What we see [in Amarcord] is not a year from the lives of several citizens of Rimini during the Fascist period, but Fellini's poetically stylized remembrance of things past. Like Proust, Fellini organizes his experiences subjectively, as in a dream, where "insignificant" details loom overwhelmingly, and "important" facts are either ignored, or casually noted then cast aside as emotionally irrelevant…. In keeping with the impure nature of the film, Fellini the documentarist fuses with Fellini the lyrical poet….

Like many of the director's later films, Amarcord is unified by a dense substructure of leitmotifs. Perhaps the most obvious of these are seasonal. The film opens and closes with the coming of spring. Each season is typified by a characteristic sky element, which is related to the themes of aspiration and transience….

Related to this seasonal structure is a sense of progression in the episodes in terms of the...