There is no easy way to start unpacking what this movie has brought to cinema in any simple manner. The influences that others films that I find dearly close to my heart found part of their voice because of this film. The film is clearly surreal and the meta/self references abound, starting by the title itself.
During one of the last dialogues, his film critic brings Mallarmé and his blank page up. This is, I believe, of importance since Fellini never directly points us at the matter, as if to accurately describe the issue or theme at hand. Instead, he does so by circunventing it, by symbolising much of the film’s theme. This is, Mallarmé would never describe a flower inasmuch detail as to accurately paint that flower in the reader’s mind. What 8 1/2 does is present the viewer with as many symbols as it can possibly think of and it does so in a beautiful way.
What Fellini accomplishes is showcase that a filmmaker (and, by extension, every human) is tied between the expectations that everyone around they have of them and what they truly want to do. The film that Guido is working on (that seems like a failure throughout most of the film that Fellini did finish) seems inconsequential to him now. He has lost interest since his mind can only be in the women he loves/desires.
What possibly could be of more importance than a personal crisis? No film or job could ever topple the anguish or existential dread that Guido (and Fellini) are feeling towards their own lives. This is the universal feeling that Fellini is interested in showing to his audience.
Very briefly and only here and there does the audience witness the important symbols that explain Fellini’s life. He is an italian, and very poignantly is he asked if he is more catholic than marxist. By the scenes of his past, that are as much past as fantasies, we see that he was brought up to be a catholic, one that had to be ashamed of seeing a woman in full control of herself.
We see, then, the consequences of being brought up catholic in most of the cases: a disregard for women. They are not equal to men, since they are created from them. Women, in Guido’s dreams and fantasies exist for him. They are their to please him. This is, they are a mere instrument for a man to exert his power, as shown, albeit only in glimpses, by Freud.
But Fellini does not seem to be justifying his beliefs, which clearly are incorrect. He is merely given an honest portrayal of his own life. In other words, he is not saying, “This is how one ought to live”, but merely, “This is how life is presented to me, given my past, my country and my dreams”.
Yet this honesty that he is so feverishly looking for is not easily achieved, as he himself points out: all that he wants to say seems futile but he wants to say it nevertheless. And he wishes that he could say it without hurting anyone, but he knows that it seems impossible to do so.
Given the words of the writer that is criticising his work, Fellini seems to be criticising his own film even before starting it: this whole work seems to be empty of a philosophical positioning towards the world. Is all of Guido’s feelings ill-placed? Should he be feelings any other way? Are we the viewers to reprimand him for being who he is?
Fellini takes this criticism to heart since it is palpable throughout the discussions with the writer, but it ultimately shows that Fellini is in the side of favouring the portrayal of life, the portrayal of our dreams and hopes and fears and all that comes with it before caring about where we “stand” on the issues. We feel, we love, we live, even before we stop to think.