Film: “8 1/2” by Fellini at Film Forum
When “8 1/2” was screened at Cannes in 1963, it garnered universal acclaim—with some notable exceptions. Pauline Kael called it a “structural nightmare.” John Simon declared it a “disheartening fiasco.” But notwithstanding their remarks, time has been kind to this Fellini movie, now at Film Forum.
Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) is a writer-director suffering from a creative block. Separated from his wife Luisa (Anouk Aimee), he is buffeted by former (and current) mistresses who want to be cast in his latest movie. Problem is, he doesn’t quite know what that movie’s going to be. “I don’t have anything to say but I want to say it anyway,” he admits.
The film flashes back to Guido’s past, from his schoolboy days, when his misbehavior incurred the wrath of the local priests; to his erotic memories of dancing the rhumba with the voluptuous Saraghina (Eddra Gale) on a beach at Rimini. Back in the present, there’s a character named Daumier (Jean Rougeul), a critic who serves as a foil and haughtily dismisses all Guido’s ideas.
But the thing to watch here is the interplay of the three main characters: Guido, with his puppy-dog eyes and horn-rimmed eyeglasses; his estranged wife with her mannish haircut; and a curvaceous, sloe-eyed youngster (Claudia Cardinale) who serves as his muse.
The title is in keeping with Fellini's navel-gazing: by his count it was his eight-and-a-halfth film. The working title was “La Bella Confusione” reflecting his uncertainty about what he wanted to achieve.
But “lo and behold,” he said at one point, “everything suddenly fell into place. I got straight to the heart of the film. I would narrate everything that had been happening to me. I would make a film telling the story of a director who no longer knows what film he wanted to make". As fan boy Roger Ebert said back in the day, “the film actually proved Fellini knew exactly what he was doing, and rejoiced in his knowledge.”
“8 1/2” was shot in black and white by cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo and lusciously scored by Nino Rota. It would go to influence a number of other films: most notably, Truffaut’s “Day for Night,” Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz,” and Woody Allen’s “Stardust Memories.”
Granted, it will never pull in the box office bucks of the latest StarWars adventure or Avengers 5 remake. Aren’t you glad?
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