#federico fellini
8 ½ (1963) Federico Fellini
The story, such as it is, consists of a director’s flashbacks and fantasies he experiences while in the middle of an emotional and creative crisis. That story is merely a platform for a highly stylized cavalcade of jet-set Eurotrash, wild parties, and a bevy of otherworldly women (Anouk Aimee, Claudia Cardinale, and Barbara Steele, among others). These women come and go, not necessarily speaking of Michelangelo (sorry; couldn’t resist a bad T. S. Eliot pun and reference to that other Italian director).
It’s also a platform for Marcello Mastroianni, the ne plus ultra of Italian cool and possibly the hippest man in the world in 1963. He embodies what functions as a self-portrait of Fellini, effortlessly gliding through a bizarre realm of celebrity and self doubt and self aggrandizement. The supporting cast, too, is something to behold. There are only hints of the European gargoyles who would populate Felinni’s subsequent works, but enough strange faces and voices are present to make indelible impressions.
Woody Allen paid an intricately detailed tribute to this picture with Stardust Memories, in much the same way that Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks sent a Valentine to Universal Pictures’ monster series with Young Frankenstein. But who could resist emulating this oneiric spectacle? Nino Rota’s lilting score and Gianni Di Venanzo’s camera are mesmerizing. And Mastroianni just owns it.
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