8 1/2

8 1/2

This is embarrassing.

I've seen a lot of movies over the years. I'll watch almost anything; I've even seen a movie called Tuxedo Warrior, for crying out loud. But despite decades of watching films, I have never seen a Fellini movie. He's only considered one of the greatest directors ever, but he somehow slipped through my movie-watching cracks. It's embarrassing. When he heard this, a film professor friend of mine shook his head at me in disgust, rightfully so, shoved the DVD of 8 1/2 in my face, and demanded, "Watch this immediately."

Directed by Fellini and starring Marcello Mastroianni, 8 1/2 is about director Guido Anselmi, a hugely successful Italian director who is suffering from severe creative block on his upcoming science fiction film. The script isn't close to being finished, what does exist of the script is a mess, Guido doesn't even really know what the story is, money is being spent on massive sets that don't yet have a purpose, actors are showing up asking what their role is, and all Guido wants to do is get away from everyone. It doesn't help that he is dealing with some severe lady issues - a fractured marriage, a bothersome mistress, and recurring flashbacks to his mother and that scary prostitute he danced with on the beach when he was a kid.

The flick is a bit of an odd duck; it is almost like the criticisms of Guido's film in 8 1/2 are also all true in 8 1/2 itself. Except in 8 1/2, this is actually a good thing. You can see Fellini pushing the boundaries of filmmaking with every frame. Fellini is going crazy, experimenting with camera angles, switching scenes without any sort of transition, weaving in and out of fantasy and flashback without a moment's notice and filling the screen with random absurdity. And it is an avant garde film is that brave enough (or foolish enough) to actually mock avant garde films! The strange thing is that it all somehow works - probably because it is so funny. I have always been a big fan of random, absurd humor - and it is interesting that this style of humor which is so commonplace now was once considered the height of art. You watch Zoolander with its Breakdance Fighting and Walk-Off, you watch the Centaur dream in Stepbrothers, you watch the opening dance number in Kung Fu Hustle, you watch half of Woody Allen's movies...I am not professional film scholar, so I might be wrong about this, but I think you can probably trace a lot of this comedy back to Fellini.

8 1/2 is also certainly an autobiographical picture, with Guido standing in for Fellini himself. And that ultimately is the film's greatest strength. As strange as it is, the emotion, the indecision, the stress all feels real. With all this honesty, it would have been easy to slip into melodrama, but despite his personal attachment, Fellini is careful about focusing on the absurdity first - he even had a piece of paper taped by his viewfinder that read, "Ricordati che e un film comico" ("Remember, this is a comedy film first").

If there is a flaw in the movie, it is that the end is a bit anti-climactic - this is especially because the most famous scene in the movie, where Guido imagines himself in a harem on the verge of revolt ("I don't want to go to the second floor!!") is so brilliant, so insane, so funny, and so exploding to the brim with energy that it seems like it is the climax of the film. But then the movie continues trucking along for awhile longer and since nothing matches the energy of that scene, the movie really begins to drag.

The acting is good throughout. Mastroianni is terrific and charismatic. Sandra Milo, Claudia Cardinale, and Anouk Aimee are all quite good as his mistress, the object of his infatuation, and his wife, respectively.

One last note: any one who thinks they know 8 1/2 because they have seen the musical remake Nine is in for a rude surprise. The basic story thread is the same, but that is it. All the imagination and the humor are missing from Nine, which is basically just a well-acted musical about Italian angst (though I will give Nine this - I would take the heartbreaking Marion Cotillard over Anouk; it is the one role that is improved in the remake/musical).

I'm glad I have finally seen my first Fellini film. It's a bizarre movie, but for the most part I really liked it. But I took comfort in the fact that even in the tougher stretches, I was in the stable hands of a Master.   

MVP: Fellini. Like I said, it's clear this cat knows what he's doing. He's a master. And I have sneaking suspicion he made this movie up while he was going along!

BEST LINE: Writer, criticizing Guido's script (and 8 1/2 itself, in a way): "What stands out in the first reading is the lack of a central issue or a philosophical stance. That makes the film a chain of gratuitous episodes that may even be amusing in their ambivalent realism. You wonder, what is the director trying to do? Scare us? That plot betrays a basic lack of poetic inspiration."

TRIVIA: The title of the movie actually comes from nowhere deep or profound. It is simply the number of movies Fellini had made. He had directed 6 feature films and 2 shorts, and co-directed one other movie. The co-direction and the 2 shorts counted as half a film each. So therefore, he considered 8 1/2 to be his 8 and a halfth film.