8½ (1963)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Guido Anselmi	Marcello Mastroianni
Claudia	Claudia Cardinale
Luisa Anselmi	Anouk Aimée
Carla	Sandra Milo	-
Rosella	Rosella Falk	-
Gloria Morin	Barbara Steele	-
Madeleine	Madeleine Lebeau	-

Review

A meandering journey into the social, intellectual and dream life of Guido, a disillusioned, self-reflective and sometimes amusingly detached film director – an obvious stand-in for filmmaker Federico Fellini himself. The film is mesmerizingly shot in black-and-white and playfully told by Fellini, who attempts to tap into the Italian conscience and the vanity of the arts through his illusory images and narrative. Like many of the best classics, 8½ takes on a form of its own, defining its own existence as it goes along. But it's a flawed existence – the picture has an inescapable aura of pretentiousness and banality – even if it arguably has the confidence of a masterpiece. Marcello Mastroianni's performance has layers and depth, but most of the women surrounding him are tokens more than characters.