Fellini’s Poe: Toby Dammit

Federico Fellini’s “Toby Dammit” at the Yager Museum

Federico Fellini’s “Toby Dammit” at the Yager Museum will be screened beginning at 5:00 p.m. at the Yager museum of Art and Culture, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY.

Federico Fellini’s Toby Dammit (1968), a version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Never Bet the Devil Your Head. A Moral Tale” (1841), is nevertheless a minor masterpiece—one of the most highly regarded of the many works by the great Italian screenwriter and director of classics such as La Strada (1954), La Dolce Vita (1960), and 8½ (1963).

In this hallucinatory reimagining Poe’s dark and grotesquely comic original, Fellini offers a jaundiced glimpse of the decadent “Swinging Sixties,” a satire on the pretentious emptiness of the film industry, and a touching homage to Poe himself as the doomed Romantic hero par excellence. Our showing of Toby Dammit will be preceded by a brief commentary by Professor David Cody on the film’s use of images borrowed from illustrated editions of Poe’s works. Free Admission.

For questions or more information please call 607-431-4480.