"A created thing is never invented and it is never true: it is always and ever itself"
About this Quote
Fellini’s line is a neat little trap for anyone who still treats art like a riddle with an answer key. “A created thing” sounds like craft, labor, intention - but he immediately rejects the two alibis we use to domesticate art: invention (as in, making something up) and truth (as in, reporting reality). In Fellini’s universe, those are both bureaucratic categories. Creation isn’t the opposite of fact; it’s the opposite of filing.
The phrasing is stubbornly paradoxical. If it’s created, how is it not invented? If it isn’t true, why should we care? Fellini’s point is that the artwork doesn’t owe you a receipt. It doesn’t exist to be audited against “what really happened,” or to prove the artist’s cleverness. It exists with the irreducible selfhood of a person: messy, specific, untranslatable. “Always and ever itself” is both a shrug and a manifesto.
Context matters. Fellini built films that feel like memories you never lived: 8 1/2, Amarcord, La Dolce Vita. They’re autobiographical without being reliable, documentary in texture while openly theatrical. The subtext is a defense against critics (and censors) who wanted moral clarity, realism, or plot as proof of seriousness. He’s arguing for a third category: the cinematic object as its own reality, where authenticity comes from coherence of vision, not fidelity to events. Art, for Fellini, isn’t a lie that pretends to be true; it’s a thing that refuses the entire courtroom.
The phrasing is stubbornly paradoxical. If it’s created, how is it not invented? If it isn’t true, why should we care? Fellini’s point is that the artwork doesn’t owe you a receipt. It doesn’t exist to be audited against “what really happened,” or to prove the artist’s cleverness. It exists with the irreducible selfhood of a person: messy, specific, untranslatable. “Always and ever itself” is both a shrug and a manifesto.
Context matters. Fellini built films that feel like memories you never lived: 8 1/2, Amarcord, La Dolce Vita. They’re autobiographical without being reliable, documentary in texture while openly theatrical. The subtext is a defense against critics (and censors) who wanted moral clarity, realism, or plot as proof of seriousness. He’s arguing for a third category: the cinematic object as its own reality, where authenticity comes from coherence of vision, not fidelity to events. Art, for Fellini, isn’t a lie that pretends to be true; it’s a thing that refuses the entire courtroom.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Federico
Add to List
