Is the idea of having no free will frightening? Fellini’s 8 1/2 is a film filled with unreality: Dreams, daydreams and memories.A daydream believer in a mid-life crisis. It was a final discarding of the stark neorealism that permeated his early in favor of personal fantasy and the invocation of image which would direct and shape the world of ideas. A world of the irrational and non-linear that would lead liberal orthodox reason by a leash. It was Freudian, Christian, Jungian, sexual and autobiographical images on a liberating cinematic stroll.It was a world without gravity; where fleeting mortal pleasures pitches teleology of the priests- and all institutional fear mongering- into doubt and to the wolves. It is this insidious “they” that pulls Marcello down at the beginning of the film as he flies; falling to earth with the thumping pain of authority, the long rope of the law on his leg, in something of the perspective of Dali’s Crucifixion. Like quicksilver, mercurial sense of freedom attached with a fine thread to an eroticized imagination….
The gravity here is just sick for revenge
Its like my lungs are filled with chains . . .
The sky seems so low,
It hasnt moved this slow
Since the virgins, since the virgins went dancing for the rain
You know the stars in the night
Theyre like the holes in the cave
Like the ceiling of a bombed-out church
But gravity blocks my screams
Its like an enemys dreams
My guardians quit
They quit before they started their search… ( Jim Carroll, Wicket Gravity )
---Fellini’s work was, as he said in an interview, very much informed from his reading of Jung that influenced much of his work in the studio from 8 1/2 to The Voice of the Moon, his final feature film. It was at that point that he started to consciously create archetypes on the set, rather than go to a location and film the passing moment. That is, the “ocean” rather than a particular seashore at a particular place and time. This sense of the essentialist, the absolute, which is found in the archetype, is the opposite of a realist tendency in which a temporal material reality in the present tense is all there is. Both tendencies are to be found in Fellini throughout his work and he seems to favor one or the other depending on the material. Yet his body of work does have a trajectory: it moves from his beginnings in Neo-Realism up to La Strada then shifts to favoring archetypal studio creations, from Juliet of the Spirits onwards. La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2 straddle both worlds, and in part for that very reason may be his most interesting films.---Read More:http://cineaction.ca/issue75sample.htm
Roger Ebert:”8 1/2″ is the best film ever made about filmmaking. It is told from the director’s point of view, and its hero, Guido (Marcello Mastroianni), is clearly intended to represent Fellini. It begins with a nightmare of asphyxiation, and a memorable image in which Guido floats off into the sky, only to be yanked back to earth by a rope pulled by his associates, who are hectoring him to organize his plans for his next movie. Much of the film takes place at a spa near Rome, and at the enormous set Guido has constructed nearby for his next film, a science fiction epic he has lost all interest in.
The film weaves in and out of reality and fantasy. Some critics complained that it was impossible to tell what was real and what was taking place only in Guido’s head, but I have never had the slightest difficulty, and there is usually a clear turning point as Guido escapes from the uncomfortable present into the accommodating world of his dreams. Read More:http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000528/REVIEWS08/5280301/1023 a
---The performances and the cinematography are key to the film's success. Even when the film becomes surrealistic, fantastic, the actors perform very realistically and the cinematography presents the scene in keeping with what we understand to be the reality of the characters lives and relationships. At the same time, however, the film has a remarkably poetic quality, a visual fluidity and beauty that transforms even the most ordinary events into something slightly tinged by a dream-like quality. Marcello Mastroianni offers a his greatest performance here, a delicate mixture of desperation and ennui, and he is exceptionally well supported by a cast that includes Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee, and a host of other notables... ---Read More:http://film.vtheatre.net/doc/8.5.html
…I want a world without gravity
It could be just what I need
Id watch the stars move close
Id watch the earth recede
I wanna drift above the borders against my will
I wanna sleep where the angels dont pass
But now my lips are blue
Gravity does it to you
Its like theyre pressed against a mirrored glass
I want my will and capability to meet inside the region
Where this gravity dont mean a thing
Its where the angels break through . . .
Its where they bring it to you
Its where silence, silence can teach me to sing… ( Jim Carroll )
Three kinds of nonreality weave around and intersect the bare outline of the nominal plot. These are Guido’s daydreams, dreams and memories. He spends about as much time out of present reality as in it. These three currents, controlled and uncontrollable, course round and through the dilemmas of his day, help explain them, and help fuse his resolution, desperate and inspired at the end. We see just enough of Guido’s past to understand some of his fixations and aversions; we see enough of his dreams to understand his fears and desires; we see enough of his daydreams to understand why he is an artist and just what the solaces and limitations of his art can be.
