60 years 8½
On February 13, 1963, the premiere of Federico Fellini's film "8½" took place in Rome. (IMDB and English-language Wikipedia indicate that for the first time the film "8½" was shown on January 2, 1963 at a festival in Acapulco, Mexico. But the archive of this festival reports that in 1963 it was held from November 24 to December 7, 1963. So, the information from these sources does not correspond to reality.)
The background to the creation of the film is as follows. In October 1960, after the success of the film "La Dolce Vita" in Cannes and the subsequent twists and turns with the removal of the picture from the screen and return to the screens, Fellini shared with his colleagues Brunello Rondi and Ennio Flaiano the outline of the script of the future film. (Rondi and Flaiano were Fellini's co-authors in the creation of the scripts of the films "Nights of Cabiria" and "La Dolce Vita".) These outlines were literally reduced to one phrase: "a guy (a writer? any kind of professional man? a theatrical producer?) has to interrupt the usual rhythm of his life for two weeks because of a not-too-serious disease. It's a warning bell: something is blocking up his system". Flaiano suggested calling the upcoming film "La bella confusione (A Beautiful Confusion)."
It should be noted one important point that some Fellini biographers pay attention to and which, according to a number of film critics, significantly influenced the creation of the future picture. In early 1960, Federico Fellini met and became close friends with the psychoanalyst Dr. Ernst Bernhard. This doctor was a consistent supporter of Carl Jung's theory. Falling under the influence of Bernhard, Fellini was imbued with ideas about anime and animus, about the role of archetypes and the collective unconscious in creativity, and so on. In addition, as biographers politically correct formulate, under the influence of this psychoanalyst, Fellini "began to experiment with LSD."
By the beginning of the spring of 1962, the idea of a future film with the working title "Beautiful Confusion" had finally formed in Fellini's head. He signed a contract with Angelo Rizzoli (producer of the previous film "La Dolce Vita"), made a working plan for filming, conducted casting, appointed Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aime, Sandra Milo to the main roles, built the scenery, appointed a cameraman - Gianni Di Venanzo... And suddenly, in April 1962, sitting in his office at the Cinecittà studio, he realized that he had completely forgotten the idea of the future film. Fellini even started writing a letter to Rizzoli with explanations and a request to cancel the project... But at that moment he got a call from one of the crew members who invited him to the birthday celebration of one of the technical staff of the group.
Fellini put down the letter and went to the set. According to the memoirs of Fellini, raising a toast to the film 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».
So, almost without a script, on May 9, 1962, Federico Fellini began filming his next film. Remembering how he forgot the original idea of the picture, Fellini pasted a note to the viewfinder of his movie camera with one phrase: "Ricordati che è un film comico (Remember that this is a comic film)".
The absence of a script caused the absence of the title of the film. Rather, the title of the film was its serial number. Prior to this film, he shot 6 full-length films, two short films, which he equated to one full-length, and also shot one film together with other directors ("Boccaccio 70"), which, according to his calculations, is equal to half of the film. So the name of the film was born - "8½".
Filming of the film "8½" was completed on October 14, 1962. The shooting of the film coincided with a 4-month strike of workers of developing enterprises and printing houses. As a result, Fellini was deprived of the opportunity to watch the film fragment by fragment and was able to watch it only when the film was shot in full. Similarly, composer Nino Rota was able to write various circus marches for the film, which later became Fellini's signature tunes, only after watching the entire film.
In 1963 the film took part in the Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF). This participation was accompanied by a number of scandals. Firstly, at the screening of the film, which took place on July 18, N.S. Khrushchev simply fell asleep. And secondly, when summing up and determining the winners, the communist leadership of the USSR behaved completely unworthy, putting pressure on the jury of the festival with all its might, so that the absolutely gray picture "Meet Baluev!" Is there anyone who remembers this movie? Only thanks to the firmness of the chairman of the jury Grigory Chukhrai ("Ballad of a Soldier", "The Forty-First") Fellini's film was recognized as the winner of the festival. After that, Federico Fellini vowed to take part in the Moscow Film Festival for almost a quarter of a century, and only in the years of perestroika, in 1987, presented his film "Intervista" to the festival.
The next year, 1964, the film "8½" received 5 Oscar nominations, of which it won two, including as the Best Foreign Language Film. In the nomination "Best Director", the members of the American Film Academy considered Tony Richardson, the director of the film "Tom Jones", more worthy of their award.
