FELLINI’S 8½

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Federico Fellini is one of the most original and creative minds of the 20th Century, he is acclaimed by critics and filmmakers alike as one of the most influential directors of all time, and his “8½“ is acknowledged as his masterpiece revered as the most important European film ever made.

Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido (Fellini’s alter-ego), a successful filmmaker who, embarking on his next film, is overcome by director’s block and finds he has no story to tell ! Struggling to find inspiration, he is harassed by his producers, his crew, his wife (Anouk Aimée), even by his mistress (Sandra Milo), so he retreats into fantasy, where his muse appears embodied by Claudia Cardinale, and he revels in dreamy memories of his life and lovers… Until memories, fantasy and reality merge in the director’s mind and on screen into an astonishing, masterful spectacle, culminating in the electrifying triumph of optimism that becomes 8½.

As Fellini-Guido says “Life is a party let’s live it together!”

Federico Fellini’s 8½ Review – Pamela Hutchinson on the Guardian:

It’s an easy film to admire from the off. The opening sequence scorches my brain, with Mastroianni as the Fellini-esque film director Guido suffocating in a locked car in a traffic jam, then floating above a beach, tethered by a rope that suddenly yanks him down to earth. These are hefty metaphors for a lack of control and direction, because this a story of creative block – Guido is struggling to make his latest movie, a science-fiction epic, and so he retreats into his memories of childhood and fantasies of a muse, played by Claudia Cardinale. It’s the most attractive nervous breakdown I have ever seen.

Apparently, Fellini was having the same creative trouble himself, though it’s hard to believe. Rather a sly trick on his part to make a film about the difficulties of film-making that’s so breathtakingly gorgeous, that dances so nimbly between timelines, between fantasy and reality, that reflects on and even chastises itself for its own confused ambition. Guido’s world is seductively glamorous, relentlessly so, from the marble halls where he talks shop to his dreamy reminiscences of childhood and the Freudian floor-shows in his psyche. The black-and-white cinematography by Gianni Di Venanzo is stunning, and, of course, there’s the added pleasure of recognising already-familiar images in their proper place in the film. The circus parade finale, for one, or the compellingly cool Mastroianni either peering over his sunglasses or leaning back in a cafe chair, heels on the table, clapping. Each one prompts a little tingle. The sight of the giant scaffolding for the set of Guido’s as-yet-unrealised movie, the skeleton of a spaceship, knocks me out: a reminder of pre-digital processes, but with an extra poignancy as film production is halted across the world.

Read the full review here