Rating: 
Summary: Accept me as I am. Only then can we discover each other.
Review: Wow. Wow. Double Wow. I was unsure what I was about to indulge myself in when I first picked up this film. Foreign, Fellini, and Oscar were all that I knew about this mythological film. I had read about it in books, read reviews of it on top ten lists, but never found myself in the same room as it. I wanted to see this so passionately that when it arrived I immediately popped it into my player and began watching it. What I witnessed was like a drug on the brain. The images, the story, the sheer brilliance and force behind the crafty eye of Fellini brought me deeper into this film than any other I have seen. This is not easy for me to say because I have seen tons of films in my lifetime, but this film really takes the cake. The brilliant black and white photography, the powerful ear-gobbling music, and the acting - Marcello Mastroianni controls this film. You cannot seem to get your eyes off his scenes. All of these elements create an innovative, provocative film based loosely on the life of Fellini, but also about the competitive and dragging world of film creation.
From the opening scene, the tone is set in this film. As we see Guido (Mastroianni) trying to escape a smoking car while nobody tries to help, we are captured. The senses are heightened, and claustrophobia sets in and never leaves throughout the rest of the film. Fellini has trapped us into this character and is beginning our roller-coaster ride known as Guido's life. As we meet the rest of the characters, that looming claustrophobia continues to stay with us. We add to this grab bag of emotions the struggle that Guido has with women, the stress pressures of completing a film that he has no clue how to start. The only idea he has deals with a large structure that seems to keep the producers at bay. Couple with this his struggling childhood memories of women and the angry power of his wife. It is hard not to be involved with Guido throughout the course of this film because of these intense emotions that Fellini has fed to us.
Outside of the emotional aspects of this film, it is beautifully directed. Fellini pulls no stops (nor does Criterion) in the creation of this film. The music, the actors, and even the beauty of the random, chaotic scene works to perfection everytime. This is not a film you can sit down and enjoy once, it is definitely one that needs to be played over and over again. In the film Sideways, Giamatti's character talks about wine being "never the same each time you drink it". Each sip produces a new flavor and even if you open another bottle of the same, it may not be able to replicate the same exact taste. That is how I feel about this film. The first time I watched it, I was oblivious to the surroundings and the sub-stories. I was so engulfed with Guido that I couldn't keep my eyes off him. If I were to watch 8 ½ again, focusing on a different aspect, I am sure to see a different film than I originally saw. That is the greatness of Fellini, he directs so that each time you watch you are constantly seeing something new. I saw that with his film Juliet of the Spirits as well. I am not as voiced in Fellini as I should be, but these two films have proved that I need to see more and more of his work.
Finally, I would like to say that I enjoyed this film for a direct reason. You don't see this technique used in many Hollywood films today, and I think that is why it caught my eye in Fellini's masterpiece. You could be sitting in a room full of friends and family, and honestly each person in the room (as the final credits ran) would say that they saw a different film than what you thought. It is like going into an art museum for the first time. You can all look at the same visions, but it is how you perceive these visions that makes it a great piece of art. Fellini did this with 8 ½. I don't know if it was on purpose, or if he had a direct vision for some of the scenes, but when it was done there were several different thoughts about this film. I guess what I am trying to say is that it creates conversation. This isn't a film that you sit down, watch, and walk away without a word muttered through your lips. This is a piece of art that will remain in your mind long after the film is over, causing questions to arise days, weeks, months after viewing. I still ask questions about Guido's dream where the women from his past and present all live in the same house as him. It is so deep and beautiful that it erupts with conversation daily. I find that a great tool for grading films is how much conversation occurs after them. Good or bad, if you can talk about it at lengths with friends, than you know you have something special on your hands.
Overall, I was extremely impressed with this film. While the ending was a bit confusing, I continued to think about it long after the film was over and came to realize that Fellini is a master of film. I cannot wait to watch this film again, and again, and again. It should have won for best film of the year in 1964, or at least for best director, but alas, I can live with the best Foreign Film of the year. This film should be at or near the top of everyone's favorites list and should be served with an amazing red wine, an open mind, and good friends. It is the perfect combination for this priceless film.
