The Clownsextends the last sequence of 8-1/2, where all the significant people inthe filmmaker's life are led by clowns and the young ringmaster around acircus ring. It presents itself as a documentary, purporting to give atrue account of the culture of clowns in Italy and France in the 1920sand '30s. But it is also an autobiographical exercise. Felliniesquedocumentary is a distinct genre, one not inclined to slavishly followfacts. For instance, the camera crew is fake-they're really actors,playing the parts of technicians (as Fellini is an actor playing thepart of the real Fellini). So this blurring of the factual also pointsdirectly toward the autobiographical fiction of Amarcord. In the streetsand countryside, Fellini finds the clowns of our daily lives-midgetnuns, mutilated war veterans, bumpkin lechers. And he concludes the filmwith a fantasy of the death and resurrection of the "last"clown. Fellini believed that the clown "stands for the instinct,for whatever is rebellious in each one of us and whatever stands up tothe established order of things. He is a caricature of man's childishand animal aspects, the mocker and the mocked" (Fellini onFellini).-Seymour Chatman Gavriel Moses isprofessor in the Italian department, UC Berkeley.