8 1/2

Audience Reviews

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George W Feb 3, 2019 Unwatchable ARTSY-FARTSY tripe! Incredibly BORING!!

Ron G Nov 11, 2018 Very cool plot especially that era!

Theodore W Nov 6, 2018 This film was almost good.

Theodore S Oct 24, 2018 Beautiful, artistic, well-crafted, innovative, influential, heartfelt, and playful. I'm usually not that big a fan of movies that describe the process of movie-making, or books that describe the process of writing for that matter, especially if it's about the difficulties and what amounts to 'writer's block', but in this case, director Federico Fellini is so masterful that it's impossible not to love 8 1/2. Through flashbacks to childhood, dreams, and fantasies, we see the inner mind of his main character, a director (Marcello Mastroianni) who struggles to figure out what to do for his next big film, even after sets have been built, and actors brought to the location. Everything around him is a swirl, from the pressure his producer applies, to advice and commentary from everyone around him, to his lover (Sandra Milo) and wife (Anouk Aimée) both showing up. What we see is just how close to the surface events from his childhood long ago really are. It's like a 'Rosebud' type of effect spread out over many situations, and it reminds us that the good and bad memories we carry around are always present, influencing our thinking and our emotions. Because of the fantasies the film has a surreal feel to it, but at the same time, it's also quite realistic, and feels at least partially auto-biographical. I say realistic not in the sense of neorealism (far from it), but in the sense that this is how our minds work - for the director, events in the present trigger memories of his past, and memories of the past are reflected in his actions and his films in the present. Everything is connected in this carnival of the mind. My only criticism of the film is that the director's fantasies, while honest, are not exactly enlightened relative to women. He wishes his wife was content to work long hours cleaning and taking care of the house. He wishes she accepted his mistress, and got along with her. He wishes all of his past lovers were available to him, and that they brought him new women, such as an 'exotic' black girl from Hawaii. He wishes that when they got too old, they accepted being removed from his life/consciousness by 'going upstairs'. On the other hand, Fellini gives us a marvelous moment when even these women in his fantasy rebel against these thoughts ("A real man loves women with no regard to their age.") The director is called out by his wife for his deceptions ("Another fiction, another lie"), as well as by his 'ideal woman' (Claudia Cardinale: "You're such a phony.") He is also redeemed in a very touching speech to his wife: "Luisa, I feel like I've been set free. Everything seems so good, so meaningful. Everything is true. I wish I could explain, but I don't know how. Now everything's all confused once again, like it was before. But this confusion is me, as I am, not as I'd like to be. I'm no longer afraid of telling the truth about what I don't know, what I'm looking for, what I haven't found. Only this way do I feel alive. Only this way can I look into your faithful eyes without shame. Life is a celebration. Let's live it together. That's all I can say, Luisa, to you or the others. Accept me for what I am, if you can. It's the only way we might find each other." To which she simply replies: "I don't know if what you've said is right, but I can try if you help me." The cinematography throughout the film is beautiful, and it seems like a lot of care went into maximizing the aesthetic of each shot. At the same time, this is not a pretentious film, and in fact, in creating a 'film within a film' which he cleverly warns us "lacks a philosophical premise", "is a series of gratuitous episodes", and is not "about love" because he's incapable of telling a love story, Fellini critiques his own work. The director is full of self-doubt, and understands the supreme egotism of the artist, which we hear from Cardinale when she tells him "What monstrous presumption to think that others could benefit from the squalid catalog of your mistakes." He feels like a phony as a husband and as an artist, and yet is simply striving to be honest and true to himself. It's a gripping feeling, and one that I feel is universal, perhaps more so to people in middle age, or to those who have found success in what they do. And, it turns out that for a film that is 'not a love story', there is a message of love in the end, one from a man who humbly understands his shortcomings, wishes to do better, and loves his wife. See more

Han W Oct 13, 2018 A true masterpiece. will take several viewings to understand the movie completely. The first few minutes is already complex. See more

Luke S Apr 11, 2018 A constantly moving, quirky, and fun movie.

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8 1/2

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