I'd been meaning to watch this one for years because I'd read it’s a great example of surrealism in film and blending fantasy and memory into objective reality. This movie happens to be even a bit more relatable and cutting as it is by a creative person about their creative struggles. I always find this really nice and reassuring that even these huge directors, who's success hinges on their ability to HAVE A VISION and pull that vision together with a team, still struggle with not having answers. or not feeling relevant.
I watched a short interview with Terry Gilliam on the disc talking about the film and he calls out the shot of Guido walking down the hallway in the hotel where various cast and crew are popping out of their rooms needing answers how to execute their jobs. And Guido has no answers... and by the end is literally dancing away from them. Avoiding the responsibility. It’s a really beautiful visual pun illustrating the feeling or issue.
...clearly Fellini was working on a movie, he didn't know how to finish it, it wasn't coming together, and so he wrote a movie about making a movie, about a director who doesn't know how to make or finish his movie.
And funnily Fellini actually tells it a different way, where it was during the production of this same film, a film he intended to be about a creative person (maybe a writer?) who suffers a creative block that he lost his way after the DP was hired, sets built and booked... he visited the set and felt ashamed the he had lost the idea, he had no vision... and in that feeling he found the film.
The crisis came to a head in April when, sitting in his Cinecittà office, he began a letter to Rizzoli confessing he had "lost his film" and had to abandon the project. Interrupted by the chief machinist requesting he celebrate the launch of 8 1⁄2, Fellini put aside the letter and went on the set. Raising a toast to the crew, he "felt overwhelmed by shame… I was in a no exit situation. I was a director who wanted to make a film he no longer remembers. And lo and behold, at that very moment everything fell into place. I got straight to the heart of the film. I would narrate everything that had been happening to me. I would make a film telling the story of a director who no longer knows what film he wanted to make".[11]
This is the kind of like, Oscar-bait navel gazing films about films we are all pretty used to seeing in the last 20 years, and that can be a little annoying at times. but I really appreciated this one. Making work is hard, being creative is hard. Leading a team is hard. Collaborating is hard. I appreciate this candor.
AND ALSO somehow about 1:45:00 into the film I thought it just seemed impossibly long. Like is this movie going end? or naw...
And it was very Interesting to see things Tarantino ripped in their original context (the dancing midfilm for Pulp Fiction, the Mia Wallace styling) and what feels like circus music (by Nino Rota) that Danny Elfman must have been aware of when he wrote the theme from Pee Wee's big adventure. It feels also related to Synecdoche New York another meta film which is surreal and funny, but also incredibly brutal.
++++
Anyway, Fellini kills, very fun. Very Style. I give it Eight (e mezzo) Parmesan Wheels.
