Mark Kermode reviews 8½ (1963) | BFI Player 

I have seen this film 2 times but couldn't really get the message Fellini was trying to say. Can you explain it or all of this is just doesn't mean anything.

@@Hritik9000 its about a filmmaker in a creative crisis. Fellini was in a creative crisis himself at the time. He was not happy with the success of La Dolce Vita and wanted to do something more creative it was very much an autobiographical film. I hope this helps you understand it more.

@@65g4 thanks for the insight I guessed it was about Fellini and his struggles as successful artist but didn’t knew about the Dolce Vita part.

@@Hritik9000 Ya, he was basically the world's most famous filmmaker after the success & scandal of _La Dolce Vita_ - which is when he hit a creative block and didn't know what to do for his next film... despite the fact he'd already had sets built! 😆 His final voice-over monologue at the end is what he was trying to bring across. The work of Carl Jung was incredibly important to Fellini at the time, too, which is why the heavy focus on dream worlds, memory, imagination and archetypes.

nicely said amigo.

❤️

Mine too and it has been for more than 30 years!

Yes, that is obviously its description. But I would have to add that it’s a hard task - as in, If you’re going to make a movie about making a move, you better make it well or its self indulgent and this is arguably with self-indulgent at times, but it is also one of the best films ever made!

"I've seen a lot of films that reference 8&1/2, or try to imitate what it is, but nothing I've ever seen comes close." - that's the thing: the conceit is understandable, and people can do things that fit its description, but 8 1/2 is just in a world of its own. I hated everything about the entire premise, "meta films about artists' art", etc. because I'd only seen the imitators, and they were terrible. Then I saw 8 1/2 and then I finally understood why people *tried.*

@@krrrcht Yeah, I think the real danger of imitation is when artists imitate the form of a thing without understanding why it's formed that way. People think of Fellini films as full of random, quirky characters, but none of them are random, and the quirks always have a very specific reason that serves the story. The imitators recreate the surface appearance of randomness and weirdness, thinking that's the point. They think their lack of understanding of what's going on beneath the surface means that there's nothing to understand. But that's the thing about art, you don't have to understand what it means for the meaning to affect you. And the artist doesn't have to understand what his characters mean for them to mean something. But that only applies when those characters are coming from some genuine impulse inside the artist. And imitating some other artist isn't a genuine impulse. I'm all for borrowing ideas from other artists, but it has to be done with care. We can get lost in trying to capture another artist's greatness, rather than expressing something genuine from our own inner world. There's no impulse more deadly to an artist than trying to make "great" art. That's what leads people astray. That's what makes imitation dangerous, trying to achieve godhood through art by imitating artists you elevate to heroic levels. Art isn't about elevating the artist, it's about finding the common humanity in this human existence that keeps us all separate. When we worship artists, we miss the point.

The "half" in 8 and a Half is more like three halves and seven full features. Fellini considers his collaborative work with other directors on anthology movies as the halves.

Same here. I mean everything is perfect, what comes to cinematography and aesthetics over all, but everything seems so irrational ( maybe it´s suppose to be just that? ) I don´t get the scripts, dialog, just too much happening...Funny you mentioned Antonioni, cause i think his films are just opposite to Fellini.( at least the movies what i´ve seen on Antonioni ) Nothing actually seems to happen in a sense of actual "action" level, but at the same time, beneath the surface or subtextual level there are this brilliant cleverness and strange atmospheric menace, that really hits and the pace is overall quite calm and dialog works great. Love his works.

I have watched it a few times - and find something different with every viewing. Btw - I love le samouri avatar too. That Alain is another great actor

@@macmann1956 Thanks, man. Definitely one of my favourite actors. Probably because I love crime films & he's done so many great ones like Le Samourai, The Sicilian Clan, Two Men In Town, Borsalino, Purple Noon, Any Number Can Win, Le Cercle Rouge, Un Flic etc., very cool guy.

@@NoirFan84 indeed. Very cool actor. Class act. You forgot to mention “red sun”. A western with Charles Bronson and an unforgettable cast (haha).

@@macmann1956 Good shout. Also, even though it's not a crime film per se, there is a crime element to the story towards the end of the film so I could've mentioned the incredible Rocco & His Brothers too which is high up there on a list of my favourite films of all-time. There's also an argument for it being Delon's greatest performance.

Same here

Dean H Needs a Bluray release so bad it’s not even funny. Also one of the most underrated quoteable films ever made.

Uhhh no, this is better.

I mean... its a pretty good movie, but not half as good as this.

Thats like your opinion man

@@65g4on’t worry, my opinions are facts. (If you take this comment seriously, then that says a lot about you)

there was no bfi or diversity back then

@@littlejimdavies30 How is Marxism to blame?

@@remotefaith Lol, exactly, I don't remember Marx talking about diversity in film.