Otto e mezzo (8 1/2). 1963. Italy. Directed by Federico Fellini. Screenplay by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, Brunello Rondi. With Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Claudia Cardinale. 4K digital restoration. In Italian; English subtitles. 138 min.
Fascinated by the work of Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, Fellini turned inward to explore the unconscious in this film about a film director (Marcello Mastroianni) who has lost all inspiration to make his new picture. The mind of a creative genius in the midst of an artistic crisis appears as a hallucinatory circus in this self-referential work, which Fellini calls his film number 8 1/2, in which dreams, fantasies, reality, and memories collide with a touch of self-deprecating humor. Fellini’s utter freedom in the presentation of past and present, real and unreal, objective and subjective makes this an exhilaratingly original and influential work. 8 1/2 was Fellini’s third film to receive an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.