A dream sequence from a legendary 1960s art film gets a perfect accuracy score from an expert. Famed Italian director Federico Fellini was suffering from a severe case of creative block after a run of acclaimed films, including the classics Nights of Cabiria, La Strada and La Dolce Vita. In a stroke of genius, Fellini decided to make a movie all about the block he was experiencing, and the result was one of his greatest masterpieces, a film that went on to be nominated for five Oscars, winning two.
A phantasmagoric comedy-drama starring Marcello Mastroianni as a fictionalized Fellini, 8 ½ features one of cinema’s most renowned dream sequences, and according to at least one expert, the famous scene deserves all the acclaim it’s received over the years. Dream expert and neurosurgeon Rahul Jandial recently broke down Fellini’s sequence, praising the director for accurately depicting how nightmares work, and the feelings they evoke in the dreamer, giving the movie a perfect 10-out-of-10. Check out his remarks below (via Penguin Books UK):
Given the dream-like feel of 8 ½, its no surprise that the film stands as one of David Lynch’s all-time favorites, as the Blue Velvet director once explained in an interview with Far Out Magazine. Lynch loves the movie “for the way Federico Fellini manages to accomplish with film what mostly abstract painters do – without ever explaining anything, just by a sort of sheer magic.” Lynch would, of course, create his own inscrutable dream-films, including the acclaimed Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, all movies that show a clear Fellini influence.
Killers of the Flower Moon auteur Martin Scorsese is another director who has spoken of his love for Fellini. In a MasterClass discussion, Scorsese talked about 8 ½ and its mysterious dream-world, saying, “He was able to play with the image in such a plastic way, kept stretching the images and stretching the cutting of the film so that it exists in some subconscious level.” Filmmakers have long been inspired by Fellini and his ability to capture the feel of dreams, and it seems the 8 ½ director indeed had a firm grasp of how the subconscious works, at least according to one expert.
Source: Penguin Books UK