Why agree to a comeback? Fans could be disappointed.
There's a neat symmetry to the way the plot of Federico Fellini's 1986 film Ginger and Fred -- about the reunion of a tap-dancing duo after 30 years on live television -- mirrors the return of his wife and muse Giulietta Masina to the fold after two decades. Last seen in 1965's Juliet of the Spirits, Masina stars as Amelia (stage name: Ginger), who agrees to appear on a special Christmas edition of gaudy variety show We Are Proud to Present with her former partner Pippo (a vanity-free Marcello Mastroianni) and frets that they aren't given time to properly rehearse. For his part, Pippo seems all too eager to take the money and run, not caring whether he makes a fool out of himself in the process.
In light of the film's depiction of the frenzied preparations for the television broadcast (hosted by Franco Fabrizi, also reuniting with Fellini for the first time in decades) and the jockeying for attention that surrounds the whole enterprise, it quickly becomes clear that Fellini doesn't think too much of the medium. (This is also reflected in the lightly satirized commercials and the way various characters' eyes are glued to the set by a dramatic football match or a flashy pop-music clip.) Underneath it all, though, there's an air of finality built into Amelia and Pippo's belated bid for the limelight, from the actor in a skeleton costume looming over Pippo's shoulder in the studio commissary to the choice of Irving Berlin's "Let's Face the Music and Dance" for the medley of show tunes the two of them dance to as "Ginger and Fred." Even if they are asked for their autographs while they're bidding each other farewell in the film's closing moments, the understanding is that this attention will be fleeting at best and they'll dip back into anonymity as quickly as you can change the channel.