Movie Review: "8 1/2"

“Down, you come down. Down for good...”

In 1963, three years after the worldwide success of his film “La Dolce Vita”, legendary Italian film-maker Federico Fellini found himself under tremendous pressure to not only match his previous success, but to top it. He was under contract. He had producers, sets, and actors. All he was lacking was artistic inspiration. He was suffering from what a writer would call “writer’s block”. In a move that probably saved his career, Fellini turned back on himself for inspiration, and what resulted was one of his greatest masterpieces, the autobiographical film “8 1/2”.

“8 1/2”, so named because that was the number of films Fellini had directed up till that time, tells the story of a famous director who is at a loss as to what his next project should be about. The director, Guido Anselmi, (played by master Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni), is constantly being hounded by his producers, the press, and the public to give them some information about his next film. Anselmi does not, not because he wishes to keep his plans secret, but because he has no plans at all.

While not a traditionally narrative story, “8 1/2” never fails to fascinate with its endless array of arresting and unforgettable images. From the circus atmosphere swirling around Anselmi everywhere he goes, to a flashback of truant schoolboys watching the devilish Saraghina dance an obscene rumba on a beach, “8 1/2” is one of the most strikingly photographed films ever. Like several of Fellini’s films, “8 1/2” perfectly blends reality with fantasy and symbolism to create a wholly original type of story unto itself.

The film’s opening sequence, one of the most celebrated in cinema history, perfectly sets up the tone of the rest of the film. The director, Anselmi, is stuck in his car, in a tunnel, in a traffic jam. Noxious gas begins to pour from the heating vents, and Anselmi finds he cannot open any of the car’s doors or windows. As he struggles to free himself, he is claustrophobically surrounded by strange faces peering out of their own un-moving cars. Instead of helping him, they simply sit and stare. At the last minute, Anselmi escapes through his car’s sun-roof, and magically glides over the traffic, into the sky. As he glides through the clouds, he suddenly feels a tug on his leg. Looking down, he notices a rope tied to his ankle, and holding the rope, far below, is his producer. With one almighty tug, Anselmi plummets out of the clouds, and back to reality.

In the whole of cinema history, there has never been a film that dealt so openly with a director’s inability to create a subject for his film, or with the cinematic process in general. Aside from representing Fellini’s almost mystical ability to create something out of nothing, “8 1/2” also represents a definite turning point in the great director’s career. While echoing the sweet lyrical simplicity of Fellini’s early films, “8 1/2” also looks ahead to the gaudy excesses that would come to characterize his later work. As such, “8 1/2” stands poised on the fine line between genius and madness, and remains one of the greatest films of all time.