Federico Fellini: Rimini 1920 - Rome 1993

I vitelloni (The Calves, 1953)

La strada (The Road, 1954)
La dolce vita (1960)
Amarcord (1973)
¡ The new ‘society of spectacle’ of Italy:
1950s “Hollywood on the Tiber” and the
paparazzi

¡ An “art film colossal”: 120 different

speaking parts, 80 locations, 104
separate scenes.

¡ The biggest Italian grossing movie of all

times (until Benigni’s La vita è bella)
¡ “a crisis of inspiration and of creativity” (Bondanella, 293)

Marcello Mastroianni as Guido in 8 1/2

a film is “a fascinating voyage where the most unforeseen kinds of meetings in the most
extraordinary places are rendered possible: because the cinema is still capable of
sustaining disproportionate hopes, interests and desires, unleashing them with a sort of
madness whose observation is grotesque, pathetic and outrageous.”
Fellini, letter to American film critic Peter Goldfarb, 1968
In Pier Paolo Pasolini’s movie La ricotta (1963), American film director Orson Wells was
asked what he thought of Fellini, and he answered. “… Fellini dances… he dances… he
dances…”. Such a statement seems to be reminiscent of a trait of Friedrich Nietzsche’s
Zarathustra, in his eponymous aphoristic and philosophical book (1883). When there is
no solid ground to walk on, you can dance (be an artist) on the void that is left.
1- A casting extravaganza
2 – A movie on the
Catholic heritage
 3- A meta-movie – a film about film-making

Fellini and Claudia Cardinale on the set of 8 1/2

Julie Andrews congratulates Fellini for

the Academy Award for 8 ½ (1964)
¡ The producer to Guido:
¡ "L'ho capito, sai, quello che vuoi raccontare: tu
vuoi raccontare la confusione che un uomo ha
dentro di se’. Ma devi essere chiaro, ti devi far
capire. Altrimenti che scopo c'è ?”
¡ “I have understood, you know, what you want to
tell: you want to tell the confusion that a man has
within himself. But you need to be clear when
doing so, you need to make yourself understood.
Otherwise, what is the point?”
1. What are the main differences, both in content and
style, between this movie and De Sica’s Bicycles’ Thief?
2. Keeping in mind that the 60’s were the years of the
Italian economic boom, do you think the movie fits into
that positive and optimistic view of modernity?
3. The “stream of consciousness” was a narrative
technique used by such modernist writers as James
Joyce (1882-1941). Is there anything like that here, in the
use of images, sounds, lights? What sequences are more
representative?
4. - What does “to dance” mean in this movie?
5. Is there any positive character in this movie?
6. What about the final sequences? What do they mean?