I've never been in love with this from when I first saw it twenty years ago. It's not observant about life like Amarcord, which works with the same motifs (a hotel, a harem, a cinema, a beach, a whore). It's abstract and amorphous, and functions as an accumulation of moments that speak mostly about being a callous, privileged film-maker & sex-hound who instantly converts life into his next movie. It's not to be viewed casually or consumed meaninglessly like movies today. It's conspicuously non-linear "art." But one doesn't generally look at a piece of art for two hours straight.
There isn't a frame of this that isn't beautiful. Whether it's a near-Islamic view of Guido's childhood home, a fantasy traffic jam, or finding sublime beauty in something as trivial and provisional as scaffolding. After watching it again, there are definitely aspects I find to be unqualified successes (cinematography, production method) but I admire it, more than I actually enjoy it, or get into it. Liking it seems to be beside the point. You're supposed to declare Fellini a genius and be done with it. But it sits very outside myself. I doubt I'll ever watch it in one sitting again, since it's merits seem entirely about gorgeous and fleeting moments. I can imagine a use for it as Rorshach content for your screen that can be popped into a DVD player for viewing bits of pure detached sensation now and then. But because nearly every scene functions as a short essay about maximalization and lost momentum, I find it exhausting.
There isn't a frame of this that isn't beautiful. Whether it's a near-Islamic view of Guido's childhood home, a fantasy traffic jam, or finding sublime beauty in something as trivial and provisional as scaffolding. After watching it again, there are definitely aspects I find to be unqualified successes (cinematography, production method) but I admire it, more than I actually enjoy it, or get into it. Liking it seems to be beside the point. You're supposed to declare Fellini a genius and be done with it. But it sits very outside myself. I doubt I'll ever watch it in one sitting again, since it's merits seem entirely about gorgeous and fleeting moments. I can imagine a use for it as Rorshach content for your screen that can be popped into a DVD player for viewing bits of pure detached sensation now and then. But because nearly every scene functions as a short essay about maximalization and lost momentum, I find it exhausting.