Federico Fellini's 8½ is inner turmoil externalized in a grand, rambling, fantastical succession of images. Often referred to as the greatest film ever made about filmmaking, it is a wonderfully self-indulgent meditation on creative blocks and personal crises—the film director as tortured soul.

The main character, Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), is often read as a cinematic surrogate for Fellini, particularly at that moment in his career when he was following his international critical and commercial hit La Dolce Vita (1960), which many consider his greatest film. Like Fellini, Guido has just had a hit movie, and everyone—from his producer, to his writer, to his mistress, to his wife—is surrounding him, expecting something from him, whether it be love or contrition or another hit movie. At the beginning of the film, Guido has escaped to an expensive spa, but even there he is hounded by others (he wakes up to find his writer sitting in his bedroom, waiting for instructions), the constant externalization of the inner pressure he feels. Accepted as a filmmaking genius, he is expected to always be one, which is the albatross around his neck.

Much of the film follows a seemingly random course of events in Guido’s life, as he bounces from one confrontation to another, and reality and fantasy constantly blur, calling into question which is which. The film begins in a dream, with Guido’s sense of being professionally trapped perfectly visualized in his being trapped inside a car that is filling with smoke in the midst of a massive traffic jam (people in the cars around him just stare impassively, as if his life-or-death struggle is invisible). The rest of the film is interspersed with fleeting memories of his childhood and far-flung fantasies, including the infamous sequence in which he imagines himself living in a harem with all the women he has ever known and loved. Some scenes mix the realistic and the fantastic, such as a party scene in which a flamboyant mind reader seemingly pulls the thoughts right out of Guido’s head and writes them on a chalkboard.

Much of the chaos and pressure of Guido’s life is very, very funny, particularly the irony of his producer (Guido Alberti), who is sinking tons of money into the construction of a giant spaceship set even though Guido has absolutely no idea what he is going to do with it (the towering, skeletal frame of the set, reaching so high, yet looking so empty and pointless, is an apt visual metaphor of Guido’s creative conundrum). There are several poignant scenes between Guido and his estranged wife (Anouk Aimée), a fierce intellectual who despises Guido for his petty infidelities with cheap women. All of this build to a glorious, romantic, carnivalesque conclusion in which Guido, having finally realized that he has been loved, but never truly loved, finds himself surrounded by all the people he has ever known—finally, a possibility of redemption for the tortured artist.

The title of the film comes from Fellini’s own life. Prior to making 8½, he had directed seven feature-length films and three shorts; added together, they come out to 8 ½. Yet, it is reductive and ultimately limiting to read Guido as nothing more than Fellini’s projection of himself on screen. There are too many differences between them, the least of which is the utter confidence with which Fellini guided his own career, despite his admittance than he was never entirely sure what he was doing when he made 8½. Nevertheless, 8½ is better read as a projection of the fears, dreams, and desires of not only all filmmakers, but all artists. The act of true creation is a painful process, made all the more so when it becomes blocked, building up pressure that cannot be released.

8½ is like the explosion of all that—a gaudy pastiche of cinematic brilliance that is open to multiple interpretations. It blurs all boundaries, confounds all expectations, ignores all conventions, which is why it is often described as a liberating exercise in pushing the possibilities of modern film. While avant-garde filmmakers had long since broken down the conventions of the classical Hollywood style, Fellini found a way to do the same thing, but coherently, in a way that it could be appreciated by many, but subordinated by none.

8½ is long and somewhat unwieldy, filled as it is with fragments and illusions, yet it is all of one piece. Fellini may have had a deeply personal stake in Guido’s creative confusion, but it is not a dilemma that is evident in this grand achievement.

Copyright © 2024 James Kendrick

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