STUDIO SYNOPSIS

"Nine" is a vibrant and provocative musical that follows the life of world famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he reaches a creative and personal crisis of epic proportion, while balancing the numerous women in his life including his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penelope Cruz), his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), a young American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the whore from his youth (Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson) and his mother (Sophia Loren).

The original 1982 Broadway production of "Nine," nominated for twelve Tony Awards and winning five, including Best Musical, was directed by Tommy Tune, choreographed by Thommie Walsh, starred Raúl Juliá with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and book by Arthur Kopit. The 2003 Broadway revival of "Nine" received eight Tony Award nominations and won two, including Best Revival of a Musical.

VIDEOS



From Charlotte Chandler, author of I, Fellini

Federico Fellini told me that the theme of his life and of his work was “dreams are the only reality.”

“No one ever perceives the real world,” he said “Each person simply calls private, personal fantasies the Truth. The difference is that I know I live in a fantasy world. I prefer it that way and resent anything that disturbs my vision.

“My films are often based on my dreams. When I wake up, I put them down as funny little drawings.

“For me making films is making love. I’m most alive when I’m directing. But before I started making 8½, something happened to me which I always feared could happen, and when it did, it was more terrible that I could ever have imagine. I suffered my greatest fear, director’s block.

“Director’s block is like writer’s block, except that it’s public rather than private. My 8½ crew called me ‘the magician,’ but the film I was going to make had fled from me. I considered abandoning it, but I could not let all of those people down who believed I was a magician. It came to me that I should make a film about a director who has director’s block.

“It had been said that my films are autobiographical. True. I often use something that really happened to me.

“When I was about seven, my parents took me to the circus, and I had the strong feeling that I was expected there.”

I know Fellini would have been highly complimented by the choice of Daniel Day-Lewis to play Guido in NINE. Since the character in NINE represents Fellini, I can imagine Federico saying something like, “Such a fine actor, so good-looking…so thin.”

Guido, in both 8 ½ and NINE, while being inspired by Fellini, is only part of the real man. In life, Fellini was rather shy and self-conscious. In his imagination, he could be Guido. As Marcello Mastroiani, and now Daniel Day-Lewis, Fellini was vicariously able to be the character of his imagination without upsetting his less turbulent personal life with his devoted wife and star, Giulietta Masina. “I am her best director, if not her best husband,” he told me.

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