8 1/2 (Single Disc Edition)

Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest achievements in cinema's history
Review: Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 is mesmerizing in it's tone, style and technique all the while telling a coherent story of the inner depression of a director. It can be somewhat obvious that Fellini used a lot of his personal experience after the success of his film La Dolce Vita and how most likely he was under the gun to make another success. It is also one of the testaments to his imagination and creative flair of film that he decided to use this problem to his advantage. By combining many of his deep, joyful, though troublesome memories with strange and interesting detail around the picture world in Italy, he has crafted a masterpiece about film.

Marcello Mastroianni, who also played the lead in La Dolce Vita and a number of other Fellini movies, takes on playing a verion of Fellini- Guido Orefice is fourty-three, somewhat sick, pulled in several directions at numerous times, the director with little time is assigned to pump out new ideas for his new movie and get the right actors for the job. Mastroianni projects a splendid performance of his version of Fellini (his version by the way, not an exact replica) since he conveys all the sorrow right in his eyes, within at a lot of moments. This is a good mood motivator.

Overall what makes 8 1/2 unique are the numerous sequences where Guido escapes in his dreamworld of women, memories, and the fancy free-flight. Most memorable (indeed one of the most memorable of all time from my standpoint) scenes is the first of the movie, where he is stuck in traffic, surrounded by a many lot of odd looking people, and getting exasperated when some type of gas fumes into the unopenable car. Then he finally reaches his abscond- getting out through the roof of the car and flying away in the sky; only to get tugged at by a counselor while floating without moving in the sky to the words- Down, definitely down. The fact that this scene is only the first in a line of others that ring surreal simplicity while is just one of the many triumphs present here. The last scene is also one for the books if only for it's cheery lunacy.

(By the way, this critertion DVD is also worth 5 stars. There is no English dubbing, but in a way that's a good thing since dubbing is the last thing this movie needs. Terry Gilliam makes a nice intro segment as well on disc 1).

Rating:
Summary: 8 1/2 is a 10!
Review: The visually stunning, unique cinematography in this Federico Fellini Masterpiece sets the stage for an unmatched movie experience. At almost 2 1/2 hours running time, with overwhelming effects and faded black & white picture (which appears almost glaring at times), this film is nonetheless a delight for lovers of independent/foreign films.

This "signature film" of Italy's Master hasn't faded a bit but is as sweeping and lush as it was in the early 60s. Commonly seen as an autobiographical effort, it is more a self-commentary on his own style of filmmaking. Fellini loves caricatures and he clearly paints his women Anouk Aimee as the plain unhappy wife, Sandra Milo as the voluptuous shallow girlfriend, Edra Gale as the monstrous Saraghina, and Claudia Cardinale as the ideal dream girl.

Not unlike Dante Aligheri's Beatrice. As a finale, he gathers all he knows into one big circus ring, another caricature on life's meaning, as everyone is called to "come on down", giving a bizarre yet joyful scene. Many of his characters appear almost as clowns/caricatures. Guido, like Fellini, does not work from a script, but looks to the changing relationship between his characters as his inspiration for the development of the script and plot. Hence, Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) receives constant criticism and pressure from past figures (priests and his father) and his film colleagues and producers. Only when he actually meets his star (Claudia Cardinale) does idealism turn to realism as the dream girl becomes a material person who tell Guido that he is a "cheat" since he has no script and part for her.

Fellini is such a master of the the dream sequences from which he moves so smoothly and effortlessly to reality. Only after being told there is no role (for Claudia) does Guido begin to face reality. This last scene actually approaches the Fellini-Cardinale relationship during shooting. When one realizes this parallel between filmmaking and personal life, it is not surprising that Fellini chooses his wife, Guilietta Masini, (although not in this film) to often be his leading lady. With this film, Fellini moved from neorealism to introspective fantasy which becomes highly apparent in his later films "City of Women," "Satyricon," etc. Finally, I feel that his earlier films up to and including "8 1/2" are much better than his later self-indulgent fantasy films.

This great cinematic achievement rivals the already legendary "La Strada" (my personal favorite). Federico Fellini is in an echelon of a select few who have in their lifetime mastered the art of directing classic feature films. I highly recommend "8 1/2"...

