Films › Directing
8 1/2
Directed by Federico Fellini, 1963
Fellini stages memory, fantasy and production reality in the same continuous space, so a character can walk from a meeting into a dream without a cut announcing it. The camera is almost never still, moving through crowds that behave like a choreographed ensemble. The film is about a director unable to make a film, and it solves that problem by making the block itself the structure. Nino Rota's score signals register changes that the image deliberately blurs. Production designer Piero Gherardi built sets that could be reconfigured mid-shot, letting Fellini move the camera through walls that were never meant to exist in continuous space. Gianni Di Venanzo's cinematography keeps the black and white contrast soft rather than harsh, which allows fantasy and documentary-like reality to sit in the same visual register without one overpowering the other. Editor Leo Cattozzo cuts on movement rather than logic, a technique later directors have copied without ever matching its ease.
What to watch for
Watch the transitions between reality and fantasy and note how rarely they are marked by an optical device.
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