Fellini has made many masterpieces, but this 1963 Oscar-winner is arguably one of his most brilliant and influential films, boasting a seminal performance from Marcello Mastroianni.
8 1/2 (1963)
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Reviews Counted:33
Fresh:32
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.4/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 18 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Federico Fellini's Oscar-nominated 8 1/2 is a masterpiece of storytelling and cinema. The most autobiographical of Fellini's films, the plot of which concerns a 43-year-old film director who is... Federico Fellini's Oscar-nominated 8 1/2 is a masterpiece of storytelling and cinema. The most autobiographical of Fellini's films, the plot of which concerns a 43-year-old film director who is having a midlife crisis, it is a career benchmark for this magnificent Italian New Wave director. Beautifully choreographed with flashbacks, dream sequences, exaggerated fantasy scenes, and magical surrealist episodes, 8 1/2 is one of the richest, most exuberant movies ever made, in the mode of Fellini's artfully abstract LA DOLCE VITA and AMARCORD. Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) is at a crisis point in his life and his work; in the opening sequence, Guido, suffocating, is caught in traffic with the windows of his car locked shut. He climbs out of the sunroof and literally rises up over the highway into the clouds, seemingly free, when he realizes there's a rope tied around his ankle that is violently pulling him back to earth. Cutting from this dream to the health spa where Guido is trying to recapture his creativity and write the screenplay for his next film, his vices become clear: Guido is self-absorbed, and he's distracted by the fabulous cast of actresses, intellectuals, and eccentrics who have joined him at the spa. Additionally he struggles with Freudian complexes about his wife (Anouk Aimée), his lover (Sandro Milo), his ideal woman (Claudia Cardinale), and his dead parents; and his repressive Catholic guilt follows him everywhere like a haunting mist. [More]
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Mario Pisu
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Mario Pisu, Barbara Steele, Sandra Milo, Rosella Falk
Director: Federico Fellini
Director: Federico Fellini
Screenwriter: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, Brunello Rondi
Producer: Angelo Rizzoli
Composer: Nino Rota
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Release:
Oct 8, 2002
Reviews for 8 1/2
[A] fascinating and highly-influential masterpiece from Federico Fellini.
Unless Fellini's problem has been preying on the mind of the viewer, he may not care to take on the director's doubts and confusions.
It's Fellini's last black-and-white picture and conceivably the most gorgeous and inventive thing he ever did.
Here is the author-director picture par excellence, an exciting, stimulating, monumental creation.
Amiably spiking all criticism through a gloomy scriptwriter mouthpiece, Fellini pulls a multitude of rabbits out of the showman's hat.
Fellini's manic, larger-than-life 8 1/2 rules as the king of all Italian movies.
Fellini was so incredibly creative that when he was mentally blocked, he turned his inner struggle into a phenomenal masterpiece of introspection.
Fellini's flights into the surreal are his self-examination and confession. Alas, unlike Bergman, his confession is without moral rigor; he wants to be indulged, not absolved.
Here is a piece of entertainment that will really make you sit up straight and think, a movie endowed with the challenge of a fascinating intellectual game.
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