8 ½ - Enzian Theater

A Tribute to Anouk Aimee!

One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s 8½ marks the moment when the director’s always-personal approach to filmmaking fully embraced self-reflexivity, pioneering a stream-of-consciousness style that darts exuberantly among flashbacks, dream sequences, and carnivalesque reality, and turning one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life, as he struggles against creative block and helplessly juggles the women in his life—including Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, and Claudia Cardinale. 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.

1963, 138 minutes, Italy, In English, Italian, French and German, Directed by Federico Fellini, Unrated

“Aimee represents the type of woman who leaves you flustered and confused — to death. One of cinema’s great, mysterious queens”
– Federico Fellini, Director (8 ½)
“Fellini has made many masterpieces, but this 1963 Oscar-winner is arguably one of his most brilliant and influential films”
– Emanuel Levy, EMANUELLEVY.COM
“8 1/2 is the best film ever made about filmmaking.”
– Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES