different... Though City of Women is about a libertine, it's anything but licentious. Mr Fellini's licentiousness suggests a profound longing for some kind of protective discipline, if not complete chastity. As such discipline would destroy Snàporaz, it would make impossible the conception and production of a film as wonderfully uninhibited as City of Women." John Gould Boyum of The Wall Street Journal observed that "the film's entire thrust has little or nothing to do with the striking of attitudes, the analyzing of ideas. What Fellini seems after here is the recording and communicating of a set of feelings: those complex, contradictory ones experienced by a middle-aged Italian male suddenly faced with a cataclysmic upheaval in social and sexual mores... We do not go to Fellini to immerse ourselves in story and character or to encounter ideas. What we want from the maestro and what he gives us are fabulous adventures in feeling - a decidedly original mixture of nostalgia, poignancy, and joy that is unmistakably Fellini's own." References Bibliography Alpert, Hollis (1988). Fellini: A Life. New York: Paragon House. Fava, Claudio and Aldo Vigano (1990). The Films of Federico Fellini. New York: Citadel. Kezich, Tullio (2006). Fellini: His Life and Work. New York: Faber and Faber. Tarkovsky, Andrei (1994). Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970-1986. London: Faber and Faber. Further reading Lederman, Marie Jean. "Dreams and vision in Fellini's City of Women." Journal of Popular Film and Television, Volume 9, n° 3 Fall 1981, p. 114-22. Cini, Roberta. Nella città delle donne : femminile e sogno nel cinema di Federico Fellini, Tirrenia (Pisa): Edizioni del Cerro, 2008. Monti, Raffaele. Bottega Fellini: la Città delle donne: progetto, lavorazione, film, with photographs by Gabriele Stocchi. Roma: De Luca, [1981]. External links Review by Vincent Canby, The New York Times, April 1981 1980 films 1980s Italian-language films 1980s fantasy comedy-drama films Italian fantasy comedy-drama films Italian satirical films French fantasy comedy-drama films French satirical films Films scored by Luis Bacalov Films directed by Federico Fellini Films with screenplays by Federico Fellini 1980s satirical films 1980s Italian films 1980s French films