[Quick Summary: Juliet is haunted by mystical visions and memories as she ponders leaving her cheating husband.]
This book of the published script has a lot of great material on Fellini's process, including an introductory essay, the screenplay, and a translation of the final film.
The introduction has a great description of what makes Fellini special:
One way he demonstrates this "availability of consciousness" is by finding an image that externalizes the protagonist's internal state.
For example, in the scene below:
- Juliet's husband is cheating on her.
- Juliet goes to her fascinating neighbor Susy's party.
- Susy encourages Juliet to have a fling.
- Juliet is conflicted about it. She is frightened by an image of a woman and a burning grate.
- Juliet is the only one who sees this image.
- I include both the script and final versions below so that you may be able to see the differences.
- Note that Juliet is scared of the same image in both.
- However, also note that the final version has a sharpened consciousness about it with the addition of eavesdroppers and Elisabetta (an innocent whom Juliet is projecting her thoughts of herself upon).
THE SCREENPLAY:
- A band is playing. Juliet compliments the pianist, who translates for the trumpet player.
- Susy sees Juliet's interest in the trumpet player.
- Susy offers the trumpet player a place to shower & urges Juliet to show him the way.
Juliet walks through the hallway, silently followed by the trumpet player. They go into Susy's room. The window is open, and the breeze swells the curtains.
The young trumpet player, suddenly a little boy, sits down on the bed and looks up at the ceiling, where the enormous mirror reflects his image. He leans over toward Juliet, only lightly touching her with one hand. Shyly, with a childish and gay smile, he say, pointing to the mirror:
TRUMPET PLAYER: Look there. We're together as if on a cloud; the two of us, up there.
Opening her eyes with difficulty, heavy with sleep and dizziness, Juliet asks, as if she were a thousand miles away:
JULIET: What?
But the trumpet player, with his childish smile, continues to point toward the mysterious luminosity of the mirror.
Juliet, suddenly embarrassed, looks up and sees their two shapes, one next to the other, rendered almost supernatural and abstract by the mysterious perspective of the mirror.
Suddenly a huge flame flares up int he mirror and a burning wreath is superimposed on the reflected image, piercing it with lightning, almost obliterating it.
An enormous grating, in flames, with a mystical figure of a woman tied to it, occupies all the light of the mirror.
With a cry of terror, Juliet runs away from the bed.
THE TRANSCRIPTION & TRANSLATION OF THE FINAL FILM:
- Again, Juliet goes to Susy's party.
- Instead of a trumpet player, Juliet is alone with Susy's godson.
- Earlier, Juliet went to a seance. Iris is the spirit that they summoned.
- There is an opening in Susy's bedroom floor that becomes a slide directly into the pool downstairs.
Juliet is alone. She walks to the huge round bed and sits on its edge, looking down the slide to Susy's pool. She sips champagne.
CUT
Susy's godson stands on the balcony. He walks slowly toward Juliet and sits beside her on the bed.
CUT
Lola, the maids, Susy, and all the women Juliet passed on the stairs listen in the darkness outside the bedroom. [Fellini adds these eavesdroppers here, which are not in the script.]
CUT
The bedroom. The shell-shaped tunnel of the slide. We hear the voice of Iris.
IRIS: Juliet! Susy is your teacher. Listen to her; learn from her.
CUT
Susy's godson, close-up. His eyes and mouth are almost sweet and gentle, but his eyebrows are demonic. He looks at Juliet.
CUT
The camera shoots through the overhead mirror down onto the couple sitting on the edge of the bed.
CUT
JULIET: Perhaps I drank too much.
Suddenly we hear the loud whisper of a little girl. [Here, Fellini starts to bring Juliet's subconscious fears into visual reality.]
LITTLE GIRL: Juliet! What are you doing?
CUT
The camera shoots up from the bed. Seen in the mirror above, as if standing on a balcony, is a young girl dressed in white nightgown and nightcap surrounded by leaping flames. Behind her are the upright iron bars of the grill. The girl stands slightly in front of the bars, her hands raised slightly from her sides, palms out - it is Elisabetta. Her hair is blond, but she is in exactly the same position and has the same facial expression she assumed when earlier she tried to communicate her sympathy to Juliet. Sound of wind blowing. [The script had an impersonal woman being burned. Here, Fellini sharpens the personal impact by having Juliet recognize Elisabetta. I found it quite unsettling to have a recognizable acquaintance (but a virtual stranger) in such an intimate space.]
CUT
Juliet, terrified, jumps from the bed and runs to the wall. Slowly she edges along the wall, whimpering.
CUT
Susy's godson sits on the bed watching Juliet, puzzled.
CUT
The martyr burns before the upright grill above the ceiling. Close up of her face - Elisabetta's. Wind.
CUT
The faces of Lola and Susy as Juliet runs past them, down the stairs.
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I found the differences in script vs. final film interesting.
The script version was rather expected, i.e., about fear of the unknown.
However, the final version was wilder because it was a deeper exploration of her consciousness: Juliet's fear of the unknown ("a human note"); fear of what people think (eavesdroppers); and fear of people in one's private spaces ("an undisciplined and indecipherable universe").
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
by Federico Fellini & Tullio Pinelli & Ennio Flaiano & Brunello Rondi
Story by Federico Fellini & Tullio Pinelli
