery. (That being the mark targeting a pariah, which nearly the entire population, with their science, with their religion, would want to silent.) On the curtains, these blue questions. In the cabin, we’re in the world of advantage. Being driven to “success,” as advantage over others. There seems to be a terrible miscalculation. They, as nearly everyone, seem to be victims of blindness.

    Therefore, the rather remarkably balanced newsman, Mr. Orlando, makes a bead to a blind princess, rotten to the core, ready to overcome and kill her witless sister.  No news there. (Only Guerra could dream up such a monster.) Our protagonist joins a trip to the boiler room, where roaring fires prevail. His coverage is both expected and surprising. Soon the laborers call to the stars for a little concert. No dice, at first. But one of the tenors (the one feigning passing gas the day before) finds the opportunity to be cool, and blazes forth an aria. Soon each of the hams explode in attempting to humiliate the others. No dice. Moving along to another area of the basement, another group of curious ones visited a rhinoceros enroute to a zoo. The sad creature, in poor, health and his caretaker’s heartbrokenness, brings to us a flow of pathos. Voice over: “Yes, he’s in love. And that’s the effect it has on it!” The big mouth ridicules the odor. But here, he has a point. The position had fallen into bathos, a very complex form of bathos, with its measure of pathos. Slipping everywhere. Here’s one more of the animals, to pass the time. One of the lesser singers creates a “sensation.” We’re in the massive kitchen, and our talent here insists upon a live chicken. “It’s an experiment. We’ve got the captain’s permission.” Orlando tells them, “Come, we must document this event for posterity.”/ “Now be silent…” (The singer, now being a magician, bends down to the chicken’s eyes. He gives out a deep tone. The journalist, becoming a comedian, says, “Maybe It’ll lay an egg?” (That being like the loud mouth, not the sensitive writer…) It’s eye to eye, and the chicken falls asleep, sitting on one leg. Then Orlando has fainted! He’s soon awake; but the little shock had created a confusion to him. (This reminds us that, at that first dinner, when the mother insisted to the young daughter to keep on way too many clothes, that the mother, being one of the major sopranos in the world, nearly fainted when a feather landed on her arm. Later, when the subject being the mystique of the dead genius, she slapped her husband for her not being of the greatest. Mood.) No attacks from the gentle writer. But we have experienced what really matters, and it takes much soundness to fathom. Soundness, surprisingly, involving embracing fortissimo, force. A form of struggle, traction.

    Later that afternoon, on the deck, Mr. Orlando encounters a young woman, and with all his happenings of the day he, for a moment, imagines to be in the presence of a goddess. Not a totally crazy idea. “Look at these colors in the sunset,” the girl’s dad enthuses. (And compare the shabby rhetoric of Sir Reginald.) / “Excuse me, Mother… “Go to your cabin, darling, you can’t stay out like that.”/ “I’m not cold…” (This being the making of more challenge of sensibility, as per Orlando.) / Mother maintains, “It gets damp when the sun sets…” Dad kisses her. He repeats, “Look at these colors, darling… Every sunset being the stamp of divinity!” Another woman, nearby, brings to bear how treacherous, how demanding, this matter is. “You know, “Mister Orlando,  I spent all Saturday painting… I don’t know what I’d give to paint a picture. But how can we compete with the Creator?” (That being the wrong question. Competing? How about embracing?)

To sustain the sensibility, there must be daring. Remarkable daring. Fearlessness. Beyond what  world history allows. As such, we stand much alone. And yet steps of joy come readily.

Thereby, our saga comes into a drastic change. The voyage to the funeral continues. But a new distraction  has changed bad to worse. (Another far more violent crisis has arisen, namely, World War I.) And the cares being right in their face, due to an Austrian gun boat in attacking the Serbian refugees who had been rescued by The Gloria L.

    All of this, surprisingly enough, not really our business. We’ll skim the burden, only to get into our work. The Duke in the music boat ensures that the Austrian ship departs. For a while. Then killing Serbs takes over. Eventually, one of the refugees lobs a little bomb, which destroys not only the Austrian craft but the music boat. What is left is Mister Orlando and the rhinoceros, rowing upon quiet seas. Theatre of the Absurd. How to overcome absurdity. Give it a shot!

The Serbs land and their earthy music has had their  innings. Just before that, the lady afraid of  feathers has a setback. “… And she, Edmea—the great one—went to natural F down to E flat! A miracle…The orchestra stopped breathing, and I was paralyzed hearing her. I’ll remember all my life.”/ “Excuse me, Maestro, but how could she? All those octaves without an effort… much has been done without real effort… That’s not human! She was just a woman…”/ “So many racked their brains trying to understand her!” / “She must have had a secret, and that’s what I wanted to ask you, Maestro, as I could ask a father—what can I do?”/ “Listen… One evening, Edmea told me something… She said that when she sang, she saw a snail… Yes, she said so, ‘I see a snail… and with my eyes I follow the spiral, curling up… and my voice comes out without making an effort…’ Do you understand, My Dear? It wasn’t only lungs, diaphragm, and vocal chords. It was an energy- catalyzing phenomenon… I only know that Edmea was different from   anyone else. She was unique. There’ll never be another like her!” The snail has many moments. (And, paradoxically, even Orlando might catch fire.)  To learn what Edmea learned is to engage one in the magic of very slow motion, elicited by one’s hands and fingers. There a treasure of beautiful toil and a treasure of beautiful joys, awaiting the wise. The quick uncanny, which Orlando the protagonist failed to develop, would hope for nice friends. Strangely enough, at her best, Edmea would have hoped for nice friends.

    Nice friends, somehow coming aboard, do nothing for politics; but they exert a rhythm with a short fuse. The motions of humanity and viciousness churn along with few impacts. A rare ripple of shakiness occurs for the cruise’s officers, facing many large guns. Another significant exception: music and dance, from the visitors. Hurling themselves into the air, with great abandon. (Much pedantry by the musicians. But it did set off true gusto, for many, for a moment.)

Endgame.

“Mommy, please let me take it,” (to the hungry on the deck.)

The big mouth, watching the dancers: “… But I think I can learn something from that one…”(of the dancers).

“Music always seems to be about telling a secret.”

“It’s these pressings which are the blood of music.”

The man, always alone, playing with a sore on his chin.

How the farcical Duke, in the end, showed equilibrium.

The Psalm of David, at Edmea’s funeral, repeating two times in succession, as if those in the company have hit a snag.

    PSALM  23 A Psalm of David:

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Endgames don’t shut the book.