Fellini's 8 1/2

Fellini's 8 1/2 - 1963

"8 1/2 is meant to be an attempt to reach an agreement with life... an
attempt and not a completed result."

---Federico Fellini

Fellini's 1963 masterpiece, 8 1/2, is suggestive of an autobiographical work. Consider these:

1. Fellini made 8 films prior to this one and one half unit for Variety Lights.
2. The movie is about a film director.
3. The film director is creating a follow up to a successful film.

In 8 1/2, the focus is on Guido, a well known director, who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He is attempting to complete the script for his picture about the escape to outer space for the survivors of WW III. Guido fears of making a meaningless picture and he cannot explain his thinking to an endless parade of producers, critics, actors, intellectuals and writers. He eventually realizes that it is impossible for him to turn out a simple picture with a message for mankind but must instead produce a complicated story about his own confusions, uncertainties, and compromises.

What we end up seeing - as the movie viewer - is the movie that Guido intends to make, or more precisely, did make.

In 8 1/2, Fellini brilliantly manages complex shifts in viewpoint. Sometimes we are seeing the world through Guido's eyes. At other times we are watching him. Alternating subjective and objective perspectives leaves us seeing a stream of Fellini memories and associations. He uses flashbacks, daydreams, nightmares and fantasy to project the world that Guido is traveling in. The ride is exhilarating!

Guido's dream ideal woman is played by the beautiful Claudia Cardinale. She appears in dream sequences as his muse, offering reassurance. But she is fleeting and elusive. He must come to terms with his intellectual wife Luisa (Anouk Aimee). Luisa is as mad at him at one point in the film - after an affair - as much as for who he chose as for the infidelity itself.

8 1/2 followed Fellini's successful La Dolce Vita. [see point 3 above] His next film was Juliet of the Spirits, his best film and included in my Top 100 Movie List. But 8 1/2 won over 60 international awards, including an Academy Award for best foreign film and seven Silver Ribbons (Italy's equivalent of the Oscar).

In the end of the film, Guido's rebirth as an artist is complete and he comes into terms with his emotional past. Guido has an artistic triumph with his film - as does Fellini with his.

 

Related Posts:

Juliet of the Spirits

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