Filmic Techniques in Federico Fellini's 8 1/2

Federico Fellini shot "8 1/2" when he was 43, at the peak of his film career. One of his works before that was "The Sweet Life" (1960), which won the Cannes Palme d'Or. In addition to great prestige, there was also great expectation for Fellini. What would Fellini do next? How would he do it? With everyone’s huge expectations, Fellini completed "8 1/2". This film tells the story of director Guido's idea and preparation for a movie. It forms a subtle relationship with Fellini's current mood and state. François Truffaut gave a very positive review of "8 1/2" in 1963: "Movies about medicine give doctors headaches, movies about pilots make pilots angry, but Federico Fellini's '8 1/2' makes movie people happy."

I tried to select certain clips of a film to analyse the filmic techniques. This means the film uses cinematography and editing to show "scenes" through the lens. It's a movie that interweaves real (present), imaginary (dreamlike), and nostalgic (childhood) scenes, with real situations giving birth to imaginings, tying into memories. It seems like Guido (Federico Fellini) is excavating a section of his psyche and psychology.

Scene 1

Dream: The Car Escape

Director Guido's first dream: He finds himself trapped inside a cramped, airless car.

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The roads are filled with congested cars, and there are many bystanders.

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He finally breaks free from the window, gliding and flying upward.

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Ultimately, he is bound by a rope and falls into the sea, awakening from the dream.

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Federico Fellini uses this as an opening shot, demonstrating powerful expressiveness that sets the tone for the entire movie.

Scene 2

Reality: Open-air theatre (daytime)

In order to tell Guido's inner story, the film switches between Guido's perspective and third-person perspective in some shots, with perhaps the most typical being a scene in an open-air theatre.

Starting from a segment begins at 6'29'', several long shots depict a scene that reminds me of paintings by Georges Seurat, and at some moments, maybe because of the way the camera pans over the characters, it reminds me of Alain Resnais's "Last Year at Marienbad" (1961). In these shots, the spatial hierarchy is very prominent. The characters in close-ups, mid-shots, and those in the distance all have distinct levels of depth and space, which are vividly conveyed through their position relationships. Some of the characters in close-ups even smile at the camera and respond, creating a sense of observation that emphasizes the subject's visual experience.

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Guido meets a beautiful white-clad woman who appears amidst the bright sunlight. She is finally introduced at the end of the film as one of Guido's actor friends, symbolizing Guido's unrealistic fantasies about women.

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Scene 3

Dream: Parents and Wife

The most graceful scene of spatial expression in the entire film, starting at around 20'17'', and ending at 23'1'', about three minutes, is a perfect combination of long shots and Montage, close-ups, and distant shots.

This is Guido's dream. After enjoying the pleasure with his lover, he dreams of his parents and wife. In the dream, his mother appears directly in Guido's bedroom as if she is cleaning the glass, which lasts until she faces a large window.

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His father's figure also appears in the reflection of the glass.

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The first long shot begins to follow his father's figure, but the height of the viewpoint is unstable, capturing his father entering a glass door - just like the "little house" that had previously mirrored their figures - it's like a tomb.

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In the second long shot, two other men enter this "little house" from another iron door. The use of glass windows, smooth stone veneers, and iron doors. Here, the contrast between the building material, interior space, and the emptiness of the venue with the roughness of the outside ruins comes into play.

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The cuts between shots are executed very well, conveying the sense of fragmentation and jumpiness in space (dreams), such as Guido's father's entrance.

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The dream starts with a mother and ends with Guido kissing his mother. There is a beautiful classic montage technique here, where a close-up shot focuses on the mother's hand, and it cuts to the wife's hand, and after the kiss, the woman (from the mother) becomes the wife.

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In dreams within ruins, a long lens seems continuous visually, while the montage's fragmented space is fragmented, and all the shots are edited to organize them seamlessly, forming a coherent absurdity, an authentic nonsense. I believe that the language of movie shots has dug out the space experience that has been neglected in real space - even if it cannot be achieved - "Camera Eye" spatial experience is different from human and eye experience. Therefore, it appears to have surpassed people's usual understanding and experience of architectural space and reached the freehandedness of dreams.

Scene 4

From Reality to Memories: Open-air theatre (night)

Starts with a dance lasting from approximately 29'35'' in the evening open-air theater, where the styling of the female character is used by Quentin for Uma Thurman's role in “Pulp Fiction”, and there is also an amazing dance in the bar.

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At the end of the night party, Guido is invited by a magician to participate in a mind-reading show. The assistant of the magician writes several words on the blackboard and asks Guido if these are what he has been thinking about.

