Subversion of the Sexual Subject

It can be said that in Fellini's films, women have a dominant position in sexual relations, which is obviously a subversion of the traditional stereotypes of sexual relations, and it also reflects Fellini's consistent belief, "Fellini firmly believes that, The mission of the artist in society is to attack these inhuman collective ideologies: 'The mission of exposing lies, recognizing counterfeit goods, and dismantling ambiguous and false truths are still the only correct concepts, at least for now. Resource—an ironic and inexhaustible protection—against our bankrupt history, while we are waiting to come forward, to live in a new true hypothesis.'”

In "Casanova" there is such a scene: in the belly of the whale, Casanova sees several paintings cast by magic lamps, the patterns on the paintings depict the female genitals as a vortex that will draw men into it , like a spider's web, Fellini's close-up emphasis on these paintings is undoubtedly meant to emphasize that for men, sex is dangerous, and women overwhelm men through sexuality, which is exactly what he "men are like male spiders." Confused, he is a victim of his own sexuality, and 'sex' is a dangerous thing" is a visual expression of the idea. When Casanova was kicked out of the carriage for not being able to satisfy the sexual needs of the Chaperlin mother and daughter, he angrily accused them of destroying him, he felt the greatest insult, and was ridiculed all over London he. So Casanova decided to commit suicide, he filled his pockets with stones and walked into the Thames, but at the last moment, because he saw a giantess, and followed the giantess into a female whale in the stomach and gave up suicide. Fellini subtly set up a scene of a group of men walking into a whale. This whale is undoubtedly a reference to the pussy. The man walked into the mouth of the whale and walked into the pussy of the woman. In this scene, Casanova is about to commit suicide due to her sexuality being defeated by a woman (Chaberlin and her daughter), and is saved by walking into a whale's belly (a woman's pussy). This undoubtedly shows that women dominate men in sexual activities, and women's sexual ability is stronger than men's. Just as Casanova said in the film, having sex with a woman is like drinking a glass of wine, drinking and drinking, and finally only able to yield. Fellini also believed that: "A man is quite fragile - in the sexual sense - the most trivial thing can break him." , but in the end they are often reduced to women's prisoners. Men are very naive!"

The subversion of the sexual subject at the individual level is undoubtedly in order to rise to a higher level of reference at the universal level. Fellini's purpose in photographing such a vulgar and shocking character as Casanova is not only to expose Casanova The single-handedly created myth is to use this character to expose the nature of modern society's indulgence, lack of talent and virtue, absurd and promiscuous. In this film, Fellini mercilessly removes all the divine aura that shrouded Casanova, and all we see is a sad sex machine. Casanova's mechanical bird, which ding-dong and jubilantly dances during sex, is the epitome of his fully mechanical coitus. The first half of the film features Casanova being arrested by the Inquisition and then escaping from prison; however, Fellini is vague about the reasons for his arrest, so that the entire film becomes Casanova. Time and time again, the epic show of sexuality: he had sex with a young nun, and in front of her husband, the French minister, so shameless; he made love with a weak textile girl, regardless of her life or death, so cruel and ruthless . When making love at the Rome match, he first regarded himself as pure and righteous, and then he brought his lewdness to the top; Fellini once interpreted Casanova as a typical fascist; in my opinion, he is a symbol of the materialistic, depraved and corrupt spirit of modern society. At the end of the film, Casanova can only express his sexual desire with a puppet, and his tragic fate has come to depend on others, which is the sharpest criticism of this pure sexual desire machine.

In order to achieve the ultimate criticism and irony, Fellini tried his best to uglify the actors' makeup, set up unsightly and even disgusting bold plots, forcing us to think about the things behind the phenomena through these ugly phenomena, Forces us to think, to explore, to hate, to despise. To quote Fellini himself, "Casanova" "is the adventure story of a vicious puppet who has no thoughts, feelings and beliefs of his own". Therefore, he called "Casanova" a "mourning film".