In the same 1964, the film "8½" tied with Stanley Kubrick's film "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was awarded the Danish Bodil Film Award as the Best European Film. It was also nominated for the British Academy BAFTA Award in the category of Best Film from Any Source. But even in this nomination, the British film Academies preferred the British film "Tom Jones", although it was awarded the BAFTA Award as the Best British Film. One could understand such a passion of British cinema for self-aggrandizement and self-admiration if Tony Richardson's picture did not have worthy competitors. But among the nominees for the award in this category were, in addition to Fellini's film, the American "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Robert Mulligan and "Days of Wine and Roses" by Blake Edwards, the Italian "Divorzio all'italiana (Divorce Italian Style)" by Pietro Germi, and others.
Among film critics, Federico Fellini's film caused almost universal delight. Corriere della Sera film reviewer Giovanni Grazzini stressed that
"the beauty of the film lies in its 'confusion'... a mixture of error and truth, reality and dream, stylistic and human values, and in the complete harmony between Fellini's cinematographic language and Guido's rambling imagination. It is impossible to distinguish Fellini from his fictional director and so Fellini's faults coincide with Guido's spiritual doubts. The osmosis between art and life is amazing. It will be difficult to repeat this achievement.[27] Fellini's genius shines in everything here, as it has rarely shone in the movies. There isn't a set, a character or a situation that doesn't have a precise meaning on the great stage that is 8+1⁄2". Corriere della Sera (Milano) del 16 febbraio 1963
Even the picky columnist of The New York Times Bosley Crowther noted:
"Here is a piece of entertainment that will really make you sit up straight and think, a movie endowed with the challenge of a fascinating intellectual game." NYT, 26 June 1963.
According to the authoritative American film critic Pauline Kael,
"A movie director has two “worst” enemies: commercial failure and commercial success. After a failure, he has a difficult time raising money for his next film; after a success, his next must be bigger and “better.” In recent years no major Hollywood director with a string of “big” successes has been able to finance a small, inexpensive production — and this is not for want of trying. . . . What the Italians got in 8½ was a work of immense visual beauty and impressive philosophy, a sort of spectacle of the spirit that was more than they had paid for. A masterpiece is always a bargain.” Show’s “philosophy” is the kind you look for, like Fellini’s “ideas.” 8½ does indeed make a spectacle of the spirit: what else can you do with spirit when you’re expected to turn out masterpieces?"
The guru of American film criticism Roger Ebert devoted two reviews to Federico Fellini's film "8 and a half". In both reviews, he gave the film a maximum of 4 stars and included it in his "Great Movies" list. In the first review, dated May 7, 1993, Ebert wrote:
"Thirty years after Fellini made "8 1/2," films like this have grown rare. Audiences demand that their movies, like fast food, be served up hot and now. The self-indulgence and utter self-absorption of Fellini, two of the film's charms, would be vetoed by modern financial backers. They'd demand a more commercial genre piece...These days, directors don't worry about how to repeat their last hit, because they know exactly how to do it: Remake the same commercial formulas. A movie like this is like a splash of cold water in the face, a reminder that the movies really can shake us up, if they want to. Ironic, that Fellini's film is about artistic bankruptcy seems richer in invention than almost anything else around."
In a review dated May 28, 2000, Ebert wrote:
"I have seen "8 1/2" over and over again, and my appreciation only deepens. It does what is almost impossible: Fellini is a magician who discusses, reveals, explains and deconstructs his tricks, while still fooling us with them. He claims he doesn't know what he wants or how to achieve it, and the film proves he knows exactly, and rejoices in his knowledge".
Russian film critics rated the film no less highly. For example, Yevgeny Nefyodov gave the film a maximum of 10 points and noted in his review:
"8½" is not without reason considered almost the embodiment of the author's - and not only autobiographical - cinema. Fellini, almost openly inoculating Guido with his own traits, proved that the personality the artist is able to contain the whole Universe and for this reason is interesting to everyone... He also proved that the creative process as such, accompanied by hellish torments, remains priceless, even if it does not result in a specific work. more true creativity ... than a ready-made opus - a product of the eternal vanity of vanities."
The modern moviegoer, even after several decades have passed since the release of the film on the screen, appreciates it very highly. 69% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10, and 27% of users gave the film the highest score - 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, rating of Federico Fellini's film "8 and a half" according to FilmGourmand was 9.7 , thanks to which it took 61st Rank in the Golden Thousand.
