8½

An iconic breakdown of the role of the artist, creativity, writer’s block, and Italian machismo, in gorgeous black and white photography: it’s 8½. Emerging at the height of Fellini’s international reputation following the success of La Dolce Vita, it’s now firmly in the frame as one his masterworks, ranked the 31st best film of all time on the 2022 Sight & Sound critics poll and 6th in the directors poll — tied with our closing night film, Vertigo.

Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido, a successful film director (and stand-in for Fellini) who retreats to a health spa while attempting to begin his next production. Surrounded by producers demanding answers, actors awaiting direction, journalists seeking clarity, and the competing pressures of his wife and mistress, Guido drifts between present reality, childhood memory and elaborate fantasy. Scenes unfold with a fluid dream logic, moving effortlessly from intimate confession to grand spectacle.

Fellini’s camera glides through vast sets and private recollections, while Nino Rota’s score shifts between melancholy and carnival brightness. The result is a film about the hurdles of making art that exudes creativity and flair in every scene. A landmark of modern cinema that continues to influence filmmakers and enthral audiences more than sixty years on – we think it will be the perfect film to cap off our 80th Anniversary Film Festival weekend.

“What would Fellini do after La dolce vita? We all wondered. How would he top himself? Would he even want to top himself? Would he shift gears? Finally, he did something that no one could have anticipated at the time. He took his own artistic and life situation—that of a filmmaker who had eight and a half films to his name […] achieved international renown with his last feature and felt enormous pressure when the time came for a follow-up—and he built a movie around it. 8½ has always been a touchstone for me, in so many ways—the freedom, the sense of invention, the underlying rigor and the deep core of longing, the bewitching, physical pull of the camera movements and the compositions…” – Martin Scorsese, Criterion