Résumé
Le metteur en scène Guido Anselmi suit une cure de repos dans une ville d'eau. Il est obsédé par de nombreux rêves dans lesquels s'entremêlent réalité, souvenirs d'enfance, premières aventures et fabulation. Il remarque une jolie infirmière d'une très grande pureté. Des amis qu'il rencontre le conseillent pour son prochain film qu'il ne sait comment commencer.
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TRIVIA
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-The title refers to the number of movies Federico Fellini had directed up until that point - six features, two short (1/2) films and "half a picture" (Les feux du music-hall his first, co-directed with Alberto Lattuada), for a total of 7 1/2. So this one is number 8 1/2.
-The film's working title was "La Bella Confusione", i.e. "The Beautiful Confusion".
-Federico Fellini attached a note to himself below the camera's eyepiece which read, "Remember, this is a comedy."
-Was the basis for the Broadway Musical "Nine", which won the Tony for best musical in 1982 and for best musical revival in 2003.
-At one point, Federico Fellini wanted to cast Laurence Olivier in the lead role.
-In 2002, named by "Positif" (France) as one of the 50 best films of the last 50 years (critics' choice: #3) Italian censorship visa # 39461 delivered on 6-2-1963.
-Often cited by Federico Fellini himself as one of his favorite films ever, even considering other directors' works.
-Because of a strike at the development & print lab at Cinecittà, during post-production, Federico Fellini was unable to check the daily shoot. He reportedly never took vision of the filmed material until the movie editing phase.
-Federico Fellini was well-known for working without a stable, finished screenplay. At one point during pre-production, he had completely forgot what his next work would have been about, his original idea had completely gone. While he was set to communicate to the movie producer Angelo Rizzoli his intention of abandoning the project, Fellini was invited to the birthday party of a head camera-operator of Cinecittà. All of a sudden, during the celebration, he got a new idea: his film would have told about a film-director who was going to direct a film, but he forgot what it was about.
The original ending scene featured Guido and his wife sitting together in the restaurant car of a train bound for Rome. Lost in thought, Guido looked up to see all the characters of his film smiling ambiguously at him as the train entered a tunnel. Federico Fellini then shot an alternative ending set around the spaceship on the beach at dusk but with the intention of using the scenes as a trailer for promotional purposes only. He and his co-writers, however, decided that this alternate sequence served as a more harmonious and exuberant ending to the film.
