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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780780021990
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0780021991
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Criterion
Region Code: 1
Release Date: December 04, 2001
Running Time: 138 minutes
Sales Rank: 7321
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: June 25, 1963
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Editorial Review:
Description:
One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (Otto e Mezzo) turns one man's artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) is a director whose film-and life-is collapsing around him. An early working title for the film was La Bella Confusione (The Beautiful Confusion), and Fellini's masterpiece is exactly that: a shimmering dream, a circus, and a magic act. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the 1963 Academy Award® winner for Best Foreign-Language Film-one of the most written about, talked about, and imitated movies of all time-in a beautifully restored new digital transfer. Disc two features Fellini's rarely seen first film for television, Fellini: A Director's Notebook (1969). Produced by Peter Goldfarb, this imagined documentary of Fellini is a kaleidoscope of unfinished projects, all of which provide a fascinating and candid window into the director's unique and creative process.
Amazon.com essential video:
Federico Fellini's 1963 semi-autobiographical story about a worshipped filmmaker who has lost his inspiration is still a mesmerizing mystery tour that has been quoted (Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland) but never duplicated. Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido, a director trying to relax a bit in the wake of his latest hit. Besieged by people eager to work with him, however, he also struggles to find his next idea for a film. The combined pressures draw him within himself, where his recollections of significant events in his life and the many lovers he has left behind begin to haunt him. The marriage of Fellini's hyperreal imagery, dreamy sidebars, and the gravity of Guido's increasing guilt and self-awareness make this as much a deeply moving, soulful film as it is an electrifying spectacle. Mastroianni is wonderful in the lead, his woozy sensitivity to Guido's freefall both touching and charming--all the more so as the character becomes increasingly divorced from the celebrity hype that ultimately outpaces him. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Classic, but not quite great
8½ is suffused with the fictive childhood memories of Fellini's onscreen doppelganger, Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), which- if the DVD experts on Fellini, and those I've scanned in gathering background information, are correct- are merely Fellini's own true memories transferred to film. They can result in some interesting themes and scenes for the film, but often, most manifestly in the Saraghina and Cardinal digressions, they make far too much of points that could more easily and poetically been conveyed onscreen. Both of these motivs waste a good twenty or more minutes of the film's running time....As for the famed narrative- or meta-narrative. Let me give a brief rundown of what 8½ is about. The film opens with shots of 43 year old married filmmaker Guido Anselmi in a traffic jam. It is obviously a dream sequence- or is it a scene from the film that he is to make, the one this film is about? It is clearly a set piece, and after escaping from his car window, as if from the uterus, he takes to the air, and becomes a kite, pulled back down to earth by whom we later recognize as the filmic representatives of Claudia Cardinale (playing herself), the actress who is to star in Guido's film within this film. As he falls to earth he wakens at a health spa where he is recuperating from a breakdown of some sort, along with his screenwriter, a dense film critic named Daumier (Jean Rougeul). Outside the spa he has a vision of a virginal white clad goddess, also played by Claudia Cardinale- although ... Read More
Rating:  - The Last Great Fellini Film
After 8 films, having acquired the status of an Italian icon (a much criticized one, of course, as with all Italian icons, which Italians - and Italo-Americans like me - take particular joy in tearing down) and overwhelming international fame, Fellini felt himself trapped, boxed in by demands and expectations and unable to create. So he shattered the box, threw away his script and wrote this outrageous, self regarding, egoistic, surreal and utterly brilliant meditation on ....himself! His predicament, his creative problems, his loves, his childhood, his aging, his fantasies. As in the most famous scene, he takes the whip and makes the elements of his life dance around him... at least until he is overwhelmed. And, for most folks, it works utterly. You are swept away in the swirl of images and emotions, and willingly allow yourself to go along for the ride. The world, as with most of the reviewers here, loved it. After all, despite the relentlessly inward focus of the film, these concerns of life, love and aging are our own concerns, too. His unforgettable images resonate with most of us. Although not everyone is willing to go along for this particular ride, as attested to by the much smaller number of extremely negative reviews. Hey, if you don't like the roller coaster, don't get on one!
But once you have taken such an extreme and self indulgent step - where do you go next? Sadly, that is one problem which Fellini never solved. After this, he mostly just made "Fellini films", ... Read More
Rating: - Italian Film Classic
Excellent Film by Fellini. A bit of a break from Italian Neo-Realism, but it works and it must be seen numerous times in order to get further into the meaning of what he is projecting or attempting to get across to the audience.
Rating: - Beautifully honest depiction of ones struggle to create...
Federico Fellini's `8 ½' is a film about film. It carries the very essence of art in it's most entrancing form and delivers a beautiful interpretation of the glories as well as the tragedies of creating that said art. I think that may be why `8 ½' is considered to be one of the finest films ever made, because it truly fleshes out the angels and demons involved in getting a directors vision off the ground. It attacks the distress and anguish over desiring to create something meaningful and original without turning your good name into a disgrace by inventing a flop. Thanks to a very strong and honest performance by Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni, `8 ½' becomes something real and beautiful.
Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, an Italian director who is trying to escape pressure to start his next film. While supposedly resting at a spa he finds himself bombarded by critics and producers and actresses, all wanting to know what his next film is going to be about, what their roles are going to be and when they can expect to start shooting. The problem is that Guido can't decide what his next film should be about. He wants to create something beautiful, something strong and meaningful but his ideas are not coming as richly as he would like. Guido cannot seem to find solace outside of work with his wife and even his mistress giving him grief on a personal level and so Guido finds himself retreating into his mind, concocting dream sequences that prove to be the greatest inspiration for his ... Read More
Rating: - One of my favorites...
They say that this is Federico Fellini's best work alongside LA DOLCE VITA. This is true. This is one of the most honest, personal works from any film director that you'll find. It is an intimate and captivating experience filled with some of the most beautiful moments that I have ever seen on film. To view this film is an experience unlike any other, and a film that I will never forget. Everything about it is perfect.
SEE IT! By the way, the score by Nina Rota is wonderful.
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