8½

I just finished watching the film "8½," by Federico Fellini. I've been watching it in pieces all week, since that's the time I have, and finally finished it just now, because it's almost due at the rental place.

It's always listed as a great classic, and indeed it is. The staging, direction, presentation of scenes ... practically every scene is awesome, with people moving about in a kind of purposeful harmony or disharmony. Scenes are shot as symbolic moving pictures. It's a stunner.

I read somewhere that the audio, lines, were added afterwards, so that lends itself to the dreamlike qualities of a lot of the scenes too.

The main character is Guido, a movie director, and the film concerns the ups and downs of his recent efforts toward making another film. He has wife troubles, seems to be feeling very disenchanted all along the way. They're making a science fiction film, and the only set for this is a big scaffold thing that looks like the rocket launching pad. In the screen tests they've shot he seems to be more interested in making a picture about his marriage troubles and personal feelings. But I can't say I have a real accurate sense of what all is going on. I'm reading subtitles then trying to glance up at the scene, and, as I said, I watched it in pieces.

This is my first Fellini film, even though I've read what people have said about them on and off over numerous years.

(Some of the scenes, particularly toward the ending, reminded me of Magical Mystery Tour; and based on what I've read this week, there were lots of imitators and those paying tribute to the film, it's basic feel, etc.)

My favorite scene of all is one that involves a big, wild woman named Saraghina. She lives by the seashore in a concrete bunker type of structure. The boys, including Guido, in a flashback or scene from his imagination, (probably a flashback), leave their Catholic school and go there. One of them pays her a coin and she comes out and dances a risque rhumba, pulling down her top to reveal her upper chest and shoulders. The boys are jumping, clapping, and there's one who's sitting there slapping his face in time with the music. That's cool. I watched this scene twice. It might not be politically correct to say so, but we could have used a neighborhood Saraghina when I was a kid! At the end, a couple of reverend priests show up and chase Guido; the film is speeded up where they're almost like Keystone Kops for a couple seconds; they catch him and take him back to all the other priests and authorities who pronounce, along with his dear mother, shame on him.

The ending is pretty awesome too, where a lot of the characters are back for one big shindig involving four clowns with instruments.

I would like to see it again, but I guess I won't. I need to get the DVD back to the rental place.