Orchestra Rehearsal

An orchestra gathers for a rehearsal in an old chapel. A television crew is there too, talking to the musicians one by one. Each describes his own instrument and each says his instrument is the most important. Then the conductor arrives. The rehearsal begins and an argument starts at once. The union representative takes the floor, a break is demanded, the conductor shouts, someone writes on the wall. Before long the rehearsal turns into a revolt; the musicians refuse the conductor, knock over the metronome and set up an order of their own. Then a crack appears in the wall of the building. Federico Fellini directs. It is an Italian and German co-production made for television. Nino Rota wrote the music; the composer died shortly after it was finished and this was his last work with Fellini. It runs around seventy minutes and takes place in one location. Its form is the mock documentary; the musicians speak to camera and the interview structure holds throughout. The matter it treats is authority and order; the film refers directly to the political tension of Italy in the seventies and the allegory is not hidden. Its ending is frightening; the resolution that arrives after the revolt is put down is no resolution. The final section, in which the conductor starts speaking German, caused argument and the film was read politically in Italy. Who it is for: viewers who like Fellini and allegorical narrative. Who it is not for: it stays in one room, the argument is delivered directly, and there is no depth of character.