Roger Ebert
May 7, 1993  

If you were watching the 1993 Academy Awards telecast, you saw Federico Fellini at his effortless best, taking center stage and handling the crowd with more poise, humor and authority than any of the highpriced stars who surrounded him.He invited the audience to relax. He professed surprise at being honored - and then confessed he was not surprised at all. He commanded his wife, Giulietta Masina, to stop crying - at once! Watching him, you received an overwhelming impression of a man who felt thoroughly comfortable with himself.

That is the impression Fellini always gives, like an orchestra conductor who knows the music and trusts his players.And that is one of the reasons his 1963 masterpiece,"8 1/2," is such an unlikely film, since it pretends to be autobiographical and yet shows us a movie director who is emotionally frayed and artistically bankrupt The movie is currently being revived around the country with a new 35-mm print in glorious black and white. It's out on video, but it's so big and rich it deserves to be seen on the big screen, and this 30th anniversary revival may be your last chance for a long time. "8 1/2" routinely places high on those polls that ask critics and directors to list the 10 greatest films of all time.

Fellini directed it on the rebound from the enormous international success of "La Dolce Vita" (1961), which made both him and Marcello Mastroianni famous. "La Dolce Vita" remains, for my money, the best of Fellini's films; it's a sad, shocking, exuberant portrait of a Roman gossip columnist having a crisis of the spirit.
But "8 1/2" is a great film in its own way, and despite the efforts of several other filmmakers to make their own versions of the same story, it remains the definitive film about director's block.The movie stars Mastroianni, always Fellini's alter ego, as Guido, a director who has had a big hit and now seeks to recover from it at a health spa. But he is hounded there and everywhere by those who depend on him - his producer, his writer, his mistress,his would-be stars.The producer has spent a fortune to build a gigantic set of a rocket ship,but Guido has a secret:He doesn't have a clue what his next movie will be about.

The movie proceeds as a series of encounters between Guido and his conscience.He remembers his childhood,his strict parents,his youthful fascination with a tawdry woman who lived down by the beach.His mistress (Sandra Milo) follows him to the spa, and then his chain-smoking, intellectual wife (Anouk Aimee) follows, and is enraged at him - as much for his bad taste in women as for his infidelity.Then follows one of the most famous sequences in all of modern films: In his daydreams, Guido occupies a house with all of the women in his life, past and present, and they all love him and forgive him, and love one another. But then there is a revolt, and he cracks a whip, trying to tame them. Of course he cannot.The movie is the portrait of a man desperately trying to weld together the carnal and spiritual sides of his nature; the mistress and the wife, the artistic and the commercial.

From time to time a muse appears to him: a seductive, calm, smiling dream woman (Claudia Cardinale). She offers him the tantalizing possibility that all will be forgiven, and all will be well. But she is elusive and ethereal, and meanwhile the producer is growing desperate.All of Fellini's movies contain his trademarks, such as constructions that stand between the earth and the sky, and parades in which the characters proceed like circus performers. This film gives us the rocket set, a tower to nowhere, and ends at dusk with a sad circus parade, the clowns leading all of the people in Guido's life around and around in circles.

Thirty years after Fellini made "8 1/2," films like this have grown rare. Audiences demand that their movies, like fast food, be served up hot and now. The self-indulgence and utter self-absorption of Fellini, two of the film's charms, would be vetoed by modern financial backers. They'd demand a more commercial genre piece.These days, directors don't worry about how to repeat their last hit, because they know exactly how to do it: Remake the same commercial formulas. A movie like this is like a splash of cold water in the face, a reminder that the movies really can shake us up, if they want to. Ironic, that Fellini's film is about artistic bankruptcy seems richer in invention than almost anything else around.

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This conventional view is completely wrong. What we think of as Felliniesque comes to full flower in "La Dolce Vita" and "8 1/2." His later films, except for "Amarcord," are not as good, and some are positively bad, but they are stamped with an unmistakable maker's mark. The earlier films, wonderful as they often are, have their Felliniesque charm weighted down by leftover obligations to neorealism.The critic Alan Stone, writing in the Boston Review, deplores Fellini's "stylistic tendency to emphasize images over ideas." I celebrate it. A filmmaker who prefers ideas to images will never advance above the second rank because he is fighting the nature of his art.

The printed word is ideal for ideas; film is made for images, and images are best when they are free to evoke many associations and are not linked to narrowly defined purposes. Here is Stone on the complexity of "8 1/2": "Almost no one knew for sure what they had seen after one viewing." True enough. But true of all great films, while you know for sure what you've seen after one viewing of a shallow one."8 1/2" is the best film ever made about filmmaking. It is told from the director's point of view, and its hero, Guido (Marcello Mastroianni), is clearly intended to represent Fellini. It begins with a nightmare of asphyxiation, and a memorable image in which Guido floats off into the sky, only to be yanked back to earth by a rope pulled by his associates, who are hectoring him to organize his plans for his next movie. Much of the film takes place at a spa near Rome, and at the enormous set Guido has constructed nearby for his next film, a science fiction epic he has lost all interest in.

The film weaves in and out of reality and fantasy. Some critics complained that it was impossible to tell what was real and what was taking place only in Guido's head, but I have never had the slightest difficulty, and there is usually a clear turning point as Guido escapes from the uncomfortable present into the accommodating world of his dreams.Sometimes the alternate worlds are pure invention, as in the famous harem scene where Guido rules a house occupied by all of the women in his life--his wife, his mistresses, and even those he has only wanted to sleep with. In other cases, we see real memories that are skewed by imagination. When little Guido joins his schoolmates at the beach to ogle the prostitute Saraghina, she is seen as the towering, overpowering, carnal figure a young adolescent would remember.

