8½ (1963)

Available on DVD from http://www.odeonent.co.uk Probably Fellini's most acclaimed work, 8½ won two Oscars ® including Best Foreign Film, and is one of the gr...

Directed by Federico Fellini. With Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Claudia Cardinale, Sandra Milo. A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.

8½ (1963) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.

Exhausted from the success of his latest blockbuster film, already feeling pressured to come up with another smash hit, and suffering from a massive creative block, filmmaker Guido Anselmi (Marc Mastroianni) heads off for a mountain resort to recharge and come up with a new idea. His search for inspiration leads him down many strange, twisted paths and these journeys provide the basis of the rollicking, at times riotous, long and mesmerizing 8 1/2, simultaneously one of Fellini's best loved and most deeply personal films. Anselmi's mental journey begins with thoughts of the past. He remembers his parents and a strange scene in which he sees an overweight prostitute dancing on a beach. Boyhood memories are gradually supplanted by those of adolescence and eventually lead him to his current romantic travails as he tries to service a wife and mistress. Increasingly the line between his musing and his real-life activities begins to fade, making it difficult for viewers to discern. In one scene he gives a press conference on the set of his unmade film. Still exhausted and empty, he cannot answer the many questions asked by the media about the production. Ultimately, he abandons the film and begins dreaming of death and longing for the freedom it could bring. As the fantasy progresses, every major figure in his life appears. He himself becomes a flute-playing child and together he and the people begin to dance in a circle as the story comes to a close. The title represents the number of films Fellini had made at that time.

The conventional wisdom is that Federico Fellini went wrong when he abandoned realism for personal fantasy; that starting with "La Dolce Vita" (1959), his work ran wild through jungles of Freudian, Christian, sexual and autobiographical images. The precise observation in "La Strada" (1954) was the high point of his career, according to this view, and then he abandoned his neorealist roots. "La Dolce Vita" was bad enough, "8 1/2" (1963) was worse, and by the time he made "Juliet of the Spirits" (1965), he was completely off the rails. Then all is downhill, in a career that lasted until 1987, except for "Amarcord" (1974), with its memories of Fellini's childhood; that one is so charming that you have to cave in and enjoy it, regardless of theory.

Before I get into this, I want to make mention “A FILM TO REMEMBER” will be a series about films that have reached a milestone anniversary since their origin in being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. The articles will contain the film’s plot outline, direct

Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s 8½ (Otto e mezzo) turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. An early working title for 8½ was The Beautiful Confusion, and Fellini’s masterpiece is exactly that: a shimmering dream, a circus, and a magic act.

Federico Fellini never stuck to the facts. At his best, his films strike a perfect balance between fantasy and reality – and nowhere is this more evident than in his autobiographical classic, 8½

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

1⁄2 (Italian title: Otto e mezzo Italian pronunciation: [ˈɔtto e ˈmɛddzo]) is a 1963 Italian surrealist comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a fam