Grade: ***** out of *****
Rating: 
Summary: 8 1/2 gets 2
Review: Criterion 2-disk version review:
Tedious fictional semi-autobiographical story about a film director who is working on a movie but can't figure out a plot or ending. I can see where people might think this is a great art film, but I found it a struggle to watch (once with and once without commentary).
The commentors point out every little nuance that is supposed to mean something - whether it truly does is debatable - "this scene with Guido totally in darkness while Claudia is in light means..."..."notice how the succession of large closups shows..." etc.
I could only sit through about 5 or 10 minutes of the hour long feature about Fellini - very tedious as some 1960's Italian hippies were trying to make some point (or joke). (In Italian with subtitles).
Interview with Sandra was pretty nice. Sampled and passed on other interviews.
Documentary on Nino Rota (in German with subtitles) was OK, though I was not that interested and bailed early.
Passed on photographs.
The booklet has some interesting background in which Fellini explains he had a type of "director's block" and decided to make a movie about that.
The movie was beautifully filmed in black-and-white, had interesting use of light and shadow, and included some nice images and sets. The opening scene was good, but it was all downhill from there.
Time for another 60's classic, "Fractured Flickers".
Rating:
Summary: Fellini's Best
Review: This review if for the Criterion Collection DVD of the film.
8½ (pronunced in Italian as "Otto e Mezzo") is inarguably Federico Fellini's most famous movie. It has been widely regarded as a masterpiece and a gem by film critics everywhere. The film won two Adademy awards® one for best foreign language film and was nominated for three others including best director.
The movie is about a filmmaker who struggles with ideas for a new movie that he plans to work on. He frequently has nightmares and flashbacks based on previous events in his life.
The film is incredibly photographed in has some good long shots my favorite of which is when the camera pans across an outdoor picnic with Wagner's "Ride of the Valkries" played by an unseen orchestra (we only see the conductor.)
The DVD has great special features also
Disc 1 contains the film with an optional audio essay by Fellini friend, Gideon Bachmann and NYU film professor, Antonio Monda. It also contains a theatrical trailer and an introduction presented by Terry Gilliam.
Disc 2 contains the Fellini autobiographical film "Fellini: A Director's Notebook",
"Nino Rota: Between Cinema and Concert", an excellent biographical documentary on Italian film composer Nino Rota who composed music for many of Fellini's films but is best known for writing the music in the Godfather movies. He originally composed the famous Godfather theme for the film "Fortunella" co-written by Fellini.
Disc 2 also contains official behind the scenes photos and some ameteur photos by Gideon Bachmann. There are also interviews with Sandra Milo, Lina Wertmüller, and Vittorio Storaro.
This is a must-buy for fans of Italian cinema
Rating:
Summary: Otto E Mezzo
Review: Fellini's '8 1/2' is a film imprinted in its own stark, whirling flashes of beauty, it creates its own crazily-logical language based on the most primal of images, dreams, nightmares, fantasies. It paints a portrait of a man, a silhouette of creation, drunk on nihilism and trying to recreate past emotions. Fellini lights Mastroianni's face in a canvas of melancholic observation, his sad eyes reflecting the eyes of Fellini: The sadness of the beautiful man who lives in his creations, in his delicate and maddening dreams, alienated by all that he is surrounded by, finding refuge only in the images he creates with a mad precision, commanding chaos in such a logical way, the way that Poe spoke of death with such descriptive certainty. Guido, Fellini's autobiographical character in '8 1/2' is a man longing for the past even before it has passed, a man who lives always and only in the imaginary: be it in reoccurring, adulterated memories of the past or nightmares or dreams, Guido is a slave to his blank, sterile and yet entirely fabricated thoughts. And as Fellini, the giant ringmaster, the artist of the grotesque, weaves his spell across the screen, creating beauty in voids of nothingness, we are hypnotized as we are watching Fellini film a portrait of himself. By making no distinction between the reality of the imaginary and the reality of 'life', Fellini comes the closest a filmmaker will ever come to filming a portrait of himself and the process of thought at the same time. Guido is so desperate for something coherent or something conventional, that he recreates his life in the form of a dream, finding clichés in his everyday life because it gives him a feeling of superficial understanding. And Fellini uses Guido as a feeling of understanding for himself, that a film could be so much about the act of creation and yet so distracted by it is incredible (Fellini shows us the differences of creation in the reality of life and in the reality of art by never mentioning the film that Guido is shooting). Cinema was everything to Fellini, he used it not only to deconstruct himself but to confess himself, it's a cathedral of truth for Fellini, the self-proclaimed liar. The artist who offered a film as an explanation for his existence.
