In this blog post, we will look at how Guido from the movie 8½ explores his identity as an artist in the midst of the pain of creation.
Guido, a famous film director, is mentally and physically exhausted due to the pressure of his next film and the exhaustion of running out of ideas. The opening sequence, which begins with his nightmare, shows the situation and state of mind in which Guido finds himself. As if hinting at the frustrating reality, people look on expressionlessly as Guido, trapped in his car in a traffic-paralyzed situation, suffocates from the fumes, and he, having barely escaped, floats freely in the air, but is soon caught by another self and falls to the ground. This means that the moment Guido feels pressured by people’s gazes and expectations and feels a moment of freedom, freedom is nothing more than an illusion.
In the end, Guido goes to the hot springs under the pretext of recuperating, but even there he has no time to breathe. This is because the screenwriter, producers, and actors are always surrounding him wherever he goes. In this scene, Guido tries to maintain his authority as a director, but he gradually collapses under the constant demands and pressure from those around him. Guido struggles to find his identity and will to create, but he falls deeper and deeper into confusion.
In addition, several women appear to symbolize Guido’s complex inner self, and unlike Guido, who seems to have many secrets because he almost always wears a black suit, his mistress “Carla,” who always appears in flashy clothes, symbolizes pleasure for Guido. Guido’s attempt to dress Carla like a prostitute shows his suppressed psychological state in reality, but she cannot give him anything more than pleasure and does not satisfy Guido completely.
Guido’s desires and moral conflicts are repeatedly revealed in his dreams and fantasies, which reflect the fears and anxieties he has repressed deep within himself. Guido constantly tries to fill his deficiencies, but all of his attempts end in failure. In the process, his anxiety grows, leading to a heavy flow of emotions that overwhelms the overall atmosphere of the film.
In addition, his wife, Luisa, who symbolizes stability, contrasts with Carla with her neat attire and black horn-rimmed glasses, giving Guido the comfort of an old friend, but Guido’s affection for Luisa has cooled, and Luisa is also tired of Guido. Meanwhile, Guido’s muse, Claudia, means salvation in the movie, but when Claudia, like the other women, fails to understand Guido, Guido leaves her disappointed. The prostitute, Saragina, who symbolizes nostalgia, appears throughout the movie and reveals Guido’s sexuality, innocence, and emotional state, which seems to have stopped growing since he was a child.
As such, the various female characters in the film express Guido’s inner world, which is divided into desire and restraint. This is a characteristic of New Italian Cinema, which focuses on internal issues rather than political and social concerns, and also applies to the depiction of the protagonist, who is a member of the upper class, as being morally stagnant and seeking pleasure. This internal conflict plays an important role in Guido’s journey to find his identity, which further enriches the theme of the film.
In terms of the film’s setting, “8 and 1/2” is like “Day for Night” by director François Truffaut, but the two films are completely different in form. “8 and a Half” is a story that moves back and forth between the subjective fantasies of film director Guido and the objective reality, while ‘Day for Night’ cheerfully depicts the appearance of various human figures, including the director, and the events that unfold within them. The reason why the two films have different formats, despite dealing with similar subjects, is that the characters that are the focus of the films are different. The main character of “8 and a Half” is the film director Guido, and he does not just recall his childhood or reveal his desires through his fantasies to show the reality of film production, but also expresses his thoughts and reflections on film that the director feels.
In Guido’s flashback scene, he reveals how complex he feels about the art of filmmaking. This goes beyond the pain of filmmaking and contains his thoughts on the intrinsic reason for being an artist. Guido is torn between his childhood memories and his current pain, and in the process, he asks himself what filmmaking means to him.
However, the protagonist of “Day for Night” is not defined as a director, but shows the appearance of various characters, including actors, revealing the director’s anguish over the world of his work rather than his anguish over the inharmonious human relationships, so the format of the two films is bound to be different.
The characters in the movie “8 and a Half” constantly ask Guido for his opinion and thoughts on the movie and ask him questions, but he never gives a clear answer. In particular, when Guido passes by in the hotel lobby, the camera moves without editing to show the characters asking questions one by one, highlighting Guido’s confusion. And the sets that seem to be the focus of the film are impressive. The walls of the bathroom that appears after the opening sequence are made of black and white tiles, giving a dizzying feeling and indirectly revealing Guido’s psychological state. In addition, the Tower of Babel, which collapsed due to human hubris, foreshadows the fate of Guido, who has run out of imagination in the play, and the “spaceship set” that appears in the second half of the film also symbolically shows Guido’s desire to escape.
