Juliet of the Spirits · reception & legacy
1965 · Federico Fellini
How Juliet of the Spirits has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Landing right after 8½, it struck many 1965 critics as self-indulgent overspill from the maestro — though it still took the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. Decades on, its delirious Technicolor maximalism has been thoroughly reappraised, and it's now a go-to touchstone for colour design in cinema.
What's debated
The perennial fight: is this Fellini generously handing his wife Giulietta Masina an inner life, or working through his own infidelities by projecting them onto her — a tension sharpened by the couple's well-documented disagreements over the role.
Its footprint
Its candy-coloured, proto-psychedelic look made it a permanent mood-board fixture for filmmakers, fashion shoots and album art — and The B-52s named a 2008 song after it.
Where it stands
A cinephile's 'secret favourite' Fellini — perpetually ranked below 8½ and La Dolce Vita, yet beloved on Letterboxd as the one you screenshot the most.