8 1/2: We're not entirely sure...

I watched Fellini's 8 1/2 last night. It was an experience. From the opening sequence to the very end, it was completely mesmerizing.

It is a story about a director with "director's block" - and in this sense it is quite autobiographical. In fact, apparently much of the film actually captures, not only real situations in Fellini's life, but very immediate emotions at the times.

The director in this film, Guido (played by Marcello Mastroianni) is at a health spa with his production team, trying very hard to start his film, much less finish it. He's collaborating with a guy name Carini, who's a film critic, and between the banal and vapid speeches of this guy and the over-bearing producer, Guido is a tight spot.

To fill in the problem: he has a lover (Carla) who is lonely, and then his wife Luisa (played by Anouk Aimée) comes to town, and eventually sees Carla (played by Sandra Milo), and assumes (rightly) he's having an affair with her. By the end of the film, there seems to be some rapprochement between Guido and Luisa, but we're not entirely sure.

'We're not entirely sure...' This sounded in my mind throughout the entire film. It starts with a dream sequence - a really amazing sequence, where Guido is trapped in a car in traffic, everyone staring at him, exhaust coming into his car. He gets out of the car, and floats over the traffic. But then, when he's high in the sky, a rope is on his leg, and someone on the ground pulls him down. I'm not sure what this is "supposed" to mean, but it points to Guido's feeling that everyone expects a lot out of him, and when he tries to get free, they pull him back in.

This dream sequence sets up a lot - from both Guido's feelings, to the way the film is shot. First, because, as I said, it seems like everyone is pushing in on Guido. In the scene following the first dream, Guido's in the hotel lobby, bombarded by questions from production assistants, actors, actor's agents, groupies, etc. He dances around them, an intricate deferral of all their questions and demands, like he's floating in the air beyond the crowd. When he seems to have evaded them all, his producer comes walking down the steps (who he calls "commendatore", the term they use at the spa for the doctors), and puts in the final question Guido can't evade, pulling him back to the ground.

There are many other seeming dream sequences. E.g., when Luisa spots Carla, Guido has this day-dream of his own harem, with multiple women, and Luisa "understanding" it all. It's a pretty funny and disturbing sequence, because it shows the director Guido (and by implication, Fellini himself) as what he is: a childish man, who cannot love, and so tries to love everyone, but at the same time is harsh and indefatigable in his selfishness. It's not a very nice picture of the man, and it's fascinating that Fellini portrayed the director this way.

As I said, these dream sequences actually set up the way the film is shot. In fact, it's almost impossible to tell when a dream sequence (except the first) begins and when it ends. Some of the things in the film seem like dreams - especially the last shot, when he actually starts the film - but again, we're not entirely sure. It's all so fluid the narrative seems to run through even the dreams, and the dreams seem to be a part of his relationship with the characters. Of course this isn't "true", but the film is shot in such a way that it seems true.

In this end, that's most what I liked about the film: we see reality through the director's eyes, and this points out how, in any film, it is the director that shows us this reality, for very specific artistic reasons. Now, this isn't a "scientific" reality in any sense (which is really a pretty narrow reality anyway), but instead is a world that reflects something true about the world we actually live it.

In this film, I thought that "true" thing was almost about art itself. Kant argues that for anything to be considered "art" it must seem unintentional, just like nature, even though we know its intentional. Fellini seems to be pointing this out in the way he uses the film critic Carini. At the end of the film, when Guido quits the project, Carini has this great long speech about how an "intellectual" ('I put you in this category', he says to Guido) knows when to be silent. Mallarmé, for instance, knew when to stop writing. Carini, who throughout the entire film has been ragging on Guido for the "vagueness" of his characters, and his over-use of symbols, now decides for Guido what is the "right" way to see art, as if the artist himself does not see it, and he needs a "critic" or philosopher to tell him. The ridiculousness of this character seems, to me, to point out the ridiculousness of "message" art, or rather art that is supposed to "say" something. This is what Kant was talking about: when you're trying to "say" something, it ends up being propaganda, or some type of "serious" film about a "serious" subject that is interesting as long as the subject is interesting (like 10 minutes), but doesn't in anyway affect anyone. I bet you could name a lot of so-called "serious" films these days that are silly and small for just this reason.

8 1/2 is one of those films that transcends any "message" in this way. In the end, I think this is because we're not entirely sure what is "true" and what is "illusion". We are lost so completely in the images that we never know what it is "saying", but know, somehow, it's saying something. We can only access this "something," though, with our eyes. That is why it's "film."