The Journey of G. Mastorna

The Film Fellini Didn't Make

Federico Fellini

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780857459718
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Histoire et critique du cinéma

Federico Fellini's script for perhaps the most famous unmade film in Italian cinema, The Journey of G. Mastorna (1965/6), is published here for the first time in full English translation. It offers the reader a remarkable insight into Fellini's creative process and his fascination with human mortality and the great mystery of death. Written in collaboration with Dino Buzzati, Brunello Rondi, and Bernardino Zapponi, the project was ultimately abandoned for a number of reasons, including Fellini's near death, although it continued to inhabit his creative imagination and the landscape of his films for the rest of his career.

Marcus Perryman has written two supporting essays which discuss the reasons why the film was never made, compare it to the two other films in the trilogy La Dolce Vita and 8½, and analyze the script in the light of It's a Wonderful Life and Fredric Brown's sci-fi novel What Mad Universe. In doing so he opens up an entire world of connections to Fellini's other films, writers and collaborators. It should be essential reading for students and academics studying Fellini's work.

The Journey of G. Mastorna

FEDERICO FELLINI, with the collaboration of Dino Buzzati, Brunello Rondi and Bernardino Zapponi

“Not good to use music to betray. He and esposa big admiration for your . . . for your frin frin . . . You everything bad . . .”

Interior. Aeroplane.

A large commercial passenger plane, high over an unending sea of clouds.

Here and there, the rays of the setting sun dazzle the windows of the huge passenger compartment.

On board the packed plane, they’re showing a film: Laurel and Hardy trying to climb the steep sides of a giant bathtub.

Some passengers are asleep, their eyes masked. Others are having dinner, others still reading intently.

Mastorna, a man of about forty-five, takes off the headphones he is using to follow the film and continues to watch the silent images on the small screen, absent-mindedly, bored.

Suddenly, everything goes dark: the plane has entered a large black cloud; it vibrates and shakes violently.

The seat-belt light comes on. A steward makes an announcement in several languages:

– Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts.

Lazily, Mastorna fumbles about and retrieves the buckle from somewhere deep down. He fastens his seat belt.

Outside it’s almost dark. Through the oval window Mastorna looks at the huge outline of the wing, at first grazing over, then cutting through, enormous puffs of cloud and murky vapour. Blinding lightning flashes followed by deafening claps of thunder rapidly create a feeling of anxiety and dread.

The film has been switched off, the small screen rolled up.

Air hostesses are attempting to remove trays and the leftovers of dinner. There is a sudden jolt: glasses and tableware fall to the ground.

A steward turns the loud-speaker system on and a merry, ridiculous, piece of music can be heard off and on as the hail beats down on the fuselage and thunder claps roll in the immense skies.

The lights suddenly fail.

On the other side of the windows, beaten by rain and slush, the fog and vapour lift, leaving the view of a huge chasm. Instantaneously, a flash of lightning conjures from the darkness the terrifying image of mountains, apparently only feet away.

As if dizzy and out of control, slowly but surely, the wing begins to drop.

Vibrations, creaking, the droning guttural voice over the loudspeakers that comes and goes, not a word intelligible, heighten the sense of an imminent, dreadful catastrophe.

His face covered in sweat, Mastorna surveys his fellow passengers: like him, they are strapped into their seats, eyes bulging, mouths drawn.

Then, as if by magic, everything is still; no thunder shakes the heavens, no flashes of lightning cut across the air; a profound silence falls over the enormous sightless aeroplane, which now moves on effortlessly, accompanied only by an eerie whirring sound, as if the engines had been cut. The plane continues to plummet, enveloped in ever darker vapours.

The characteristic metallic sound before a passenger announcement comes from the pilots’ cabin, and a few moments later, the voice of an air hostess, slow and clear, delivers these words:

– The Captain would like to inform all passengers that, for technical reasons, in a few moments we will be landing at an airfield for this ‘eventuality’. Please keep your seat belts fastened and refrain from smoking. Thank you.

In the thick twilight that has invaded the passenger cabin, only partially lit by a whitish shimmer filtering through the oval windows, the voice of a passenger can be heard, saying in anguished dismay:

For this eventuality? Did she say for this ‘eventuality’?

No-one answers. Only the slow whirr of the plane can be heard as it continues its descent.

