Time and again I have written that after 8 1/2, a deeply flawed but suggestive satire and, in a scene or two, even affecting film, Federico Fellini was a burnt-out case. There were signs of decline even before that, but few major film-makers have, after two or three great films and as many estimable ones, gone on to a series of abominations comparable to what Fellini has spewed out since 8 1/2. This, for me, includes even his one subsequent success, Amarcord, which I found a gross, witless, ham-fisted rehash of earlier Fellini movies, especially the incomparable I Vittelloni. Whoever puts these two films side by side without perceiving the later work as a lumpish travesty of the earlier is, in my view, tasteless, mindless, or blind.

Now Fellini has become almost too obliging: As if to prove me right so palpably that even the tasteless, mindless, and blind can get it, he has dropped Casanova like a ten-pound weight on our toes…. Particularly offensive and depressing is that Fellini has taken a fascinating protagonist and very rich story only to make them as hollow and aimless as he himself must have become. If this artistic fiasco were not accompanied by boundless arrogance in Fellini's behavior and recorded utterances, one could feel profoundly sorry for the man; as it is, one can only feel revulsion. (p. 57)

What in God's name does this tell us about Casanova? Or even about Fellini, except what we already know: that he is obsessed with dwarfs and giantesses, who appear, singly or together, in almost every one of his later films. And then what?…

[What] about this antisex business? Yes, the couples are always shown copulating with most of their clothes on; they are shot as if they were in separate rooms while making love to each other; and some or all of them seem to be on a kind of trampoline during the act. This makes for the sort of bouncing that, along with bestial panting, grotesquely distended and rolling eyes, and hideously contorted mouths, might well put an impressionable soul watching it off sex altogether. But why? Is Fellini in the pay of some ultrapuritanical hellfire sect? Has he gone mad with repressed sexuality or overindulged lust? Or has he become impotent and determined to spoil what he can no longer enjoy for everyone else as well? Whatever the purpose—assuming there is one—the result is more unstructured, repetitious, witless, and ugly than most moviegoers can endure, except perhaps as some extreme form of penance. You do not go to Casanova when you see this film; you go to Canossa….

Fellini continues, with a few exceptions, to seek out some of the most freakish and nauseating actors and amateurs and to stuff his films with them. For this sort of thing, his genius remains unabated, which may come in handy when he flunks out of movies: It should get him a job running a circus and freak show. (p. 59)