---Critics applauded Fellini’s adept and witty social commentary in La Dolce Vita, and the same element exists in 8 1/2 to emphasize the frivolity of bourgeois society. While guests of a ritzy health spa and people in the film industry may seem like easy targets, the elements that Fellini satirizes are relevant to middle- and upper-class society in general. Fellini embeds his satirical references in dialogue that is sometimes off-screen, making it easy to miss. For example, while Guido eyes Carla at the first grand evening at the hotel, we hear the voices of the American reporter and his wife, an American society woman who writes for women’s magazines. The American reporter is speaking to the French actress and her manager in French, expressing the simple opinion that a film should have a hero. His wife interrupts him twice with her nasal cawing, first with “What the hell are you talking about” then with “I don’t understand a damn bit of that French.” After the second interjection, her husband responds in English with “Oh dear, honey, don’t drink any more.” Fellini’s portrayal of the women’s magazine writer—the standard-setter for millions of women—as a crass drunk points to the foolish herd mentality of contemporary culture. The American reporter’s idle chatting with the French actress in her native tongue makes a subtler point: that reporters will do anything to get their story but really have nothing to say. The couple’s American nationality does not indicate Fellini’s antagonism to America but rather the quick spread of American pop culture worship into Europe---Read More:http://film.vtheatre.net/doc/8.5.html image:http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/8-1-2-Blu-ray/7731/
The most striking aspect of 8 1/2 which is not true of every film, not even of every fine film, is the very way it looks. The richness of almost every frame comes from three factors: first Fellini’s eye, second and third, the articulation of his intentions by the camerawork and by
design of settings and costumes. The cinematographer-Di Venanzo- sensitive gradations of black and white seem to have more color than many films shot in color, and at the same time the film revels in it black and whiteness.
…I wanna lay beneath these sheets and never turn blue
I wanna hold you, hold you tight but never touch
I want some pure, pure white; hey, we can nod all night
We can do it without thinking too much
I want the dilettantes and parvenues to choke on my wrists
They think the pearls I wear are pills
I want their gravity to shatter . . . but it really doesnt matter
I got something in my eye that kills!… ( Jim Carroll )
Ebert:The producer begs for quick rewrites; having paid for the enormous set, he insists that it be used. And from time to time Guido visualizes his ideal woman, who is embodied by Claudia Cardinale: cool, comforting, beautiful, serene, uncritical, with all the answers and no questions. This vision, when she appears, turns out to be a disappointment (she is as hopeless as all of the other actors), but in his mind he transforms her into a Muse, and takes solace in her imaginary support. read More:http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000528/REVIEWS08/5280301/1023 image:http://www.juliasantengallery.com/blog/?paged=3
The film begins in a dream,then flows into waking, then into a vision, then back to reality as seamlessly as well modulated music. And this much of the film sets its location for us. It takes place in Guido. Though the camera is not often subjective, it is through Guido’s center of self- frightened, chafed, greedy,loving, idealistic; that the picture flows, springing from every aspect of his consciousness. The pressure of the impending film on Guido, the real world, seems surpassed by his increasing knowledge about himself that peeling off truths about his sexual behavior, his guilts, his ultrasecret cache of glee about his guilt. These two forces keep battering at him since the burdens of the past impede him to deal with the film, his first pressure. The only refuge is escape: a girl in white either in sleep, or memory or daydream.
…The gravity here is just sick for revenge
It’s like my lungs are filled with chains . . .
The sky seems so low,
It hasn’t moved this slow
Since the virgins, since the virgins went dancing for the rain
You know the stars in the night
They’re like the holes in the cave
Like the ceiling of a bombed-out church
But gravity blocks my screams
It’s like an enemy’s dreams
My guardians quit
They quit before they started their search… ( Jim Carroll )
ADDENDUM:
George Porcari:Saraghina’s dance on the beach in Fellini’s 8 1/2 is awkward—really full of ridiculous gestures, embarrassing mannerisms—yet also beautiful, erotic and touching. The sea sparkles intensely behind her, refracting light as if we were seeing everything through a prism aimed directly at the sun. We see a woman—who is and is not “Woman”—weighed down by flesh, by matter, playing at being a Goddess. Again we are reminded of the Birth of Venus but now brought into a harsh unforgiving light that mocks the fantasy and reveals both its sordidness and its innocence. Only a child would fall for it—so she performs for children—and for us. The boys in tight constricting uniforms that make them look like little policemen with capes are the perfect foil for the barely dressed Saraghina. The fact that she is comfortable with her body—with her mortality—with the awkwardness of the erotic—that she takes pleasure in being in her own skin—that her attitude exudes (as with the “Umbrian Angel”) psychic and physical well being makes her the enemy of the priests. This is because she has discovered that the creative links between imagination and erotic play lead not only to pleasure but to a communion with fellow humans that is essential. read more:http://cineaction.ca/issue75sample.htm image:http://npclaridad.tumblr.com/post/638881182/oldhollywood-eddra-gale-as-la-saraghina-in
The Tyranny of the Mind:
Fellini’s subjective technique of documenting Guido’s train of thought from reality to daydream and back again, unburdened from traditional perspective shifts and dramatic convention, seems liberating when we view 8 1/2. This placement of daydream and reality side by side comes across as a very convincing depiction of the way in which we actually experience life, reminding us of the mind’s power to transcend everyday reality. But at the same time, the film makes this process, in which observation alternates with imagination, seem somewhat frightening, as it is something over which we have little control. For example, Guido would never choose to have the nightmare of the opening sequence or to imagine his colleagues in the steam baths as hell-bound invalids. His thoughts and daydreams are involuntary. Though this aspect of the mind cannot be consciously controlled, it is interesting to observe the manner in which the subconscious directs it. In the Saraghina sequence, for example, Guido’s subconscious alters the memory to make himself seem more innocent. In Guido’s fantasies about Claudia, excess sound is silenced so that Guido can focus more closely on her. Guido’s dreams seem designed in order to call his attention to his problems. In this way the control of the mind seems constructive, yet the idea of having no free will is frightening. Read More:http://film.vtheatre.net/doc/8.5.html
Read More:http://www.altfg.com/blog/directors/federico-fellini-eight-and-a-half-screening/
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