I Vitelloni (The Young and the Passionate). 1953. Italy. Directed by Federico Fellini. Screenplay by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano. With Franco Fabrizi, Alberto Sordi, Leopoldo Trieste, Franco Interlenghi, Riccardo Fellini. 4K digital restoration. In Italian; English subtitles. 106 min.
Fellini’s sophomore directorial effort follows five immature young men who struggle, or, rather, refuse, to live like grownups. Set in an imaginary Adriatic seaside town very much like Rimini, the director’s birthplace, this quasi-autobiographical work is infused with nostalgia and tenderness for his characters. Roaring with passion but drifting along without any sense of purpose, these slackers long for inspiration and escape at a time of fundamental social and cultural change in postwar Italy. Martin Scorsese calls I Vitelloni his inspiration for Mean Streets, made two decades later.