‘8½’: Martin Scorsese’s favourite Federico Fellini movie
In addition to being one of the greatest filmmakers of our time, Martin Scorsese has developed a stellar reputation as a truly passionate cinephile who is well-versed in the diverse traditions of world cinema. Through his foundation, Scorsese has aided the preservation of countless international masterpieces while ensuring that future generations have access to the cinematic resources that shaped his own journey as an auteur.
One director whose works Scorsese has always championed is the Italian visionary Federico Fellini, whom Scorsese fondly refers to as ‘The Maestro’. Known for his unique visual language and dreamlike style that deviated from the conventional frameworks of neorealism, Fellini constructed some of the most memorable explorations of the cinematic medium itself. However, there’s one Fellini film that will always be special for Scorsese.
Released in 1963, 8½ is undoubtedly among Fellini’s greatest achievements because of its metafictional nature and its ability to deconstruct the cinematic process in real time. Starring the brilliant Marcello Mastroianni as a renowned filmmaker who is confronted by a major creative block, 8½ paints a haunting portrait of the carcass of a movie set that can be seen as the extension of the unrealised dreams that many great artists harbour.
During a conversation with Criterion, Scorsese said: “8½ has always been a touchstone for me in so many ways—the freedom, the sense of invention, the underlying rigour and the deep core of longing, the bewitching, physical pull of the camera movements and the compositions (another great black-and-white film: every image gleams like a pearl — again, shot by Gianni Di Venanzo). But it also offers an uncanny portrait of being the artist of the moment, trying to tune out all the pressure and the criticism and the adulation and the requests and the advice and find the space and the calm to simply listen to oneself.”
The director added: “The picture has inspired many movies over the years (including Alex in Wonderland, Stardust Memories, and All That Jazz), and we’ve seen the dilemma of Guido, the hero played by Marcello Mastroianni, repeated many times over in reality — look at the life of Bob Dylan during the period we covered in No Direction Home, to take just one example. Like with The Red Shoes, I look at it again every year or so, and it’s always a different experience.”
Regularly cited as one of the most influential cinematic masterpieces in film history, 8½ is a special work of art that resists clear-cut interpretations and neat categorisations. As Scorsese said, many successors have attempted to penetrate the magic of cinema, but none of them have done it with the style and depth that Fellini demonstrated in his magnum opus.
Watch the iconic opening below.
