The Italian film director Federico Fellini (1920-1993) began as an exponent of poetic neorealism and later became the cinema's undisputed master of psychological expressionism and surrealist fantasy.

Federico Fellini was born of middle-class family on the rocky Adriatic coast of Rimini. At the age of 12 he ran away from home to join a traveling circus and in following years supported himself as a minor stage actor, newspaper cartoonist, and radio scriptwriter. Shortly after his marriage to actress Giulietta Masina, who would later play important roles in several of his major films, Fellini was asked by the noted actor and director Aldo Fabrizi to collaborate with him on several motion picture scenarios.

In 1945 Fabrizi introduced Fellini to the celebrated cinema director Roberto Rosselini, who offered him the opportunity to work on the script and serve as assistant director of Open City, a powerfully realistic work which depicted the Italian...