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The Ship Sails On

Original title: E la nave va
  • 1983
  • PG
  • 2h 8m
IMDb RATING
7.5/10
6.5K
YOUR RATING
The Ship Sails On (1983)
DramaHistoryMusic

In 1914, a luxury ship leaves Italy in order to scatter the ashes of a famous opera singer. A lovable bumbling journalist chronicles the voyage and meets the singer's many eccentric friends ... Read allIn 1914, a luxury ship leaves Italy in order to scatter the ashes of a famous opera singer. A lovable bumbling journalist chronicles the voyage and meets the singer's many eccentric friends and admirers.In 1914, a luxury ship leaves Italy in order to scatter the ashes of a famous opera singer. A lovable bumbling journalist chronicles the voyage and meets the singer's many eccentric friends and admirers.

  • Director
    • Federico Fellini
  • Writers
    • Federico Fellini
    • Tonino Guerra
  • Stars
    • Freddie Jones
    • Barbara Jefford
    • Victor Poletti
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    7.5/10
    6.5K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Federico Fellini
    • Writers
      • Federico Fellini
      • Tonino Guerra
    • Stars
      • Freddie Jones
      • Barbara Jefford
      • Victor Poletti
    • 30User reviews
    • 28Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 11 wins & 6 nominations

    Photos127

    Federico Fellini and Pierluigi Praturlon in The Ship Sails On (1983)
    The Ship Sails On (1983)
    The Ship Sails On (1983)
    The Ship Sails On (1983)
    The Ship Sails On (1983)
    Roger de Bellegarde and Fiorenzo Serra in The Ship Sails On (1983)
    Janet Suzman in The Ship Sails On (1983)
    Victor Poletti in The Ship Sails On (1983)
    The Ship Sails On (1983)
    Roger de Bellegarde and Fiorenzo Serra in The Ship Sails On (1983)
    Fiorenzo Serra in The Ship Sails On (1983)
    The Ship Sails On (1983)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Freddie Jones
    Freddie Jones
    • Orlando
    Barbara Jefford
    Barbara Jefford
    • Ildebranda Cuffari
    Victor Poletti
    • Aureliano Fuciletto
    Peter Cellier
    Peter Cellier
    • Sir Reginald J. Dongby
    Elisa Mainardi
    Elisa Mainardi
    • Teresa Valegnani
    Norma West
    Norma West
    • Lady Violet Dongby Albertini
    Paolo Paoloni
    Paolo Paoloni
    • Il Maestro Albertini
    Sarah-Jane Varley
    • Dorotea
    Fiorenzo Serra
    • Il Granduca
    Pina Bausch
    Pina Bausch
    • La Principessa Lherimia
    Pasquale Zito
    • Il Conte di Bassano
    Linda Polan
    • Ines Ruffo Saltini
    Philip Locke
    Philip Locke
    • Il Primo Ministro
    Jonathan Cecil
    Jonathan Cecil
    • Ricotin
    Maurice Barrier
    Maurice Barrier
    • Ziloev
    Fred Williams
    Fred Williams
    • Sabatino Lepori
    Elisabeth Kaza
    Elisabeth Kaza
    • La produttrice
    Colin Higgins
    • Il capo della polizia
    • Director
      • Federico Fellini
    • Writers
      • Federico Fellini
      • Tonino Guerra
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The song "Rhinoceros", by Utah Saints on their album Two, contains a sample of Michael Stipe, the R.E.M. singer, detailing the scenario of this film .
    • Quotes

      Orlando: Pum pum? The mountain's mouth? But it's a volcano's mouth. We're sitting on a volcano's mouth. Now I understood the metaphor! A tragedy.

    • Connections
      Edited into Bellissimo: Immagini del cinema italiano (1985)
    • Soundtracks
      La donna è mobile
      from 'Rigoletto'

      Composed by Giuseppe Verdi

    User reviews30

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    8/10
    Fellini magics strangeness into an overworked subject.
    When younger, I was a Fellini obsessive - I adored the excess, the humour, the grotesquerie, the sympathetic comedie humaine, the audacious visuals, the beautiful, sad, lonely Marcello Mastroianni. For some reason I hadn't seen one of his pictures for a while, and while his astounding images remained inviolable in my mind's private cinema, the gradual, repeated decline of his critical status made me tread fearfully into this nautical drama.

    It is clearly his worst film. It always threatens to break into a frenzied dance of the Id, like his best pictures, but never quite does. The acting is generally poor, the dubbing atrocious; the ideas seem to cancel each other out in an aimless mess. Fellini's style is more restrained than usual, with a greater, seemingly restricted, emphasis on content composition and montage. It is clearly the work of a jaded Maestro.

    And yet it contains more life, wit and magic than most films this year, and, needless to say, it is less silly than Titanic. The story (a group of mourners carrying the body of a celebrated opera singer on a huge liner as World War I breaks out) is open to many allegorical interpretations (ship as nation, empire, class, art, life etc.), none of which quite fit. There is much play on images of moon (Claire de lune tinkles throughout), tides and sunsets - possibly as motifs of decline, but also of the ever-continuing circle that is its opposite, life?

    The film's tone is ambivalent, nostalgic for an elegant age of art and beauty, yet coldly aware of its inhuman faults. This is epitomised by the trademark Fellini altar ego, a journalist/film narrator, who watches the mixture of tragedy and farce with an amused eye, yet desperately wants to belong, and share in its faded grandeur.

    There are wonderful set-pieces, and graceful, Kubrickian camera movements. The narrative and characterisation is constantly splintered, mocking the desire of the passengers for order and rank. Imperial folly is angrily lampooned, culminating in a remarkable burlesque dogfight, stylised as a Verdi opera, yielding, in impotent terror, the Force of Destiny.

    The classical music soundtrack initially seems bland and uninventive, but actually offers, once identified, a stunning, ironic commentary on the actions, pretensions, sadnesses and failures of the characters and the society they represent. The party scene with the Serbs is very moving - loaded with the mixture of anger and regret that constitute the film's heart.

    The self-reflexivity does not patronise the audience for giving into illusion - the film's 'reality' is in question from the beginning. Film is shown not to be a modern weapon of the future (cinema as an art-form emerged at around the same time as the film was set), but merely a skip for the bricolage of Europe and the past. This pessimism, though, is not despairing - there is great beauty in loss.
    helpful•26
    8
    • alice liddell
    • Jul 30, 1999

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • October 7, 1983 (Italy)
    • Countries of origin
      • Italy
      • France
    • Languages
      • Italian
      • German
      • Serbian
      • Russian
    • Also known as
      • And the Ship Sails On
    • Filming locations
      • Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy(Studio)
    • Production companies
      • Rai 1
      • Vides Produzione
      • Gaumont
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 8 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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