8 1/2

An autobiographical fantasy about a filmmaker mired in a creative impasse. Here, for the first time, Fellini dove into his dreams as a source of psychological self-analysis and baroque, extravagant imagery. It’s at this point that Fellini films become sui generis, or unmistakably “Felliniesque”, an adjective inspired by his exuberant, erotic, if often grotesque and surreal imagery.

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.

In 2022 8½ dropped down to #31 in the Sight & Sound poll of Greatest Films (it was #10 in 2012), but other filmmakers rate it more highly – it was #6 in the Director’s poll.

Sunday’s screening in our PANTHEON series will feature free refreshments and a short introduction by an expert in the field.

Aug 20: Introduced by Harry Killas, Associate Professor, Film + Screen Arts, at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Harry Killas is a Canadian director, writer and producer whose films include Is There a Picture and Greek to Me.

Arguably the film that most accurately captures the agonies of creativity and the circus that surrounds filmmaking, equal parts narcissistic, self-deprecating, bitter, nostalgic, warm, critical and funny. Dreams, nightmares, reality and memories coexist within the same time-frame; the viewer sees Guido’s world not as it is, but more ’realistically’ as he experiences it, inserting the film in a lineage that stretches from the Surrealists to David Lynch.

Mar Diestro-Dópido

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