8-1/2. 1963. Directed by Federico Fellini.

(6/30/00)

Around 1963 8-1/2 was considered the epitome of the "art film." I wasn't in the mood for it--or perhaps I wasn't prepared--but it took me a very long time to get interested in it. And when I did get interested it only came alive for me in fits and starts.

It's about a movie director who seems to not be interested in the film he is to make. It is about his fantasies. It is very difficult to tell where real life leaves off and the fantasies commence. He is trapped with a lot of people he cannot relate to--or so it seems. People arte always mking demands on him. At the end he decides to give up and not make the film after all and the film ends with a fantasy of unity and acceptance in which he joins in a dance with the others.

I found the director's interaction with his wife interesting. She phones him and has him invite her to come to where he is working. This seems to be her wish, yet she accuses him of always being the one who pursues her. I couldn't figure out if he was actually unfaithful, but there is a strong sense of marital strife.

There is some wonderful stuff about the Catholic Church, especially a scene with a cardinal in a steam bath--a shrivelled-up little man who nonetheless wields power. Fellini really shows up the power and arrogance of the church.

There is a great memory or fantasy about the protagonist as a child, going with his friends to visit the prostitute Sagharina and paying her a few coins to dance the rhumba. The fat Sagharina is a wonderful figure, one who reappears elsewhere in the film.

There is a very memorable scene where the director has a fantasy about lording it over some women who constitute a kind of harem and cater to his every whim. But as they get old they are banished to the upstairs. This fantasy contrasts vividly with the reality of nagging, demanding women that he has to put up with.

Towards the end there is a scene where the director has to look at screen tests of people who want to play the parts of some of the figures from his life. That was an interesting scene and it pointed up thye fact that what he wanted to make was really about his own life.

Then there was an interesting unfinished set for a spaceship or something. Whatever it was, it didn't seem to fit in with the serious (or pretentious) nature of the film he aspired to make. It is at this set that the director appears, dogged by everyone, at a sort of press conference at which he announces that he is not going to make the picture. That is a very intense scene.

I didn't get very far with 8-1/2. I really didn't connect with it to any extent. And I didn't find Marcello Mastroianni so interesting, either. Perhaps another time.