Line #3 Film/EightAndAHalf


1	%%
2	%%
3	%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.
4	%%
5	%%
6	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/81_2_movieposter_9154.jpg]]
7
8	A pseudo-autobiographical 1963 film by Creator/FedericoFellini dealing with a director, Guido Anselmi (portrayed by Creator/MarcelloMastroianni), trying to make a film, but suffering from “director’s block.” To make things worse, his personal life is also going under a lot of stress: his health is not ideal, he doesn’t know where he is standing right now and he has problems with both his wife Luisa (Creator/AnoukAimee) and his lover Carla (Creator/SandraMilo). In other words, everything is conspiring to make his film sink like the Titanic.
9
10	One of Fellini’s better-known works, it’s a favorite of film directors for showing the trials and tribulations of their career. The movie is generally straightforward, but full of flashbacks and daydream sequences, practically without any warning (sometimes you don’t realize you’re watching a fantasy until later). The title comes from the fact that before making the film, Fellini realized that he had made six features and three shorts (each short being "half"), which added up to seven-and-a-half films. So, obviously, the next movie would be film number '''8½'''.
11
12	Creator/ClaudiaCardinale plays Claudia, Guido's "ideal woman" that he casts in the film. Music/NinoRota composed the soundtrack.
13
14	Later remade as the stage musical ''Theatre/NineMusical'', which itself was later adapted into a movie starring Creator/DanielDayLewis.
15
16	Compare/contrast with ''Film/AllThatJazz'', ''Film/WildStrawberries'' and ''Film/{{Celebrity}}''.
17
18	----
19	!!This movie provides examples of:
20
21	* AllTakeAndNoGive: Guido's affairs with women trouble him, but at the same time he is too preoccupied with himself and his own past to properly invest in others.
22	* AttentionDeficitOohShiny: Carla comes off this way a lot of the time, first evidenced in the way she jumps from topic to topic in conversation. When Guido is applying her makeup, she keeps looking up at an eye-catching lamp, causing him to mess it up.
23	* AuthorAppeal: Deliberate. After all, it’s a movie based on Fellini trying to make a movie.
24	* AuthorAvatar: Guido, a celebrated director who can't come up with a story for his next movie, was created by Federico Fellini, a celebrated director who created this script because he couldn't come up with a story for his next movie.
25	* BadLiar: Guido, according to his wife. In one scene Guido’s lover is seated nearby, and Luisa and her friend find astounding how Guido keeps lying about not knowing her when they both know she’s his lover.
26	* BettyAndVeronica: Guido with his voluptuous, slutty mistress, and his bitter, angry wife--the wife being angry of course because of his constant infidelity.
27	* BigBeautifulWoman: La Saraghina, a chubby prostitute.
28	* TheCasanova: Guido, although in this case you could say it’s a {{deconstruction}}.
29	* ComingOfAgeStory: Guido is 43, but it still counts, since he looks back on his life and decides he has to change.
30	* CoolShades: Guido wears them because he is a well-known director.
31	* CreatorBreakdown: [[invoked]] Guido, the director, has trouble making his movie because his own personal issues keep getting in the way. [[spoiler:Eventually, he cancels his film altogether because it's stressing him out.]]
32	* DaydreamSurprise: Some of the {{Imagine Spot}}s aren't clearly marked off as imagine spots for a while. The opening sequence looks like like Guido stuck in a traffic jam--until he floats up into the sky out of the car.
33	* DiegeticSwitch: "Music/RideOfTheValkyries" kicks up when Guido is futzing around in his bathroom. It's ridiculous enough in that setting, but it gets more bizarre when the film cuts to the garden of an old folks' home and the music is revealed to be coming from a band there.
34	* DrivenToSuicide: Guido in the press conference. It's implied to be a daydream sequence since he appears again in the next scene.
35	* DunceCap: Young Guido is punished by the teacher and forced to wear this in class.
36	* EarWorm: Once Guido hears the famous overture to Music/GioachinoRossini's ''Theatre/TheBarberOfSeville'' played by the orchestra, he just can't get it out of his head. It only lasts about a day though.
37	* EveryoneComesBackFantasyPartyEnding: All the people from Guido's past come back near the end to join him in a dance number set on a circus stage, where he is the ringmaster.