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Despair
Review: In 8 1/2 we enter the fragmented world belonging to a filmmaker struggling with the creation of his next film. Guido Anselmi is the protagonist and is a thinly-veiled projection of (director) Federico Fellini. Formally, this film has moments of rare beauty. In terms of content, it is a confessional piece that appears extremely personal while at the same time giving voice to common struggles of man. Guido is subjected to a maelstrom of questions which he has no answers to. One can assume these are all questions that he is silently asking himself. Guido's conversations become quite loaded and reveal an incomplete man beneath the mystique of an artistic reputation. Guido navigates often hostile environments with only brief possibilities for fulfillment and repose. Guido cannot find the worldly rewards that he expects for himself and seems as much a victim of his own pessimism as of the endless demands of his colleages and lovers. Toward the end, the desperation featured in the story might actually reflect the reality of the production of 8 1/2. I am only guessing, because as obsurd as the film becomes it seems to remain interested in "the truth" of things. Questions play a large role in this story as much as do the silences that often follow them.

Fellini has left us with a groundbreaking film that has a lot of heart. I highly recommend this DVD to anyone willing to watch it.

Rating:
Summary: How Good is Great?
Review: I purchased this DVD because of its' sustained superior ratings in the Sight and Sound survey every decade of the best films of all time. Obviously, there must be something very great about this movie. There is but but there are some second thoughts that plagued me along the way. First of all, I am always impressed by a film's ability to hold our attention. This is often where the skill of film editing is best appreciated. I confess that I found myself looking for some scenes in "8 1/2" to move along. This is a cerebral movie, not an action movie but there seemed to be a fair amount of redundancy. Secondly, I was surprized by the sound work on this movie. I made a quick glance at a few other reviews but didn't see any similar comments. Thus I don't know if it was just my copy. However, the sound didn't match up with the film very well at all. This gives the movie an odd appearance of being an Italian movie dubbed in Italian. Was I missing something? Finally, the message in this film, for me, was "to your own self be true" which is certainly a valid philosophy; just ask Socrates. However, it was stretched to come across as "accept me for who I am, not whom you want me to be". This message is still a valid philosophy but a bit harder for some of us to accept.

Having said all of that, let me praise the movie; (I DID give it a "5" after all). The acting is terrific; especially Marcello Mastroianni whose air of detachment fit the movie so well. The photography (B&W) was excellent, as well. The story is one of a director who has lost his own direction. As he stumbles aimlessly along supposedly putting together a film, his inteactions with others and his reminiscences give us an insight to his confusion. His world is overwhelming him and he can't figure out where to turn. He is much the victim of himself (which makes the message that much harder to swallow). As his crisis reaches its' own crisis, the movie rights itself with his discovery of his own self-awareness. Everything comes together at the end with a message of hope (primarily for the director). The beauty of the movie is how we are able to follow the character's collapse and rebirth. It is also in the way we can see the rest of the world through his own eyes. This is the sort of movie that will expand with each re-viewing. The DVD contains a second disc with information and reviews about the movie and the Director.

This is a good movie that caught me off-guard because I was victimized by too much advance hype. I understand the hype but it would have been better to discover it for myself. Discover it for yourself and it will be a movie you'll remember.

Rating:
Summary: The beautiful confusion
Review: It's easy to see Guido Anselmi, the lead character in 8 1/2, as Federico Fellini himself. The movie is easier to understand if you realize this movie is essentially about itself. Quite a departure from Fellini's work in the 50s, such as the mesmerizing Nights of Cabiria. With 8 1/2, he embraced a much more fanciful surrealistic style, later to be dubbed "Fellini-esque". It's a much more imaginative and cinematic style than the earlier neo-realist style. It allows us to really get inside the head of Guido (and Fellini also). We witness his dreams, his fantasies, his frustrations, his memories, his ideas, all in vivid carnivalesque vignettes. The opening sequence features Guido stuck in a traffic jam, then climbing out of his car and flying away in the sky. He flies far above a beach almost like a kite, with a rope attached to his leg held by one of his associates. Then he is pulled back down to earth by the rope and promptly returns to reality. This sequence sets the tone for the film. Guido drifts back and forth in between fantasy and reality. Perhaps to escape the frustrations of being unable to make his next film, of dealing with his producers, or of dealing with the women in his life. However, he never manages to escape for long without being pulled back down to earth by his problems.

It's a scenario that we can all relate to. The reason that we go to movies in the first place is to escape from our everyday problems and concerns. This is Guido's (and Fellini's) predicament: that he can't even escape from his own concerns long enough to create a film, so that his viewers can escape theirs. Fellini, however, was able to take this predicament and make it into his film. The result is probably the most clever and complex film about filmmaking ever made.

