In reality, the best summary of the film one could possibly hope to see is the opening scene. It may well be the finest opening scene in the history of film, though Once Upon A Time In The West must run it close. In any case the whole of the film is captured there- the constriction and claustrophobia, the seeking escape, the panic and fear, the oppressive voyeuristic outsiders, the relapse into the realms of fantasy the fleeting glimpse of freedom and the intervention of reality bringing the protagonist back down to Earth with a bang. That’s it: the whole film in a couple of mostly silent minutes.
It is, of course, a dream. The film begins and ends with a dream and throughout intersperses fantasy with reality so beautifully that you can be a couple of minutes into a scene before you realise that this is one of Guido’s (the protagonist, played by Marcello Mastroianni) daydreams. And isn’t that like life? How rarely in our dreams do we know that we are dreaming? And so we have a film director under pressure and struggling with a creative block trying to keep control of his tumultuous personal life and reconcile his own personal demons. It is an enormously difficult narrative to convey and one which Fellini does through the ingenious device of drawing the viewer into the film and sharing the confusion. Not only do we not know for certain what is a dream and what is real, but we often don’t know for certain who people are and what their role is until we have seen them two, three or even four times. Aside from flashbacks to Guido’s childhood, there is also very little exposition and scene setting. We are suddenly in the middle of it all and it is with no little irony that Guido is advised at one point “if you’re expressing confusion, do it more clearly so that people can understand”.
Much of the angst Guido experiences appears to come from the strictness of his Catholic upbringing and the way in which his personality brings him into contact with this. For someone such as I from a non-Catholic country and without that sense of oppressive guilt, this can be a tough thing to envisage and understand. Guido is advised that “there us no salvation outside of the Church” and yet there is nothing that the representatives of the Church offer him which is of any assistance with his struggle. Being told “He who isn’t in the city of God belongs to the city of the Devil” is no bloody use is it?
In making the film, Guido is trying to right the wrongs he has committed through his art and 8½ is in some ways an exploration of the conflict between knowing what one wants to do and actually doing it. Guido wants to make “a film to bury forever all those dead things we carry inside us”. It is an admirable sentiment; but one as futile and vague and inexplicable and unattainable as it is possible to imagine. And therein lies the key to 8½; we learn that you cannot repair a life by examining its faults, no matter how scrupulously. As Fellini (via Guido) sagely advises us “happiness is being able to tell the truth without making anyone suffer”.
