The Movie: 8 ½ (1963)
What Is It?:
Fellini confronts his childhood, his filmmaking, and his prodigious
infidelities with self-demolishing honesty, surreal humor, and incredible
style. 8 ½ is overflowing with uncanny imagery and haunting music by Nino Rota.
Marcello Mastroianni plays the director’s stand-in Guido Anselmi as a
guilt-riddled dreamer struggling to make his latest picture amidst the constant
meddling of backers and producers. Unable to keep his head in the here-and-now,
Guido bounces around his past in surrealistic, poignant, hilarious flashbacks.
Why Today?: Today
is half-way through the eighth month.
