Books, Arts & Manners: Art by the Tail

Federico Fellini’s And the Ship Sails On starts out as an Italian Zelig. For several minutes we see a silent film, presumably a 1914 documentary about the sailing of the huge liner Gloria N. on a special voyage to scatter the mortal ashes of the immortal opera diva Edmea Tetua near the island where she was born. Among the passengers are friends and admirers, prominent figures from the worlds of politics (an Austrian duke and his retinue), music, and international society. Also a journalist, Orlando, covering the story, a movie cameraman, and a rhinoceros bound for the Amsterdam zoo, whose presence makes no sense, but, then, what does? A vast ocean liner hired as a cruise ship? A tiny desert island, the birthplace of the diva? Several days’ journey from, say, Naples to an Italian island? Ah, but it is called Erimo (we were), and situated, I would guess, between Erewhon and Non Erimo. So this is allegory, where, as sloppy allegorists would have it, anything goes.

The pseudo-1914 movie, complete with intertitles, is technically skillful and mildly droll. But as color and sound fade into the picture, creative life fades out of it. We are left with an unending parade of Fellini grotesques, whose aimless cavortings are supposed to constitute humor, indeed art. Comic highlights include a seagull’s flitting into and around the ship’s dining room, to elicit amusement, indignation, and horror; the visit of several opera singers to a bridge overlooking the boiler room, where, egged on by the stokers, they put on a nastily competitive display of vocal prowess; a terrible stench hitting the passengers’ nostrils and causing fights to erupt until it is traced to the rhino’s having been hoisted to the deck for a scrubdown; a Russian basso’s dropping into the kitchen to exhibit his skill at putting a chicken to sleep with his hypnotic low notes (I felt like shouting “Nobody here but us chickens!”); a seance at which a dopey-looking homosexual medium appears to establish contact with Edmea until it is broken up by a weird masquerade; a self-styled but questionable lover of Edmea’s who has converted his stateroom into a shrine replete with her relics, where he watches home movies of her seeming to sing only for him; and many more such merry pranks, as incoherent as they are unfunny.

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John Simon

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Federico Fellini’s And the Ship Sails On starts out as an Italian Zelig. For several minutes we see a silent film, presumably a 1914 documentary about the sailing of the huge liner Gloria N. on a special voyage to scatter the mortal ashes of the immortal opera diva Edmea Tetua near the island where she was born. Among the passengers are friends and admirers, prominent figures from the worlds of politics (an Austrian duke and his retinue), music, and international society. Also a journalist, Orlando, covering the story, a movie cameraman, and a rhinoceros bound for the Amsterdam zoo, whose presence makes no sense, but, then, what does? A vast ocean liner hired as a cruise ship? A tiny desert island, the birthplace of the diva? Several days’ journey from, say, Naples to an Italian island? Ah, but it is called Erimo (we were), and situated, I would guess, between Erewhon and Non Erimo. So this is allegory, where, as sloppy allegorists would have it, anything goes.

The pseudo-1914 movie, complete with intertitles, is technically skillful and mildly droll. But as color and sound fade into the picture, creative life fades out of it. We are left with an unending parade of Fellini grotesques, whose aimless cavortings are supposed to constitute humor, indeed art. Comic highlights include a seagull’s flitting into and around the ship’s dining room, to elicit amusement, indignation, and horror; the visit of several opera singers to a bridge overlooking the boiler room, where, egged on by the stokers, they put on a nastily competitive display of vocal prowess; a terrible stench hitting the passengers’ nostrils and causing fights to erupt until it is traced to the rhino’s having been hoisted to the deck for a scrubdown; a Russian basso’s dropping into the kitchen to exhibit his skill at putting a chicken to sleep with his hypnotic low notes (I felt like shouting “Nobody here but us chickens!”); a seance at which a dopey-looking homosexual medium appears to establish contact with Edmea until it is broken up by a weird masquerade; a self-styled but questionable lover of Edmea’s who has converted his stateroom into a shrine replete with her relics, where he watches home movies of her seeming to sing only for him; and many more such merry pranks, as incoherent as they are unfunny.