Rating:
Summary: A film about (not knowing how to) love
Review: I've been re-watching Fellini's 8 1/2 with all the commentaries... supposedly this is a "film about film". But, I think, it is a film about love.
Even the title, I think is about the women in his life. Throughout the movie the director-protagonist is beseiged by reporters and critics asking about his new film and one of the repeated questions is, "Why don't you make a film about love?". His friend's neice teases him that he does not know how.
Well, I think, this is how this film started- was the story Frederico was trying to tell but, as Guido agonizes to his sister at the rocket launch platform, he has lost his way. He wanted to tell such a simple story, "No lies at all. One that would help people bury forever all these dead things we carry around."
The "perfect woman" who appears to him at the spa's healing spring and gives him water is the actress later walking through the streets with him as he agonizes over his life. She tells him then that he does not know how to love.
Oh, sad heart, sad heart, he is Everyman.
We can see the reasons for this as we are taken through his childhood memories, the stark role divisions, the repressive Catholic torture and Madonna/Whore template.
His sister is his best connection to his soul from their childhood games of asa nisa masa (ai ni ma) to her adult connection to Spirit being who tells him, "You are free-but you must choose And you don't have much time.".
The actress who plays the director's mistress in the film was actually Fellini's mistress for 17 years. The interview with her is AMAZING!
The ending of the film was changed at the last minute-it was originally going to be the protagonist in a dream-visualization seeing all the women of his life together in a dining car, not the parade ending. Did Fellini chicken out, not wanting to give himself away too brazenly, or did he himself even realize what his film was about???
1. Grandmother
2. Mother
3.Saraghina
4. Wife
5.Mistress
6.Sister
7.Friend's mistress (gloria)
8. The woman at the Spring
1/2. the Next Woman(in the Harem scene he asks, "But who are you?")
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I think, the most important thing in this world is to learn how to truly love. To open ourselves deep enough to share a living dream of love, freedom, creativity, divinity. To learn to live this knowledge of the Soul in real life.
Yeah, I think, it's the only Revolution that will save the world.
And, in such a subliminal way, this is what comes across in this film.
Rating: 
Summary: A CONTROVERSIAL MOVIE.
Review: Frequently, the name or label "Art film" is given to a movie that presents innovative techniques, an experimental narrative, abstract and ambiguous characters, complex dialogues...and slow pace, with complicated scenes, so complicated that the audience doesn't quite know what's happening, sure you can say a theory or what you think might be happening, but in the "Art films" sometimes even the director can't give an accurate explanation. Anyway, since "8 1/2" presents all those elements, "8 1/2" is an art film.Federico Fellini's cinema is one of the most mysterious and influent styles at the same time, modern filmmakers such as David Lynch owe a lot to the italian director. With "8 1/2" happens something very interesting, there are a lot of scenes that are almost incomprehensible, but they are very interesting to see, because since the movie offers few explanations, the audience must be thinking most of the time, trying to solve the puzzle, so "8 1/2" requires an active audience. The cast is very good, the obvious mentions are Marcello Mastroianni and the gorgeous actress Claudia Cardinale. "8 1/2" presents some of Fellini's trademarks: there are a lot of surreal scenes that look like a complicated Dream, or a Nightmare if you wish. The use of the camera is very artistic and groundbreaking. And the pace is slow. The thing with the "Art cinema" is that for some, it's the only way of cinema that really counts, and for others the art cinema is just a pretentious way to call a slow and boring movie. I choose not to be in any of those extremes, I rather be in the middle because to me "8 1/2" is a very, very interesting movie, worthy of study and analysis, but sincerely I think that Fellini did better movies, like "La Strada" or "La Dolce Vita". Anyway, "8 1/2" definitely is not for fans of the "American Pie" trilogy or the Adam Sandler's comedies. "8 1/2" is for lovers of the cinema in its more artistic expression.
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