8 1/2 [Criterion Collection] [2 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Fresh off of the international success of La Dolce Vita, master director Federico Fellini moved into the realm of self-reflexive autobiography with what is widely believed to be his finest and most personal work. Marcello Mastroianni delivers a brilliant performance as Fellini's alter ego Guido Anselmi, a film director overwhelmed by the large-scale production he has undertaken. He finds himself harangued by producers, his wife, and his mistress while he struggles to find the inspiration to finish his film. The stress plunges Guido into an interior world where fantasy and memory impinge on reality. Fellini jumbles narrative logic by freely cutting from flashbacks to dream sequences to the present until it becomes impossible to pry them apart, creating both a psychological portrait of Guido's interior world and the surrealistic, circus-like exterior world that came to be known as "Felliniesque." 8 1/2 won an Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, as well as the grand prize at the Moscow Film Festival, and was one of the most influential and commercially successful European art movies of the 1960s, inspiring such later films as Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979), Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and even Lucio Fulci's Italian splatter film Un Gatto nel Cervello (1990). ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 2
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Audio: PCM Mono, 5.1
• Screen: Black and White, Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: English
• Features:
  • • New digital trasfer of restored film elements, enhanced for 16x9 televisions, with digital image restoration
    • Screen-specific audio essay featuring commentary by film critic and Fellini friend Gideon Bachmann and N.Y.U. professor of film Antonio Manda
    • Introduction by Terry Gilliam, director of "Brazil" and "12 Monkeys"
    • 22-page booklet featuring essays by Fellini, longtime Fellini collaborator and critic Tullio Kezich, and film professor and author Alexander Sesonske
    • Theatrical trailer
    • New and improved English subtitles
    • Optimal image quality
    • "Fellini: A Director's Notebook": a 52-minute film by Federico Fellini
    • "Nino Rota: Between Cinema and Concert": a 48-minute documentary about the maestro behind the music of Fellini's films
    • Interviews with actress Sandra Milo, director Lina Wertmüller, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, on the revolutionary art of Gianni di Venanzo
    • Rare photographs from the collection of Gideon Bachmann
    • Gallery of behind-the-scenes and production photos
    • Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Won Best Black and White Costume Design - 1963 (Piero Gherardi)
•     Won Best Foreign Language Film - 1963 (Federico Fellini)
•     Nominated Best Black and White Art Direction - 1963 (Piero Gherardi)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1963 (Federico Fellini)
•     Nominated Best Original Screenplay - 1963 (Federico Fellini, Brunello Rondi, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli)

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Nominated Best Film - Any Source - 1963 (Federico Fellini)

• Directors Guild of America

•     Nominated Best Director - 1963 (Federico Fellini)

• Moscow International Film Festival

•     Won Grand Prize - 1963

• National Board of Review

•     Won Best Foreign Film - 1963

• New York Film Critics Circle

•     Won Best Foreign Film - 1963

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Federico Fellini

• Producer:

  Angelo Rizzoli

• Screenwriter:

  Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, Brunello Rondi

• Cinematographer:

  Gianni Di Venanzo

• Composer (Music Score):

  Nino Rota

• Editor:

  Leo Cattozzo, Adrianna Olasio

• Production Designer:

  Piero Gherardi

• Costume Designer:

  Piero Gherardi

• Makeup:

  Otello Fava

• First Assistant Director:

  Lina Wertmüller

REVIEW:

• After his international smash La Dolce Vita (1960), Federico Fellini found himself saddled with a case of director's block, inspiring him to make 8 1/2 (1963), about fictional director Guido Anselmi's case of director's block, that made visible the intimate workings of creativity. To reveal Guido's state of mind as he struggles with his filmmaking and multiple demands on his private life, Fellini seamlessly interweaves Guido's activities, fantasies, memories and dreams, doing away with any semblance of straight linear narrative structure in favor of Guido's surreally scattered psyche. In so doing, Fellini, like playwright Luigi Pirandello, reflexively examines the artistic process itself; Guido's turmoil paradoxically brings Fellini's eighth-and-a-half feature (the half stood for two shorts), to fruition. Internationally hailed as an innovative masterpiece, and a commercial success, 8 1/2 won Fellini his third Oscar for Best Foreign Film and inspired a generation of filmmakers with the singularly personal artistry that could only be described by the adjective "Felliniesque." Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979) and Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980) were their own 8 1/2s; Nine was the 1982 Broadway musical version. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi