There is something unique about Federico Fellini, the immense Italian filmmaker, that is elusive. Why is he one of cinema’s greatest artists? Take “La Strada”, or “Amarcord” and you can tell he has this plastic exuberance trying —sometimes desperately— to get out. The images, the pictorial quality of the frame. And the cadence, the flow of time. There is a fervor that stays with you long after you finished watching the films.

I think Ingmar Bergman gave the most eloquent impression of him as an artist.

He is enormously intuitive. He is intuitive; he is creative; he is an enormous force. He is burning inside with such heat. Collapsing. Do you understand what I mean? The heat from his creative mind, it melts him. He suffers from it; he suffers physically from it. One day when he can manage this heat and can set it free, I think he will make pictures you have never seen in your life. He is rich. As every real artist, he will go back to his sources one day. He will find his way back.