It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

While Don Juan and Lothario are literary constructs, entirely fictional, Giacomo Casanova like De Sade {15 years his junior} was a flesh and blood historically verifiable person. Casanova was born in Venice 286 years ago in 1725 and he died 73 years later in 1798 having witnessed the fall of the Age of Decadence and the transformation brought by the French Revolution. That his name is synonymous to this day with the successful pursuit of sexual conquest is due to the fact that Casanova was a great writer who recorded his life in a 12 volume opus titled "The Story of my Life". This episodic work of literature apparently describes in detail Casanova's amorous victories on the sexual battlefield claiming and describing the seduction of at least 120 different woman.Fellini, the year after Pasolini made his illustration of De Sade's literary perversity in Salo, brought this illustration of some of the episodes of Casanova's sexual exploits. The movie opens with the masked Carnival depicting Venus, {the goddess after whom Venice was named} rising out of the sea as her ancient Greek source goddess Aphrodite did before her. The masking of the revellers was an encouragement for the participants to ignore class differences and thus increase the scope of orgiastic interaction sponsored by the patron goddess of Love, Venus,A masked man receives a letter proposing an assignation on an island palace with a woman masquerading as a nun, Casanova, revealed to us as a Dandy in extravagant attire of opulent and decadent fashion. Although historically dark haired Fellini portrays Donald Sutherland, {with false nose and jaw}, as a convincing Casanova, a foppishly ringletted blonde. As this is a cinematic examination of the life and technique of one of the most outrageous ladies man in modern history, the viewer is immediately introduced to Giacomo's modus operandi or seduction formulae. Casanova is not a bully but is much more adept at exploiting female gullibility with poetic declarations of deep and undying love which he combined with his peacockish appearance and intimate confessions of ardent desire and you have the story of his life in a nutshell, Other attributes that also helped garner his reputation was the reputed size of his penetrative organ and the athleticism of his ability to maintain sexual intercourse for long extended periods with an economy of repeated but unvaried thrusts leading eventually to orgasm. This delaying technique similar to "karezza" and tantric practices helped spread the name of Casanova as the ultimate stud of all time.Apart from his reputation as a sexual libertine Casanova was eloquent and funny. The ability to make people laugh has always had aphrodisiac stimulation. After the conquest of the pseudo-nun Casanova has success with a neurotic young girl whom he cures from constantly fainting with a dose of sex magic. In a later episode we are introduced to the soirée' of Madame D'Urfee who believes that impregnation by Casanova would lead to the passing of her soul to a male child and then onto immortality. Casanova had performance problems with her as she was an ancient wrinkly and his ability to raise an erection had to be assisted by one of his lovers who had to amusedly stand by his side and wiggle her rear in order to facilitate his potency. It worked and Casanova made off with one of the many fortunes he made and lost during a life of spontaneous and opportunistic self-invention.Among the most memorable set pieces that Fellini orchestrates is a wonderful dance in exquisite costume at the dinner provided by the hunchback and a young male ballerina. The costumes throughout the movie are fantastic. After the dance Casanova voices his disagreement with the notion that the male is the tempter. Henrietta, his lover at the time {played by the gorgeous Tina Aumont} is to leave him in one of the great blows he suffered in his sexual adventures. She managed to bring some sense of emotional loss which went beyond Casanova's usual rhetorical protestations of besotted love. The Nino Roti score of sad music box lament and Casanova's most prized possession - his phallic winged mechanical toy which like a metronome allowed Casanova to keep a steady thrust. Apart from overwhelming woman with the false flattery of his supposed personal interest Casanova also reveals in the sex competition at the Prince Del Brand's Palace that he has an energy drink containing raw eggs and ginger and cinnamon, which he uses to keep his erection for up to an hour.What happens to the ageing Casanova hundreds of years before the coming of Viagra? In Freud's theory the sexual energy with no capacity for expression becomes channeled to more productive outlets. In Casanova's case his last 12 years were spent writing and revising his major work "The Story of my Life"Fellini chose to give the mood of the movie a certain disappointment as if Casanova was never satisfied and always a depressive in nature, but this does not make sense, as it stands to reason that as a young man part of Casanova's attraction was as a bon vivant, raucous, bawdy, randy and full of life. However the movie is styled as Fellini's Casanova and the odyssey it depicts - the life of Casanova - has been described as the greatest autobiography ever written.That such a man existed is historical proof that some men are closer to the gods than anyone else. Fellini gives you sumptuousness and thought, {it is reputedly Fellini's personal favorite of all his oeuvre}. However, Bunuel on viewing the movie walked out before the end. I found it interesting as a working study of satyriasis and nymphomania which are fields rarely examined by auteurs.

Federico Fellini's Casanova is quite an extraordinary film.I watched it just yesterday,late at night,and I felt charmed.Yes,it looks weird and you hardly understand what it's exactly about,but that's not the point.This film appears to be something like a dream.It's like a string of images which you cannot link using your reason.The atmosphere is magical.You can sense the corruption,the craziness in all those wild parties,the desire for pleasures that hides inside the socially repressed people of that time.Even the music by Nino Rota is weird,but it's hauntingly beautiful and it makes the whole film look like a real dream.The sounds have the power to hypnotize you.That's evident from the start.Clearly,a piece of art.The vision of Casanova in the director's mind.A man obsessed with the female.A man in love with women in general.A man who always looks for the perfect woman.He falls in love too easily,but love always flies from out his arms,leading him to self-destruction.Until he ends up with a doll.The perfect woman.Flawless beauty.Plus,he won't be deserted.You get the sense that he's crazy,that the whole film is crazy,actually.But then you think that it's a dream and you're acting in it,too.Hypnotization...A faraway land,a faraway world.

In a way this is the disaster Fellini has been working towards all his life. The line between absurd masterpiece and free association bullshit is very small, and what category a film will ultimately fit in will often just depend on personal feelings. That said, "Casanova" left me in cold admiration for its sets and little more that cannot be summed up more adequately by Bukowski: "Casanova died too, just an old guy with a big cock and a long tongue and no guts at all. to say that he lived well is true; to say I could spit on his grave without feeling is also true. the ladies usually go for the biggest fool they can find; that is why the human race stands where it does today: we have bred the clever and lasting Casanovas, all hollow inside, like the Easter bunnies we foster upon our poor children." As far as I could make it out, this is the position Fellini takes regarding his subject; granted, with more empathy, but disgusted nonetheless.Casanova's environment is made from decay and incestuous behavior, themes Fellini dealt with more pointedly in "Satyricon". The succession of plot is characteristic of soft porn, just without the coherence; and Donald Sutherland is ugly and slimy to the point of distraction.Yet, there might just be a point in portraying Casanova as an unsightly fool. And I challenge anybody to formulate this point without being obvious; Fellini couldn't. More than ever he seems here like a dirty old man - a maestro, for sure, but one whose impulses satisfy himself more than anybody else. I find it hard imagine an audience who enjoys this film. It was a story not worth telling.

Probably Fellini's last real masterwork. CASANOVA is visually stunning and features the truly bizarre casting choice of Donald Sutherland as the world's greatest lover. Somehow that works! It may have to do with the fact that the film is so stylized. Its studio sets and intentionally fake scenery and grotesquely opulent costumes make it possible to ignore the fact that Sutherland looks like a plucked chicken. Fellini's direction is among his most spirited...he's clearly having A LOT of fun. The sex scenes are comically overdone and the women Casanova beds are a rogues gallery of ghouls --- young, old and mechanical! Tina Aumont is, for all intent and purposes, the film's leading lady and she even she is off center...and looks like a slightly less gawky Shelley Duvall.