When he is punished by his priests of his Catholic school, one entire wall is occupied by a giant portrait of Dominic Savio, a symbol of purity in that time and place; the portrait, too large to be real, reflects Guido's guilt that he lacks the young saint's resolve.All of the images (real, remembered, invented) come together into one of the most tightly structured films Fellini made. The screenplay is meticulous in its construction--and yet, because the story is about a confused director who has no idea what he wants to do next, "8 1/2" itself is often described as the flailings of a filmmaker without a plan. "What happens," asks a Web-based critic, "when one of the world's most respected directors runs out of ideas, and not just in a run-of-the-mill kind of way, but whole hog, so far that he actually makes a film about himself not being able to make a film?" But "8 1/2" is not a film about a director out of ideas--it is a film filled to bursting with inspiration.

Guido is unable to make a film, but Fellini manifestly is not.Mastroianni plays Guido as a man exhausted by his evasions, lies and sensual appetites. He has a wife (Anouk Aimee), chic and intellectual, who he loves but cannot communicate with, and a mistress (Sandra Milo), cheap and tawdry, who offends his taste but inflames his libido. He manages his affairs so badly that both women are in the spa town at the same time, along with his impatient producer, his critical writer, and uneasy actors who hope or believe they will be in the film. He finds not a moment's peace. "Happiness," Guido muses late in the film, "consists of being able to tell the truth without hurting anyone." That gift has not been mastered by Guido's writer, who tells the director his film is "a series of complete senseless episodes," and "doesn't have the advantage of the avant-garde films, although it has all of the drawbacks."

Guido seeks advice. Aged clerics shake their heads sadly and inspire flashbacks to childhood guilt. The writer, a Marxist, is openly contemptuous of his work. Doctors advise him to drink mineral water and get rest, a lot of rest. The producer begs for quick rewrites; having paid for the enormous set, he insists that it be used. And from time to time Guido visualizes his ideal woman, who is embodied by Claudia Cardinale: cool, comforting,beautiful,serene,uncritical,with all the answers and no questions.This vision,when she appears, turns out to be a disappointment (she is as hopeless as all of the other actors), but in his mind he transforms her into a Muse, and takes solace in her imaginary support.

Fellini's camera is endlessly delighting. His actors often seem to be dancing rather than simply walking. I visited the set of his "Fellini Satyricon," and was interested to see that he played music during every scene (like most Italian directors of his generation, he didn't record sound on the set but post-synched the dialogue). The music brought a lift and subtle rhythm to their movements. Of course many scenes have music built into them: In "8 1/2," orchestras, dance bands and strolling musicians are seen, and the actors move in a subtly choreographed way, as if they're synchronized. Fellini's scores, by Nino Rota, combine snatches of pop tunes with dance music, propelling the action.

Few directors make better use of space. One of his favorite techniques is to focus on a moving group in the background and track with them past foreground faces that slide in and out of frame. He also likes to establish a scene with a master shot, which then becomes a closeup when a character stands up into frame to greet us. Another technique is to follow his characters as they walk, photographing them in three-quarter profile, as they turn back toward the camera. And he likes to begin dance sequences with one partner smiling invitingly toward the camera before the other partner joins in the dance.

All of these moves are brought together in his characteristic parades. Inspired by a childhood love of the circus, Fellini used parades in all his films--not structured parades but informal ones, people moving together toward a common goal or to the same music, some in the foreground, some farther away. "8 1/2" ends with a parade that has deliberate circus overtones, with a parade of musicians, major characters, and the grotesques, eccentrics and "types" that Fellini loved to cast in his films.I have seen "8 1/2" over and over again, and my appreciation only deepens. It does what is almost impossible: Fellini is a magician who discusses, reveals, explains and deconstructs his tricks, while still fooling us with them. He claims he doesn't know what he wants or how to achieve it, and the film proves he knows exactly, and rejoices in his knowledge.

Bibliographie
L'Avant-Scène du Cinéma n° 63, Spécial Fellini - Huit et demi, 100 p., octobre 1966.
Camilla Cederna : 8 1/2 de Fellini - Histoire d'un film, traduction de l'italien par H. de Mariassy et C. de Lignac, Ed. Julliard, 1963, 218 p.
 

The opening sequence--one of the most deftly crafted--is taken from Guido's movie (or his dream - can't remember for sure). The sequence brilliantly captures Guido's problems (which are dealt with in the rest of the picture) and exposes them metaphorically: him STUCK in traffic, TRAPPED in smoke, SUFFOCATING, wanting to escape, and pulled back down by his peers. Guido wants to make a movie about his (and Fellini's) MEMORIES: how once upon a time he learned about a chant that moves pictures, and the time he danced with the fat feminine prostitute figure.

The other main component of his movie involves launching into space, a FANTASY that reflects Guido's (and Fellini's) desire to escape from worldly matters. In real life, Guido is having problems with everything from his wife to his movie. So he thinks a beautiful actress, whom he fantasizes but knows little to nothing about, will be the solution to all his problems. When Guido meets the actress, he realizes she can't solve his problems, only he himself has the choice. This realization leads to the film's closure, with Guido having learned what's important to him and the inevitability of taking responsibility.One of the film's powerful features is ambiguously blending Guido's world with his imaginations. Thus the audience is constantly deciphering the context of what's on the screen.

This invitation to participate in the film is welcome, and if we think about it, a person like Guido who lives in his office might not be able to tell at times whether an event happened in his life or inside his mind.