56:) to move from guest to guest attempting to read their minds. When Maurice sees Guido begin to leave, he runs up to him (it turns out they’re old friends). Guido asks Maurice "Can you transmit anything?", and Maurice agrees to try. Maya writes on her blackboard "ASA NISI MASA", which Guido confirms is the phrase he was thinking of.
85:, to create it. In the game the syllables "si" and "sa" are added to existing words to obscure them, which Fellini does with the word "anima": A-sa + Ni-si + Ma-sa. The word "anima" has dual significance in this context; not only is it the Italian word for "soul" but it is also a key concept in the work of the Swiss psychotherapist
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Guido is a little boy, being pampered by the women in his life; bathed in wine, then wrapped up in freshly-warmed blankets and carried off to bed. As he and the other children are supposed to be falling asleep, one of them declares that the eyes in a painting on the wall can be made to move by
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By tying together Guido's distant past with his present, the viewer is reminded that our adult motivations are never far from our childhood desires. Later in the film, in the so-called "harem sequence," Guido dreams of being bathed and pampered as an adult in exactly the same way.
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Although the phrase "Asa Nisi Masa" has no translation in any known language — and
Fellini never publicly revealed the meaning of the phrase — it is generally thought that Fellini used an Italian children’s game, similar to
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and representing
Fellini's alter ego, is attending a party on the grounds of the resort where he's staying. There is a clairvoyant Maya (played by Mary Indovino) who is using her assistant Maurice (played by
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also has a track "Asa Nisi Masa", on their 2005 self-titled album. The
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was named after this phrase. The
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Gideon
Bachmann commentary from the Criterion release of
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uses "asa nisi masa" as a lyric in their 2018 album
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reciting the phrase "Asa Nisi Masa, Asa Nisi Masa."
284:. European Network of Young Cinema. Archived from
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134:NISI MASA
128:Influence
122:MacGuffin
108:madeleine
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63:Flashback
306:Nonsense
152:Typhoon
138:Shining
76:Meaning
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