Adam Brucker

I recently saw Frederico Fellini’s 8 1/2 for the first time and immediately recognized it as one of the best films that I had ever seen. I was also struck by how many of the themes and issues in the movie strongly reflected aspects of my life at the time.

Coincidentally, the next morning I underwent a previously scheduled medical procedure to straighten the deviated septum in my nose that had hampered my breathing for nearly my entire life.

A number of (as yet undetermined…) complications to this ordinarily simple procedure turned an expected two day recovery period into nearly a week’s worth of pain and suffering spent lying still on a couch staring into the darkness of my basement.

For five days straight I had no tolerance for the tv or the radio, I physically couldn’t concentrate hard enough to read even a magazine, and I ate almost nothing except for my once-a-day strawberry milkshake, delivered along with my resupply of red Gatorade and the handful of pills I was to take with it.

Just me, my thoughts and the ceiling for the bulk of the ordeal. Very Felliniesque indeed, for those of you who are familiar with his work.

As the days dragged by in a haze, I remembered a bit of trivia about the filming of 8 1/2 that put a smile on my face. During the legendarily difficult production, Fellini attached a note to himself below the camera’s eyepiece which read, “Remember, this is a comedy.”

I take that to be good advice, no matter the genre.

Some favorite quotations from the film:

I thought my ideas were so clear. I wanted to make an honest film. No lies whatsoever. I thought I had something so simple to say. Something useful to everybody. A film that could help bury forever all those dead things we carry within ourselves. Instead, I’m the one without the courage to bury anything at all. When did I go wrong? I really have nothing to say, but I want to say it all the same.

All the confusion of my life… has been a reflection of myself! Myself as I am, not as I’d like to be.

-Guido Anselmi

Guido: Could you walk out on everything and start all over again? Could you choose one single thing, and be faithful to it? Could you make it the one thing that gives your life meaning… just because you believe in it? Could you do that?”
Claudia: I don’t know… could you?”
Guido: No, the character I’m thinking of couldn’t. He wants to possess and devour everything. He can’t pass anything up. He’s afraid he’ll miss something. He’s drained.
Claudia: That’s how the film ends?
Guido: No, that’s how it begins.

More Info & Links:

Date Watched: 2/14/08
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056801/
Amazon Link: 8 1/2 - Criterion Collection
Roger Ebert’s Great Movies Review: 8 1/2 (1963)