The 1,000 Greatest Films of All Time: No. 6

 

6. 8½

 

1963, Italy/France D: Federico Fellini

As the co-author of 1944’s Rome, Open City, the young Federico Fellini can easily be said to be one of the founding fathers of Italian neorealism. It’s all the more surprising, then, that as director, he gradually developed into one of the most fantastic, elaborate, and wildly visual directors the medium has ever seen. And with 8½, he made the most astonishing leap of his career, crafting a beautifully unprecedented, personal film, which jumped effortlessly from realism to dream sequences, childhood memories and wild fantasies with the graceful ease of a circus acrobat.

 

Released early in 1963 in Italy to near-universal acclaim, 8½ went on to dazzle the astonished film world at the Cannes Film Festival and then became a sensation in New York City in the summer. Fellini, already one of the most highly regarded directors in world cinema, was almost universally praised as "genius," and the film retains the status as his "masterpiece."

 

There is no other movie quite like this bizarre, quirky and incredibly indulgent essay on the artist, his world, and the creative process. Blatantly autobiographical, Fellini’s movie depicts an Italian director with writer’s block, struggling to come up with the idea for his newest film. The title comes from the fact that it is Fellini’s eighth movie (plus "a half" for co-directing another). Marcello Mastroianni, plays "Guido": approaching middle age, he is confused, conflicted, selfish, attracted to many women while still wanting to keep his wife, unrealistic, and constantly put-upon by producers, egotistical actors, fans, critics, and seemingly the entire world to create his newest work of cinematic art. Guido, meanwhile, is filled with self-doubt and cannot think of anything that he wants to say. Stalling for time, he casts the film with famous stars, orders large sets built (including a giant rocket), all the while hoping an idea will come to him.

 

8½ is the most visually dazzling film since Citizen Kane, and it probably even outdoes it, using all sorts of tricks taken from the cinematic avant-garde. However, what makes it such a rewarding and perennially great movie is its humor, its humility, its honesty, all combined with a a breathless enthusiasm that almost no other picture can match. To top it all off, Fellini’s long-time musical collaborator, the extraordinary Nino Rota, creates one of the most magnificently memorable scores ever constructed for a film, virtually almost turning this wild ride of a movie into a musical.

 

Alternately hilarious and heart-rending, 8½ is a whirlwind of images that constantly morph out of one another, sometimes amplifying, sometimes contradicting a mood, but always moving, skipping back and forth through time, jumping from dream to reality. Yet the film, for all its flash, is steeped in the harsh realities of human content. If 8½ really is the autobiography that Fellini wants us to believe it is, he is his own most relentless critic - and yet, despite all his faults, we care for Guido - we want him to make his movie, and more importantly, to pull his fractured life together.

 

By the film’s end, we come to realize that the movie he’s been struggling to make is precisely the one we’ve been watching all along. And we join with him and the entire cast in an extraordinary dance in celebration of the acceptance of life - with all of its insanity, contradictions, triumphs and tragedies. 8½ is perhaps the greatest hymn to movies ever made - but more importantly, it is ultimately a hymn to life itself.