8 1/2 - Federico Fellini (1963)
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.