Saturday , September 21 at 7pm MOTION PICTURES : THE META-CINEMATIC 8 ½ — 50th anniversary screening ! dir . Federico Fellini , Italy , 1963 , 35mm , b / w , Italian with English subtitles , 138 min .
IHP presents this special 50th Anniversary screening with a brand new restored 35mm print , courtesy of Corinth Films Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi , a director whose new project is collapsing around him , along with his life . One of the greatest films about film ever made , Federico Fellini ’ s 8½ ( Otto e mezzo ) turns one man ’ s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema . An early working title for 8½ was The Beautiful Confusion , and Fellini ’ s masterpiece is exactly that : a shimmering dream , a circus and a magic act .
“ The beauty of the film lies in its confusion … a mixture of error and truth , reality and dream , stylistic and human values , in harmony between Fellini ’ s film language and Guido ’ s incoherent thoughts . It is impossible to distinguish Fellini from his fictional director . Consequently , Fellini ’ s faults coincide with Guido ’ s spiritual doubts . The osmosis between art and life is amazing . It will be difficult to repeat this achievement … Fellini ’ s genius shines in every single detail in this film , and this is a rare event in film-making . There isn ’ t a set , a character or a situation that doesn ’ t have a precise meaning on the great stage of Otto e mezzo .” — Giovanni Grazzini , Corriere della Sera , February 16 , 1963
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