8 1/2 Literary Elements

Federico Fellini

Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo

Guido Alberti, Claudia Cardinale, Jean Rougeul, Rossella Falk, Mario Pisu, Barbara Steele

Comedy-drama

Italian

Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design (1964). Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Awards for Best Director, Best Producer, Best Supporting Actress (Sandra Milo), Best Screenplay, Best Original Story, Best Cinematography, and Best Score (1964). Moscow International Film Festival Grand Prix (1963).

June 25, 1963

Angelo Rizzoli

1960s Italy

Fellini's camera is subjective in the extreme, often acting as an extension of Guido's own mind as it drifts in and out of reality, fantasy, and dream.

Surreal, absurd, dreamlike, theatrical, satirical, self-referential, fantastical

Guido Anselmi (Protagonist and Antagonist)

Guido Anselmi struggles with his own "director's block" as he attempts to get a handle on the epic science fiction film he's directing, especially as it portrays elements of his tumultuous real-life relationship to women.

The film's climax comes in Guido's nightmare of a press conference for his upcoming film, when he hides under a table and shoots himself with a gun.

-In Guido's first dream sequence—the opening of the film—he ascends to the sky in flight only to find his foot bound in a rope held by a man standing below him on the ground; this man eventually pulls him down to earth. This foreshadows the ups and downs of Guido's battle with creative block throughout the film.
-Guido's continual fantasies of Claudia dressed in white foreshadows Guido's eventual meeting with her in reality.
-When Guido enters his hotel to find his production team waiting, he ascends to the lobby in an elevator filled with priests. This foreshadows his later meetings with the local clergy, wherein he will confront the intersection of cinema and religion.
-The film's opening dream sequence, in which Guido is stuck in traffic, foreshadows the press conference in which cars will likewise descend on the area where Guido's spaceship set is built.

N/A

-"8 1/2" experiments with a stream-of-consciousness structure and magical realism rarely seen in films before or after it.

-The Cardinal recites four creeds written by Origen, the early Christian theologian.
-The elaborate scaffolding structure built for Guido's film resembles the Tower of Babel.
-Daumier, Guido's consulting writer, quotes French writer Stendhal during the projection of the film's screen tests.
-In the scene where Guido is caught watching Seraghina dance (in his childhood), the film's frame rate changes, making it appear in fast-motion. This alludes to the film genre of slapstick, made famous by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, which often appeared sped-up.

-It is paradoxical that, as Guido and his colleagues move forward with their plans for his film, Guido grows increasingly confused and nihilistic about shooting the film at all.
-It is paradoxical that, the more people around Guido probe him about the film, the less clear or sensible his answers to their questions become.

-At the start of the sequence in which Guido's producer holds a press conference for his upcoming film, we see a shot of cars descending on the elaborate film set that strongly echoes the film's opening shot of cars stuck in a traffic jam.
-When Guido pretends to be asleep when Luisa emerges from their hotel bathroom, it parallels the flashback scene in which we see Guido pretend to be asleep before waking up to chant "asa nisi masa."
-In the flashback sequence in which Guido visits Seraghina at the beach, he wears a black cape. This parallels an earlier dream sequence of his in which his mother gives him a black cape to wear.