This can be a bit daunting to a first time viewer. 8 1/2, I think, is a film that you really have to grow into. It takes multiple viewings to really get a good grasp of everything that's going on. And with each viewing, you should notice something new and catch on to the many complexities of the film. I will admit that I have not completely grasped all the meanings of this profound film, but it's a joy to experience even if you absorb only a little. The combination of the images and Nino Rota's music and Fellini's dazzling photography makes for quite an experience.

The Criterion DVD is definitely one to pick up. I haven't seen all the extra material on the disc, but the movie itself looks superb. The picture quality is really astounding. I saw 8 1/2 on an old VHS tape a while back and this DVD looks much, much better! It's a clean, detailed picture that really brings out the beauty of the black and white photography. The picture is also enhanced for 16:9 TVs. Film lovers should definitely have this disc in their collection.

Rating:
Summary: The best irreverent italian comedy ever made
Review: You'll find this movie a real tour de force with a script that doesn't seem get old, but becomes so fresh forty one years after being filmed. The presence of this mytical actor like Mastroinanni, giving one of his three best performances in his carrer. The charisma and beuuty of Claudia Cardinale (The italian image of Anna Karina), and the absolutely irreverent script supported by a cinematic progress in the narrative, the surrealistic elipsis that engage us with the different stages in the life of our undecided and troubled director. His dreams, fantasies of his childhood and youth, are described with elegant insolence.
Together with Luis Buñuel, Fellini makes a couple of directors who told all what they wanted without restrictions , with absolute liberty.
Amarcord in my opinion is Fellini's masterpiece, but it's just to recognize that cinematographily is less border edge than 8 1/2.
If you really want to have a real treasure cinematheque, don't think it over.
Buy this , because this film owns the landmark of the inmortality.
One of the best one hundred films of any age.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, but a film more to respect than love
Review: For what it is---an intensely personal statement about Fellini's own frustrations at a film director at a certain point in his life, as reflected by the frustrations of his film director alter ego Guido Anselmi---Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 is indeed brilliant and creative. It is certainly not like any other film you've ever seen, and it deserves to be seen by any serious cinema enthusiast at least once or twice, since it is such an influential film.

That being said, I have to admit that, after having seen it twice, I personally still can only express a cold admiration for Fellini's achievements here. I just can never really get myself personally involved in Fellini's world here to the point that I truly care about Guido and his predicament. Fellini hardly bothers to build up any sympathy for Guido or any of the characters (although I personally did feel some sympathy for Guido's wife Luisa, who is convincingly portrayed by Anouk Aimee as a woman who has had enough of his husband director's cheating ways). The film is on such a personal level that Fellini shuts the audience out and makes us view his universe from afar without truly enveloping us in it, and while what he does in that universe is undeniably brilliant, it means precious little to us in the end. I am almost tempted to echo some of the sentiments of critics (like Pauline Kael) who were less than enthusiastic when the film was first released in America---those who dismissed the film as "self-indulgent trivia." I expected a film about filmmaking, and what I saw instead was the story of a director going on and on and on about his own suffering, and frankly sometimes I just didn't truly care.

But then, of course, maybe Fellini never intended to fully engage the audience in this film. Or maybe I just have to watch more Fellini films in order to perhaps get onto his wavelength (so far, 8 1/2 is the only film of Fellini's I have seen). Despite my personal misgivings, 8 1/2 does have some justly famous sequences and images(the harem sequence being the standout), and is interesting enough to warrant a look by any serious film enthusiast. Who knows? Great art sometimes doesn't reveal its depths the first time, and maybe this film will eventually reveal something more in subsequent viewings (although in the back of my mind I have my doubts).

Rating:
Summary: Life is our greatest invention!
Review: 1. Federico Fellini. Sensitive, vulgar - il maestro.
2. Saraghina - beauty and repulsion just a few jiggles away.
3. Sandra Milo is dimples dangerous and blessed.
4. Marcello M. as Guido Enselmi, loveable hypocrite.
5. Guido's father moaning about his burial arrangements.
6. A little fantasy in reality or a little reality in fantasy.
7. Claudia Cardinale carrying mineral water.
8. Crappy musical inspired by film. How many movies claim that honor?
1/2. The spaceship - masculinity/identity in progress of going up or coming down?