38	* GainaxEnding: Guido abruptly announces that the movie is cancelled. He and Luisa make a tentative recreation. Suddenly all the characters in the movie, including the dead ones like his parents, come out from behind a curtain. As a band of circus clowns play music everyone dances in a circle around the abandoned set. Then all the characters are gone, leaving only the band, which walks off stage. The end.
39	* GratuitousEnglish: Gloria, Mario's hot young girlfriend who chatters in English from time to time for no obvious reason, is played by British actress Barbara Steele.
40	* HaremSeeker: Guido, of course. Just watch his harem imagination.
41	* HeroicBSOD: When Guido finally accepts to himself he cannot make the film.
42	* HowIWroteThisArticleArticle: As early as TheSixties, Creator/FedericoFellini makes a film about making a film when you've run out of ideas.
43	* ImagineSpot: Guido often thinks of his past, which causes flashbacks. But he also daydreams surreal things, like the moment when he imagines himself floating away in the air from the traffic.
44	* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The screenwriter, talking about Guido's film, basically describing Fellini's film.
45	-->"You see, what stands out at a first reading is the lack of a central issue or a philosophical stance. That makes the film a chain of gratuitous episodes which may even be amusing in their ambivalent realism. You wonder, what is the director really trying to do? Make us think? Scare us? That ploy betrays a basic lack of poetic inspiration."
46	* MayDecemberRomance: Discussed with Mezzabotta and Gloria. Not only Guido confuses her with his daughter, but Mezzabotta also fears she is with him [[GoldDigger only for his money]].
47	* MeaningfulName: This is the 8½ movie made by Fellini (before, he made 6 movie, 2 shorts and one co-collaboration).
48	* MetaFiction: This is a surrealist movie about a director having trouble creating a coherent movie.
49	* MrImagination: Guido. He's often lost in an ImagineSpot, like when he has a vision of his dead parents, who chat with him.
50	* NaughtyNurseOutfit: Claudia in one of his daydreams. Well, not exactly naughty - it's a regular nurse outfit and she's meant to symbolize ideal purity, but there's definitely a sexual overtone there. Like you needed Claudia Cardinale to be even hotter…
51	* PrettyInMink: Claudia is wrapped up in a stylish mink when she meets Guido again near the end of the film.
52	* RevisedEnding: The original ending scene featured Guido and his wife sitting together in the restaurant car of a train bound for Rome. Lost in thought, Guido looked up to see all the characters of his film smiling ambiguously at him as the train entered a tunnel. Fellini then shot an alternative ending set around the spaceship on the beach at dusk but with the intention of using the scenes as a trailer for promotional purposes only. He and his co-writers, however, decided that this alternate sequence served as a more harmonious and exuberant ending to the film.
53	* RidiculousProcrastinator: Guido uses any excuse available to skip working on his new film. Of course, the reason is because he doesn’t have a clue of what to do.
54	* SexyManInstantHarem: That’s what Guido’s harem fantasy is all about. Played with when they all start calling him out, but then everything goes back to “normal”.
55	* SoapOperaDisease: Carla periodically runs 100-plus-degree fevers with no explanation. She admits, while suffering a bout of such illness, that she and her husband have learned to live with them.
56	* SoundtrackDissonance: Playing "Music/RideOfTheValkyries" to the sight of the resort for the elderly and frail? Check. The music is eventually revealed to be diegetic, but this rather makes the whole thing even more absurd.
57	* SuddenMusicalEnding: The film ends with all the people from the protagonist's past coming together to dance around him on a circus stage, while he is the ringmaster in the middle.
58	* TitleByNumber: This was indeed Fellini's tenth movie in his catalogue, but three of them (two shorts and one co-authored) he only counted as halves, so here you are.
59	* {{Undercrank}}: When the priests are chasing young Guido.
60	* WhipOfDominance: During Guido's [[ImagineSpot harem fantasy]], he uses a whip against the girls to "keep them in line" when they start rebelling, although one of them is just TooKinkyToTorture.
61	* WordSaladTitle: Of course, it’s not even a word.
62	* WritersSuck: Well, the writer is an insufferable intellectual who looks down on Guido’s work. Fellini must have tried to say something there, right?

Context Film / EightAndAHalf