8½
Directors:
Federico Fellini
Distributed
by:
Embassy Pictures (in U.S.)
Released:
February 1963
Country:
Italy
Anyone
who has ever had to write anything of any length, be it an assignment or
something done voluntarily, knows what “writer’s block” is. Staring at a blank page, trying to come up
with an idea to start things off, is the worst.
And I can tell you, reviewing a Fellini movie like 8½, 1963’s Best Foreign Film, is a good way to come up with
writer’s block. Not only is this movie
is a tough nut to crack, but it is considered a masterpiece. What can I possibly add?
Well,
the honest answer is nothing. However,
I’m not alone in my writer’s block. The
film is about a director, Guido, who essentially has writer’s block, only it’s
in relation to his being a director.
Presumably, Guido is really a stand-in for Fellini himself, trying to
figure out what he wanted to say in this big budget science fiction he is
doing. Guido is unsure of himself and
his relationship with the women in his life. In other words, he’s just like
every other guy, except he needs to figure out a way to translate his feelings
into film.
 |
| Mastroianni and Aimee |
The
movie starts with a traffic jam. But
unlike the singing, dancing kind in Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, this one is stifling and claustrophobic to the point of
suffocating Guido in his car. He cannot
breathe, but finally escapes the death trap automobile and floats to the
clouds. Next, he’s a human kite with a
rope around his leg, and when he returns to earth, he does so violently and at
the hand of his critics. This is what
“director’s block” is for Guido, and this is the movie where Fellini abandoned
neo-realism for imagery and symbolism.
Essentially,
Guido is trying to figure out what to put in his film. He is played sympathetically, and often comically,
by Marcello Mastroianni, one of Italy’s biggest stars. Intertwined with this “director’s block” of
Guido’s is his relationship to all the women of his life. First, there’s his mistress, the curvaceous
and uncouth Carla, whom he keeps around for one obvious reason. His wife Luisa, played by A Man and a Woman’s Anouk Aimée, comes
to visit him on the set, and his hopes that the two can reconcile don’t seem
too promising. Then there’s his “Ideal
Woman,” who is at first just a fantasy, but materializes late in the film as
the actress he’s been waiting for. She’s
played by Claudia Cardinale, perhaps best known to American audiences for her
role in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time
in the West. Guido’s views on women
are best shown in his extended fantasy that begins with a harem of women existing
only to serve him, ending a whole lot less enjoyably. As confused as Guido is, it’s hard not to
envy him just a little for having all these women revolve around him.
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| Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West |
No
doubt this is an odd film, from its strange start to its bizarre finish. Martin Scorsese said in an interview once
that in introducing his daughter to this movie, he knew he first had to show
her some of Fellini’s earlier, more accessible works, like 1960’s La Dolce Vita, because 8½ is such a tough one to get your head
around. Well, I don’t know about
that. What I can tell you is you cannot
expect to pick up on everything when you first watch it; but significantly, you
can get the point of the movie without necessarily understanding every
scene. This is film as art: a well-shot,
black-and-white masterpiece about relationships and directing and yes, writer’s
block. If you just type away, or in
Guido’s case, direct away, you’ll get through it, even if in the end it isn’t
as good as you would have liked it to be.
Like this review.
 |
| Opening scene in La La Land |
The Title:
Otto e mezzo. Previous to this movie, Fellini did six
feature films, two short films, and co-directed a film; by his math, that’s 7½
pictures. This one would be his 8½th. I guess he had writer’s block when coming up
with the title.
The culture:
There is some Italian culture from the early ‘60’s in here, but more to
the point, this is a movie about the culture of filmmaking. Roger Ebert called it “the best film ever
made about filmmaking.” Certainly it
surpasses Truffaut’s film Day for Night,
Best Foreign Film from 1973, a pleasant enough movie also about a director
dealing with the difficulties of directing a film. But what I kept thinking about was the
terrific documentary Hearts of Darkness:
A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, made by Eleanor Coppola. That movie is about how her famed director-husband,
Francis Ford Coppola, just about went off his rocker making his epic Vietnam
War drama Apocalypse Now. In that movie, Coppola also has director’s
block, not knowing how to finish the movie, and plowing through anyhow.
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| 8½ opening scene |
Agenda danger:
Fellini is basically criticizing his own failings in this film, and
really there is no political persuasion to this story.
Best Picture that year:
Tom Jones. It’s not unusual for the Best Foreign Film to
be much more noteworthy and acclaimed than the Best Picture of the same year. This is one instance.
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