Guido, who is forced to hide and take out a gun due to the barrage of cameras and unanswerable questions at the press conference for his next film, and the sound of a gunshot that follows makes us expect that he has committed suicide due to stress, but in fact, it marks the end of the extreme pain he is going through.
In this scene, Guido goes beyond simple failure and falls into a fundamental doubt about the meaning of life. He realizes that the cinematic success he has been pursuing has no longer brought him satisfaction, and that everything has been in vain. However, this realization also serves as a signal to him that it is time for a new beginning.
Guido has been using and selfishly taking advantage of those around him in the name of art, and as a result, his life has ended up going in an unwanted direction. However, he finally becomes a mature adult when he realizes true love, when he is alone, when he has lost everything. In particular, the scene in which the young Guido, who was marching in the last scene, disappears leisurely seemed to express that the adult Guido is letting the young Guido go.
However, that does not mean that his problems have all been solved. Considering that “8½” is a film based on director Federico Fellini’s autobiographical story, it seems to show his love for film, his fear of running out of ideas, and his anguish about his future through the film. Through the device of fantasy.
The ending of ‘8 and a Half’ is not a simple happy ending. This is because we cannot say that Guido has completely resolved his confusion and conflict. In the final scene of the film, he bids farewell to his childhood self and prepares to make a fresh start, but the uncertainty and anxiety he feels in the process remain. This suggests to the audience that Guido’s story is not over, and that his inner struggle will continue in the future.
Guido constantly tries to find his identity and creative drive in the film, but he repeatedly wanders on the border between reality and fantasy. This shows that he has lost his sense of direction in life, along with a deep sense of doubt about his role as an artist. Guido’s worries are not limited to completing his next work, but extend to a more fundamental question of his raison d’être as an artist. As such, “8 and a Half” remains a work that deeply explores the life of an artist and the pain of creation through Guido’s personal anguish.
In addition, the circus-like parade that appears in the final scene of the film is a scene that visually expresses Guido’s inner world, and the various characters surrounding his life come together to create an atmosphere that seems to celebrate his life. However, this scene also does not simply convey a sense of celebration. The people who appear in the parade are all people who have influenced Guido’s life, and the sight of them marching together symbolizes Guido’s attempt to accept his past and find new meaning in it. However, there are elements in the background of this parade that suggest that Guido is still not completely out of the confusion that surrounds him.
Guido feels a certain sense of liberation at this ending, but it is difficult to say that his journey is completely over. He is still struggling to create something new and is fighting his deep-seated anxiety. In this respect, “8 and 1/2” is a work that captures the universal pain of creation that all artists experience, while also being a personal story of Guido.
With this film, director Federico Fellini delicately portrays the inner conflict he experienced as an artist, while at the same time showing the infinite possibilities of the medium of film. His unique directing style and fantastic visual expression have made 8½ a masterpiece of art films and are considered to be a work that will remain in film history. Guido’s story is ultimately connected to Fellini’s own story, and through this, the audience is given the opportunity to look into the artist’s complex inner world.
Ultimately, “8 and a Half” shows that the creative process of an artist is not a simple product of inspiration, but is achieved through constant self-reflection, pain, and inner conflict. Guido tries to sublimate his pain in the film, but realizes that the process is not easy and eventually comes to accept his limitations. This signifies his maturity as an artist and also as a human being.
In this context, the ending of “8 and a Half” can be understood as a scene that shows Guido’s willingness to overcome his past and greet a new beginning, while also foreshadowing his ongoing inner journey. Through this ending, the audience is left to ponder the direction in which both Guido as an artist and Guido as a human being will go.
With this film, Fellini tried to honestly convey his concerns and thoughts as an artist to the audience, which makes “8½” more than just a movie. This work contains an in-depth reflection on the nature of creation while looking back on Fellini himself as an artist. Through this film, audiences will be able to feel the meaning of art, the pain of the creative process, and the beauty that blossoms from it.
