I saw this once when I was about 19 and processed about nothing from it. I remember liking the opening sequence and thinking the rest was an empty bore. Well, it's no longer a bore to me, at 36, and it's far from empty, but it's still not the masterpiece to me that it seems to be to most film fans.
The coolest thing about 8 1/2 is the way that it's clearly a film about the film itself... a film about a filmmaker who is making a film, whose analysis of the film he's working on is actually an analysis of the film you are watching - as you're watching it. Conceptually, it's brilliant - and it does do a very good job of making these layered themes work. However, it's simply not that exciting to watch overall - at nearly 2 1/2 hours, it is a bit of a challenge to enjoy all the way through. The movie somehow manages to simultaneously have so much going on, and still feel like so little is going on, for a great quantity of the run time. There are definitely some really phenomenal sequences - plenty of surrealism, often in visuals and sometimes in performance and dialogue. It's never DULL, but it's also not much fun.
To be honest, considering one of the over-arching themes is "infatuation with women", it's kind of ironic that the movie does not feature more memorable female characters. There's only one who's iconic but that's because her character represents "the devil" and she's only in a couple of quick scenes. Then, there's the stunning Claudia Cardinale who gets top billing but is actually only in about 1.5 scenes - and her primary scene is a very important one, one of the most important thematically, but, we don't really get much of HER from it. The rest just kind of redundantly trail off in nags throughout the movie - intentionally, but, it doesn't leave you with much. And Marcello Mastroianni's lead character Guido is a bit of a bore but he needs to be because that's kind of the point of the character. Again, it occurs with great purpose but it's simply not very entertaining to watch.
It's a complex film with a lot to offer, but not enough of what I enjoy about movies. It's a great accomplishment in a lot of ways, but I'll probably never watch it again.
The coolest thing about 8 1/2 is the way that it's clearly a film about the film itself... a film about a filmmaker who is making a film, whose analysis of the film he's working on is actually an analysis of the film you are watching - as you're watching it. Conceptually, it's brilliant - and it does do a very good job of making these layered themes work. However, it's simply not that exciting to watch overall - at nearly 2 1/2 hours, it is a bit of a challenge to enjoy all the way through. The movie somehow manages to simultaneously have so much going on, and still feel like so little is going on, for a great quantity of the run time. There are definitely some really phenomenal sequences - plenty of surrealism, often in visuals and sometimes in performance and dialogue. It's never DULL, but it's also not much fun.
To be honest, considering one of the over-arching themes is "infatuation with women", it's kind of ironic that the movie does not feature more memorable female characters. There's only one who's iconic but that's because her character represents "the devil" and she's only in a couple of quick scenes. Then, there's the stunning Claudia Cardinale who gets top billing but is actually only in about 1.5 scenes - and her primary scene is a very important one, one of the most important thematically, but, we don't really get much of HER from it. The rest just kind of redundantly trail off in nags throughout the movie - intentionally, but, it doesn't leave you with much. And Marcello Mastroianni's lead character Guido is a bit of a bore but he needs to be because that's kind of the point of the character. Again, it occurs with great purpose but it's simply not very entertaining to watch.
It's a complex film with a lot to offer, but not enough of what I enjoy about movies. It's a great accomplishment in a lot of ways, but I'll probably never watch it again.