BFI Film Classics

"On its release in 1963, Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 shocked audiences around the world with its sheer auteurist gall. Whether attacked for self-indulgence or extolled for self-consciousness, 8 1/2 became the paradigm of personal film-making, and numerous directors, including Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Bruce LaBruce, paid homage to it in their own work." "Now that 8 1/2's conceit is less shocking, D. A. Miller argues, we can see more clearly how tentative, even timid, Fellini's ground-breaking incarnation always was. Guido is a perfect blank, or is trying his best to seem one. By his own admission he doesn't even have an artistic or social statement to offer: 'I have nothing to say, but I want to say it anyway.' 8 1/2's deepest commitment is not to this man (who is never quite 'all there') or to his message (which is lacking entirely) but to its own flamboyant manner. The enduring timeliness of 8 1/2 lies, Miller suggests, in its aggressive shirking of the shame that falls on the man - and the artist - who fails his appointed social responsibilities." --Book Jacket.