This leads to his childhood memory. Little Guido seems to dislike bathing, hiding under the table during playtime (children always seem to unconsciously seek the closest space to their size - and so do adults) .

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Guido is playing in the big room, being caught by adults, and then being bathed in a large tub. Compared to a house with very high ceilings, tables and bathtubs are small spaces in larger spaces.

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After bathing, women wrap Little Guido up in cloth and bring him to bed. The wrapping of cloth, along with various symbols and metaphors, echoes in the latter part of the film.

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Scene 5:

Reminiscing

The fat woman dancing by the sea lived in a low and small house, and the little Guido and his friends paid her to watch her dance. The boys leaned against the broken wall, watching and laughing. The vast and boundless sea formed a space of ease, joy, and freedom.

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When little Guido was taken back to school, the priests "tried" him in front of his mother and punished him in public during lunchtime.

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Little Guido went to the priest for advice at school, and the priest said that the fat woman was an evil demon. Catholic schools were cold, tall, and highly structured spaces of asceticism, with a completely different atmosphere compared to the tall spaces at home when Guido was a child. In the end, little Guido ran alone to the river to wave goodbye to the so-called "evil" fat woman.

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Scene 6

Imagination: Bathing

This is a vivid and dreamlike imagination. In a very ritualistic bathroom, Guido is summoned by the Bishop.

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People pass him by, talking to him and giving him instructions about seeing the bishop. The film does not directly show Guido and the bishop's church, but instead ends with a "window" where the camera cuts into Pope Francis's bathing quarters, followed by the closing of the "window".

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Why choose the element "window"? In Scene 5, childhood memories, Little Guido confesses in a confessional room through a "window" to a priest. Moreover, throughout the film, there are many "white cloths", which are a soft and ambiguous spatial separation element.

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Scene 7

Dream: Bathing

Guido dreams of a bathing scene. Fellini fully expressed his emotions towards mothers and women. This time, Guido is surrounded by a group of women in his life-his wife, lover, actress, work partner, female friend, etc. Even when he was a child, after bathing, he was wrapped in white cloth by women.

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In what seems like a nonsensical conversation, Guido's tense relationship with the women deteriorates, resulting in a collective rebuke of Guido. This ultimately leads to a violent whipping that resembles a stage play. The camera does not directly focus on Guido holding the whip, but rather on the reactions of the women being chased by Guido (female characters displaying twisted pleasure, except for the wife and her friends). The soundtrack (whipping sound) helps to convey the absurdity of the situation.

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The transformation in this relationship is intriguing, with Guido going from being "wrapped up" to "holding a whip", and from being protected to becoming the aggressor. However, this seemingly violent event ends with a dramatic curtain call-as if it were a performance.

Scene 8

Final Two Imaginings

Imagining 1: Guido is overwhelmed by reporters and colleagues, hiding under the table and committing suicide.

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The table is interesting; the desktop is a mirror, allowing Guido to talk to "himself" when he lowers his head, and it also reflects the figures of his colleagues and memories of his wife when they were newlyweds. The image of hiding under the table and Guido comes up again - this is a very moving behaviour from one person.

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The film does not directly express how Guido announced the bankruptcy of the film plan at the press conference on set, but instead shows it through Guido's imagined drinking. Although it was an imagined drinking, after that, Guido seems to have been reborn. He accepts the separation from his wife and the failure of his career.

Imagining 2: People from Guido's life appear in a peaceful posture, including parents, wife, and lover. Most women and men Guido meets in his life wear white clothes. Everyone holds hands and dances in a circle, dancing from day to night. The circus performance also concludes (Figures 49-50). According to Fellini's childhood experience, he seems to have a special affection for circuses, and the last scene with the little boy dressed in white who isn't a little Guido?

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In this final fantasy, space is modelled with metaphors and the circular field resembles an open-air circus.

I remember being deeply moved when I first watched "8 1/2." One reason is that Fellini's sense of space transcends that of an architect, and another may be due to my state of mind at the time. I saw a hidden chamber within my own heart in the film. Fellini was a sincere director who was not afraid to reveal his inner thoughts. At the end of Truffaut's review of "8 1/2," he concluded by saying, "Federico Fellini acted as an actor, screenwriter, acrobat enthusiast, and designer. His film is as complete, simple, beautiful, and sincere as Guido's attempt to capture that story in "8 1/2."

Sincerity is the first step towards freedom.

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El Pequeño Bastardo 🇻🇪
Hola, te invito a leer mi articulo sobre el joven manos de tijeras y si puedes me apoyas con un like... Gracias! 😉
00:12 14 December, 2024
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