Fellini's penultimate feature film, Intervista [Interview] (1987), was awarded prizes at the Moscow International Film Festival and at the fortieth anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. Unlike most of Fellini's previous works, Intervista was not based upon a highly polished literary script. In past films, even those that seemed to contain improvised sequences, such as parts of 8½, Block-notes di un regista, I clowns, or Roma, Fellini worked from a polished script that was the result of long and patient collaboration with a number of writers. In the case of Intervista, however, Fellini relied upon a loosely constructed series of sketches, ideas, or notepads (block-notes, as they are called in Italian) that outlined a skeletal idea for four projected television programs, all based upon Fellini's memories from the past or his impressions of four themes that had intrigued him throughout his long career.

The four themes initially identified as the subject of these television programs were as follows: Italian opera; the Cinema Fulgor in Rimini; Cinecittà; and America. Very little of this material finally entered the completed film Intervista. In fact, Fellini has always declared that he dislikes music in general, opera in particular, even though Nino Rota's musical scores for his works have become famous. He was well known for paying itinerant musicians visiting Roman restaurants not to perform. Fellini has always admitted to knowing little or nothing about America, although the country had always fascinated him since his childhood, both because of the American film and cartoon and also because America liberated Italy from the odious Fascist regime that Fellini despised.