It314 Italian Cinema: Individual Perpectives
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IT314 ITALIAN CINEMA: INDIVIDUAL PERPECTIVES Term 2, week 2: Cinema and Self (i) Otto e mezzo (Federico Fellini, 1963) Key points: - character and director; autobiography; - telling the process of film-making; self-referentiality; - dreams, visions, fantasies; creativity and the unconscious; - women, masculinity, and sexuality; - cinematic space; - costume; image; the circus; - what kind of realism? ‘Paradoxically, everything Daumier has said about Guido’s film (and Fellini’s film, since Guido is an alter ego for Fellini throughout the work) is basically true. The entire film is filled with pointed attacks upon the kind of thinking inherent in Fellini’s artistic creations, including all his intellectual deficiencies, his mental tics, and his visual obsessions. However, when the spectator concentrates upon what Fellini makes his audience see in 8 ½ , especially this magical visualization of the moment of artistic creation – an essentially irrational, illogical, and ultimately inexplicable epiphany – Daumier’s obJections dissolve as if by magic. As the great showman he is, Fellini realizes that he can sweep away our intellectual uncertainties with a moving visual image, and this is exactly what he accomplishes throughout the many encounters with Daumier, culminating with the grand finale of 8 ½’ (p. 111; author’s italics). ‘This domain of the irrational is, for Fellini, the ultimate source of artistic inspiration and creativity. It is crucial to note that Fellini does not counter Daumier’s logical arguments or ideological statements with illogic or other ideological positions. Her merely Juxtaposes Daumier’s arguments in the present, everyday waking world of Guido Anselmi to visually stunning (and therefore artistic, but not logical) responses to Daumier’s criticism’ (pp. 113-14) - both from Peter Bondanella, ‘8 ½: The Celebration of Artistic Creativity’, in The Films of Federico Fellini [see below]. Dr Jennifer Burns, H411, tel. (024 765) 73096, e-mail <[email protected]> Film credits: Directed by Federico Fellini Produced by Angelo Rizzoli Screenplay by Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, Brunello Rondi Photography by Gianni di Venanzo Set design by Piero Gherardi Editing by Leo Catozzo Music by Nino Rota Cast: Guido Anselmi – Marcello Mastroianni Luisa – Anouk Aimée Carla – Sandra Milo Claudia – Claudia Cardinale Rossella – Rossella Falk La Saraghina – Edra Gale from Bondanella, The Films of Federico Fellini [see below]. Select bibliography: Affron, Charles, 8 ½. Federico Fellini, Director (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987) Bondanella, Peter, ‘8 ½: The Celebration of Artistic Creativity’, in The Films of Federico Fellini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 93-115 Bondanella, Peter and Cristina Degli-Esposti, Perspectives on Federico Fellini (New York: G.K. Hall, 1993) Burke, Frank & Marguerite R. Waller (eds), Federico Fellini: Contemporary Perspectives (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2002) Metz, Christian, ‘Mirror Construction in Fellini’s 8 ½’, in Film Language (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974) Reich, Jacqueline, ‘Otto e mezzo 8 ½’ in Giorgio Bertellini (ed.), The Cinema of Italy (London & New York: Wallflower Press, 2004), pp. 143-51 ----------------------, Beyond the Latin Lover: Marcello Mastroianni, Masculinity and Italian Cinema (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004) Rigoletto, Sergio, Masculinity and Italian Cinema: Sexual Politics, Social Conflict and Male Crisis in the 1970s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014) Rohdie, Sam, Fellini Lexicon (London: British Film Institute, 2002) Dr Jennifer Burns, H411, tel. (024 765) 73096, e-mail <[email protected]> .