John Waters remembers the first time watching Federico Fellini’s ‘8½’
The American filmmaker, artist and actor John Waters rose to fame in the early 1970s through his transgressive cult films. These cult classics include the black comedies Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, all starring Drag queen legend Divine.
In addition to this, Waters is also responsible for the 80s comedy film Hairspray, which experienced such success that it was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical. He also has writing and directing credits for later works such as Polyester and Cry-Baby.
Waters’ films can be identified and categorised through their elements of post-modern comedy, a movement that both arises from and rejects Modernist trends and Surrealism: art that is shocking or absurd in imagery and challenges art as representing reality.
Waters exemplifies this in his own film taste, sharing that he experiences “joy and influence from high-brow “art” films and the exploitation sub-genre”. Waters’ early works can only be explained as camp, with highly exaggerated characters carrying out outrageous situations that take consistent unexpected turns. His writing has a hyperbolic tone, with explicit dialogue to accentuate the absurd plot events. His infamous Trash Trilogy, consisting of Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living, completely disintegrated boundaries of censorship and civilised filmmaking.
Despite this, Waters has shown appreciation and respect for filmmakers of a more defined palette, especially Federico Fellini, the Italian film director and screenwriter known for his use of fantasy and baroque images. Recognised as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, Fellini’s films have ranked highly in Sight & Sound, especially his 1963 film 8½, which ranked as the 10th-greatest film.
8½ (Otto e mezzo) is a surrealist comedy-drama, possessing categories Waters favours in his own work. The narrative is metafictional as it centres on Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director who struggles to make his next picture due to a stubborn case of creativity block.
8½ exemplifies Fellini’s artistry and skill by receiving endless critical acclaim and winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design in 1964. It is recognised as classic avant-garde filmmaking and serves as a highly influential piece for the filmmakers who came after it. Its themes of art and the alienating grasp Modernism has over it present the artist’s identity and struggle, in turn generating personal connections in audiences who understand the experience.
Waters’ initial experience of the film is slightly more amusing, one that he shared during his Closest Picks segment for The Criterion Collection. The art filmmaker states that during his youth, he would “take LSD and see the movies all the time”, but Fellini’s 8½ “was especially good because…it reminded me very much of Edith Massey and Divine kind of put together”. This shows how Fellini’s work reminds Waters of his own art, a touching exchange between two beloved filmmakers.
Waters’ recounting of his first watching of 8½ also displays praise for its style techniques and how they now connect to his personal memories. This is mostly through “the soundtrack…we always used to listen to on acid, so I always had flashbacks to that time when I see this movie”. This soundtrack, orchestrated by Nino Rota, combines jazz and classical in harmonised rhythms to accentuate Fellini’s story world, in turn standing out to Waters during his first viewing.
Waters’ final take of the film as a whole is that “it looks so amazing”, and is a classic he forever considers “a great movie”.