The "close but no cigar" portion of the list:
Terry Gilliam carries on about how scenes in this movie have influenced his career (see no.2); Nino Rota's music, brilliant as always, probably should have been included in my top eight list; DVD extras - especially lost gem A DIRECTOR'S NOTEBOOK; boring commentary; when this picture first opened in Italy, the anticipation was compared to the excitement over a new Rossini work in his time; Fellini was like a fish in water when it comes to film design and invention - a true master; It moves at its own pace and logic, critics be damned; Fellini was brilliant because the people who worked on his films were equally brilliant - the best in their respective fields; the whip-master fantasy, I can actually agree with the impulse behind that one; it's an epic about one man's over-sized ego - what a wonderful subject to create a brilliant film about! The perfect movie for a century that has been incredibly affected/effected by the ideas purported by the science of psychology. Fellini had stated he was a great admirer of Carl Jung's work, and it is no surprise he would take up that banner.

If you can, check out CITY OF WOMEN - another film by Fellini that works on a similar logic, but takes it several steps beyond what he did with 8 1/2. Ciao!

Rating:
Summary: "Accept me as I am. Only then can we discover each other."
Review: Federico Fellini's "8 ½" is often cited as the late director's masterpiece but it is a maddening film to watch. It is filled to the brim with symbols, abstract ideas, ambiguity, and inner ruminations that taken together imposes on the audience the same disorienting feeling its main character is experiencing. This absence of a conventional narrative is an intriguing and bold step taken by a true artist of the medium, but experimentation alone does not make for a good film.

Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) is a film director who has just completed a hit film and is now taking refuge at a health spa. His downtime is interrupted by a parade of individuals who do not realize that a crisis is at hand - the director has no idea what to do for a follow-up feature. Money has already been spent for an elaborate film set but Guido does not know what to do with it. Hoping to find inspiration, Guido starts to look into his past and experiences a spiritual crisis as he finds it difficult to reconcile his carnal, commercial, and creative sides.

The famous sequence where Guido is reunited with all of the women he has crossed paths with in his life is a powerful sequence that is full of passion and energy. Yet, this same level of vigor is not maintained for the entire film and after a while the vivid yet disconnected imagery we are left with that is meant to symbolize Guido's aimlessness just becomes annoying. Fellini was a man ahead of his time in exploring the notion of creative bankruptcy in a commercial medium on such a sophisticated level. However, by using the narrative of "8 ½" to symbolize and deliver the message at the same time, he produced a film that comes across as too clever for its own good.

Rating:
Summary: "He is lost! He has NOTHING to say! A-HA-HA-HA-HA!"
Review: The best thing about this most classic of classic films about filmmaking is that all of its greatest and most famous sequences are both brilliantly done and profoundly funny. There's the great opening fantasy sequence of the confused film director at the center of the work, Guido (Marcello Mastroianni), rising out a traffic jam and ascending into the clouds; his initial walk through the Italian spa where he is recuperating catching a glimpse of his dream girl (Claudia Cardinale); and the hilarious sequence of his mistress (Sandra Milo, in a very endearing turn) arriving at the same outdoor café where he is dining with his wife (Anouk Aimee), locking eyes with her, and futilely trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Of course, there is also the great flashback of his childhood watching the monstrous prositute La Saraghina dance an erotic rumba for a group of schoolboys; the Dantesque descent into the spa's steambaths; and (funniest of all) the nightmarish press conference with the battery of reporters shouting out impossible questions the hero cannot answer. These are perhaps the best and most beautiful individual sequences Fellini ever did, and earn for this film its reputation as one of the greatest films of all time.

These scenes are so terrific that they even sustain you through what comes in between, and be warned: some of it is indeed pretty dull and excruciating, no matter how famous this film's reputation. The scenes with Guido arguing with his bitter and miserable wife Luisa are pretty hard to take, and your heart goes out to poor Anouk Aimee for having to wrestle with such a horribly unrewarding role. (Clearly, Fellini must have felt he gave the wife short shrift too by presenting her point of view with his next film, JULIET OF THE SPIRITS, which despite its grosser flaws is much more affecting than this more famous film, in part because so much more seems to be at stake for its more likeable central character). Also, you have to forgive this film for the self-justifying and self-glorifying works it inspired form many other artists from Woody Allen to Stephen Sondheim: Fellini is much more cognizant of his flaws in this autobiographical work--and of the horrors his artistic egotism can wreak upon his loved ones--that anything this film later inspired.