Amarcord

Amarcord was made in 1973, the twelfth film on which Nino Rota worked with Federico Fellini, a partnership that began with Lo sceicco bianco in 1952 and ended only with Prova d'orchestra in 1979. The film won the Academy Award for best foreign language film. Rota's central theme is a waltz whose harmony keeps sliding a step away from where the ear expects it, an ambiguity that matches the director's treatment of memory as something unreliable. The material was later assembled into concert suites, in which the waltz is usually placed at the centre.