FELLINI'S 8 1/2

In 1963, Federico Fellini broke with the tradition of great linear storytelling that had brought him international acclaim with such films as La Dolce Vita, The Nights of Cabiria, and La Strada. Filmmaking in Europe and elsewhere was taking a turn toward the radical and experimental: in Italy (Fellini’s compadre Antonioni broke new ground with his trilogy L’Avventura, La Notte, and L’Eclisse), in France (where the New Wave of Truffaut, Resnais, Godard and others was in full swing), and inspiring it all was the work of Ingmar Bergman in Sweden. The common thread was that a new, more interior vocabulary for film was developing.  Film prose was becoming film poetry. Using stories taken from myth, or sometimes from dreams, intensely autobiographical or even literary, directors now felt free to break the rules, using jump cuts, quick, almost subliminal images, disjointed soundtracks, leaps in time, anything that would wake audiences up and demand a deeper kind of attention to the medium itself.

In 8 1/2, (the title is a reference to the fact that he had previously directed eight features and a couple of shorts), Fellini makes an semi-autobiographical film. There is no doubt that Guido (Marcello Mastroianni), the great film director who is creatively blocked, due to begin shooting on his next picture but secretly sure he has lost his inspiration (and therefore hiding out at a health spa), is meant to be Fellini himself. Instead of telling the story “straight,” Fellini puts his stamp on the evolution of film history, by creating a collage of images and impressions from the span of Guido’s life that he must deal with as they come to consciousness for him. The images conjure issues of religion, family, guilt, lust, redemption, the multiple views men have of women (as mother, whore, angel, wild animal, etc.). All of it is through the filter of Jungian psychology, which Fellini was a devotee of, at least at the time – and therefore it is about passion and animus.

And while all this might sound kind of esoteric, really, it’s not. Why? Because the images and memories are so compelling, and (as he would so often from this point on) Fellini uses the metaphor of life as a circus, a never-ending show, full of strange and interesting characters, not to be taken too terribly seriously. Near suicide at the thought of the loss of the muse, desperate to hide his insecurities, frantically juggling wife and mistress, cast and crew, to keep the nuts and bolts of his life together, what Guido (and we) ultimately discover is: life gives you “wiggle room” if you keep your sense of perspective, if you remember to celebrate, and if you invite everyone to the party.

Fellini would never completely return to the strict narrative form of his earlier films. In his next film, Juliet of the Spirits, he would add Technicolor to his multi-layered dream world, and create for his wife, actress Guilietta Masina, a kind of feminist fable. From that point on, Fellini’s dreams would only get bigger, wilder, and grander.

By Kenn Rabin

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