1963 - Drammatico/Commedia - 2h 19m
Regia: Federico Fellini
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, Guido Alberti, Madeleine Lébeau, Jean Rougeul, Caterina Boratto, Annibale Ninchi, Giuditta Rissone
Director Guido Anselmi is working on his next film and that is stressing him a lot, so he decides to spend a rest period in a spa to recover from stress and re-brainstorm ideas for the next film. This spa there are many of the actors and the producer should work with him, and each of them relies on him for his support, while the director is in the middle in addition to the problems in the professional also those personal.
The film is considered one of the best films of the Rimini director and one of the most important works of Italian and world cinema. Winner of 2 Academy Awards including the one for best foreign film out of 5 nominations in total, he wants to depict the neurosis of a worker as the director and his inner world that he must cross in building a film.
Fellini und Mastroianni am set
An example about what Fellini had to live every time I was going to build a movie, and that the protagonist has to live with a film that has not dawn, not even of the name; a work which adds to the drama-comedy, a pinch of fantasy, dreams, and the characters that the director Anselmi lives, so much so that some of the characters interact with him, even if in reality they are non-living. A film that the director himself described as a real torture because he also did not know what new film to make, so much so that the name of the film is called because it is the 8th film of the director, and the ½ refers to his first film that was co-directed and was not totally his. The whole film is a mixture of elements that in the long run if you are not careful you can go into confusion, I myself began to understand the film only in the middle of the plot, and this I put as a disadvantage for the viewer who must see the film with ease.
In spite of this difficulty to assemble the elements, I enjoyed most of the protagonists, the master of the master, or Marcello Mastroianni, the second collaboration with Fellini that after The sweet life, is able, once again, to be one with his role, and that not only is able to demonstrate an age greater than her own, but also a character taken from neuroses and in the midst of business on the love that does not care for anyone. The problem if you can consider a problem, is that Mastroianni sometimes gets lost in his world leaving too much of his role as a busy director and without ideas, who would not want to lose his notoriety and skill, but thanks to his talent he manages to remedy everything.
Sandra Milo und Mastroianni
Other than the presence of Sandra Milo (to win the role the Silver Ribbon), her beauty is a charm, his way of interacting with others is the noble, and if we think that his role is the lover of Mastroianni has enchanted to all with its ingenuity and refinement, in addition to the sensuality of dropping every man at his feet, so much so that the protagonist will be crazy in preference to his wife Luisa (Anouk Aimée). Own Aimée also chosen after the beautiful rehearsal in La dolce vita where she played the umpteenth Mistress of Mastroianni; the French attic is the example of the betrayed wife who does not rightly accept the unprecedented situation, with the intention of making her husband find his mind unnecessarily.
And could not miss the diva par excellence, Claudia Cardinale, from the beauty of the divine and the natural, enchanting and remarkable qualities, plays Claudia, or the diva of the film that should participate, but that will never arrive; the error was to insert it into the latest scenes and view for just at the beginning, as if its part to be a role not decisive in the film, while an actress like her should not be made to last, but from the beginning, to help Mastroianni in his role as a director, unhappy.
One speaks of dissatisfaction combined with dreams and events that will put the protagonist into the oblivion of uncertainty. Despite trying to relax he can not even think what the film is to be shot, and the producer himself, an insolent and arrogant person who not only puts his breath on his neck but puts on the ropes an inept and slimy psychologist who studies him and follows him everywhere. Anselmi conviverà with the ghosts of the parents (the father is again, Annibale Ninchi, who had played the father of the same Mastroianni in La dolce vita, but they seem to be past years saw his great aging), but that will not be the only dreams and fantastic images that will have to live with the director; another aspect is the neurosis that must live Anselmi for whom many of the trade live every day, and that lead many to having to cancel productions or even stop them from happening, and be replaced by other, there are examples of actors that have fallen into depression or came out nervous and stressed because of a movie.
The element that characterizes the film is the stunning scenery (it will be nominated for the Oscar), sometimes hallucinating for the strange way in which it was put, these large film sets, and sort of a space base, where there is a launch platform for a spaceship which I found ridiculous for a press conference, but on the other hand, a very strange place to present the film, yet another genius of Fellini, but I still don't understand where he designed, and how he never won an Oscar for his extraordinary activity of directing, a great failure of the Academy.
Die Szene des Kreisverkehrs
The soundtrack is an excellent element that contrasts a further complexity for the film, because its composer Nino Rota (another frequent collaborator of Fellini), who has brought symphonies of enormous balance between strong melodies that bring the neurosis of the protagonist, and delicate symphonies that bring the beauty of making movies. In a nutshell, a film that has consecrated if it takes a director like Fellini, and that makes the viewer know the most complicated part of being a director.
by Giacomo Fantini rating: 3,55 of 5
17 May 2021
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