8 ½ is a 1963 semi- autobiographical film directed by Federico Fellini starring Marcello Mastroianni. I’m going to be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t quite understand this movie but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I have my own interpretation of the film that might be wildly different from other people’s interpretations but that’s ok. I think this film’s greatest strength is its ambiguity. It’s a film that warrants repeat viewings.
Synopsis
8 ½’s plot is not all that important but on the most basic level this movie is about Guido Anselmi, played by Marcello Mastroianni, a famous film director who is working on a new science fiction movie while trying to work through a severe creative block. As the stress from the film’s production mounts Guido becomes more and more wrapped up in his daydreams and fantasies. These fantasy segments often revolve around Guido’s childhood and his relationship with the women in his life primarily his wife, his mistress, and his mother.
A Movie about Movie Making
At it’s core I think 8 ½ is a film about the creative process and the stress that comes with being a director. Fellini has disputed this in the past but the character of Guido is clearly meant to be an avatar for Fellini himself, at least to some degree. In this way the film reminds me a lot of Christopher Nolan’s Inception. A common theory regarding Inception, that I happen to believe, is that the process of inception is meant to mirror the process of making a movie. If that is in fact the case than Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is meant to represent the director role and be Nolan’s avatar in the movie. In 8 ½ Fellini uses Mastroianni as his avatar. Interesting that both Nolan and Fellini chose actors that look like better versions of themselves to play the role of director in their respective films.
Unlike Nolan’s avatar who is cool, calm and collected throughout the film, Fellini’s Guido is a ball of insecurities and self doubt. The character is constantly asking others for thoughts on his movie and when he does make a decision he immediately regrets it. All that being said, the character is also tremendously arrogant. Mastroianni does a great job at making Guido come off as a holier than thou creative genius who thinks he’s smarter than everyone while also believing himself to be a total imposture. I think this is probably one of the most accurate representations of a director’s mindset ever put to film.
No Such Thing as a Wrong Interpretation
This film plays so much with non-linear storytelling and surrealism that you can read it a lot of different ways. You can make the argument that the film is about the anxieties that come with modernism. In that same vain the film has a lot of religious undertones and questions about if religion is still relevant in our modern society. There is a lot to be said about Guido’s relationship to women. His position as a film director grants him power that he uses towards women. He is also fixated on controlling women, there is a extended fantasy sequence where we see a harem of women catering to his every whim. At the same time the women in this movie are the people that call Guido out on his creative insecurities. There are probably dozens of other themes and ideas that can be extracted from but the main theme that I latched onto was doubt.
Are Movies Necessary?
Fellini presents the creative process as being extremely stressful and full of self doubt. There’s no better representation of that crippling self doubt like the very first scene in the film. We see a man stuck in traffic while his car slowly fills with smoke and he is suffocated. Doubt can creep in and choke you out, it’s unavoidable. Guido doubts himself at every step, he even refuses to tell his actors what roles they will be playing become he hasn’t come up with the roles yet.
In the film’s final scenes we see that Guido’s film has been shut down. A film critic praises Guido’s actions and claims that true perfection is not creating anything especially what you plan to create is not necessary. This is an extremely important scene. It reveals the central doubt that lays in the heart of every filmmaker and probably every artist. It is really easy to convince yourself that art does not matter. If you compare making a movie to building a house or performing surgery than it can look pretty trivial but art does matter. Whatever you make is never going to be perfect but the expression is what matters. Being vulnerable putting your worldview out there for other people to see and interpret matters.
During the screening scene we see just how uncomfortable it is for Guido to show his art to other people. They probe and prod at it and ask him all of these questions about what it means, it looks like a horrible experience. However, at the end of the film Guido has a revelation. In order for him to okay with creating his art and putting it out there he has to accept himself for who he is all his flaws included. These sentiments towards movie making seem quite personal, I can’t say for sure but I think this is a pretty accurate representation of how Fellini sees his relationship to cinema.
Final Thoughts
8 ½ is an interesting movie to discuss. I think as a movie in the traditional sense of the word, it falls short in a myriad of ways. Aside from Guido most of the other characters are fairly one dimensional. The plot is largely irrelevant and as wonderful as some of the fantasy sequences are I can see how they can be confusing and disorienting to some audiences. But at the same time the movie does something that not many other movies do, it gets you to think and think actively. You can’t passively watch this film, you have to be engaged and alert at all times Fellini packs each frame with so much imagery and things to unpack that if you look away for a second you miss something.