The passengers are huddled around the windows, looking out.

As if backlit, slipping rapidly past, shrouded by the remaining vapours, with the plane apparently flying no more than seventy feet above the ground, the outlines of skyscrapers, towers, domes and bell-towers can be made out.

The dark buildings flash past more slowly, without the slightest ruffling of the plane.

Then, suddenly, the crash to ground, passengers, hand luggage and overcoats thrown everywhere, pandemonium.

Jolting, shuddering and skidding in all directions, the plane ploughs on, the brakes screeching in a high-pitched whistle, as it desperately tries to come to a standstill.

Another terrifying jolt and the plane, as if snagged by its own power, begins to turn crazily on itself. On the other side of the windows, buildings, skyscrapers, roads opening out, rotate and merge into one another.

In their seats, the passengers are petrified, eyes closed, hands like claws sunk into the armrests.

The frenzied roller-coaster ride slows. The engines fall silent, only the whirr of the plane is audible, as it turns continuously on its axis.

One last lurch, like a shock wave, and the plane comes to a halt.

In the unnatural silence, Mastorna opens his eyes: the plane is motionless. The passengers, their faces still terrified, can hardly believe a catastrophe has been averted. It’s a miracle.

On the other side of the windows, the frontages of houses become visible, their windows closed, then pavements, the outlines of streets, and beneath, the paving stones of the huge square where the plane has landed, undamaged.

It’s a large square which the darkness of night renders indistinct, no more than an outline. There’s no lighting. Gusts of rain and sleet give the paving a metallic dazzle. Above, way up high, in one of the buildings, windows start to open noisily, violently. Voices in an unknown language can be heard, surprised, in wonder. Far away, a siren can be heard approaching quickly. At the end of the main road, two headlights blaze across the darkness.

The ambulance skids into the square as the siren stops. Men in white overalls get out.

Another siren wails close by, cutting the night air like a knife. A fireman’s truck arrives, lighting up the slippery paving and throwing huge beams against the facades of the buildings where groups of people are now standing at the windows, shouting in stupefaction and fear, pointing at the gigantic plane below, its wings stretching across the square from side to side, almost as far as the surrounding buildings.

Another two ambulances, small as kiddies’ toys, have reached the crash scene and have pulled up under the fuselage.

Above, one of the plane’s hatches begins to open. From somewhere in the city a church bell sounds, pealing faster and faster, either in warning or rejoicing, announcing festivities.

Against the outline of the hatch – now clear – the shapes of people can be made out. Words go back and forth between the ambulance men and the plane crew. They appear to be speaking a language similar to German.

– Anyone injured?

– A few. Nothing serious.

The fireman’s truck is hoisting a ladder towards the hatch to get the passengers off the plane, whilst the long plastic emergency chutes are unfurled. A few passengers have already plunged to the ground. Below, the ambulance men are helping the first passengers from the chutes.

Meanwhile, Mastorna is disembarking via the fireman’s ladder.

In the hatchway the captain, a handsome man of about fifty, stands waving both hands at the crowd below, reassuringly. Brave, strong, he beams at the crowd.

Below, the grateful crowd bursts into spontaneous applause; soon the entire square is swarming with people. Out of admiration and gratitude, people at the windows of the surrounding houses also clap their hands.

Motionless on the fireman’s ladder, swaying in the gusts of frozen wind, Mastorna, too, looks up towards the captain, who has now disappeared inside the plane after one final wave. In the distance, the outline of a huge Gothic church can be made out and behind it, glass skyscrapers and tall chimney stacks.

Some wounded passengers are put into the ambulance, others onto waiting coaches with engines ticking over, headlights off.

Mastorna holds his hat to his head to fight off the wind and, buttoning up his overcoat, heads towards one of the coaches which is feebly lit inside.

From the huge belly of the plane they’re unloading suitcases, trunks, bags. Torch lights play up and down the undercarriage, the siren of a departing ambulance starts up, there are voices, announcements over a loudspeaker, in various languages:

– Passengers will be taken to a motel where they will spend the night before resuming the flight first thing tomorrow morning. Suitcases and bags . . .

The sliding doors of the coach, inside which Mastorna has taken his place, close and the large vehicle moves off silently.

Already far away, under the dark outline of the plane, the crowd and crew wave before being swallowed up by ...