Sightlines · reception
How Juliet of the Spirits was received
1965 · Federico Fellini · Juliet of the Spirits on Sightlines
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 color 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 favorite' Fellini — perpetually ranked below 8½ and La Dolce Vita, yet beloved on Letterboxd as the one you screenshot the most.
Did you know? It was Fellini's first feature in color — and before making it he famously took LSD, once, under medical supervision, as part of his deep dive into Jungian psychology and the spirit world the film swims in.