Federico Fellini developed director's block before making his 1963 classic 81/2 , out next Tuesday on Blu-ray, but the way the Italian master resolved it inspired legions of other writers and directors.
Fellini's exploration of the angst of a director who can't figure out what film he wants to make, and who is endlessly besieged by backers, actors and hangers-on, was so deeply tied to Fellini's own life and to his fertile imagination that nobody came close to replicating it. But they tried.
Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980) was a direct homage to Fellini's film, although Allen's conceit was of a director who seeks to make serious films but is pigeonholed as a maker of comedies.
The conclusion of 81/2 , in which the entire cast magically appears to participate in a circus-like celebration, was seized upon by lesser filmmakers as a surreal way to wrap up their films.
Christian Marquand's Candy (1968) ends with the Candide-like heroine wandering through a field and meeting all the actors (Ringo Starr, James Coburn, Marlon Brando, you name it) from the movie. Michael Sarne's Joanna (1968) appears to end on a downbeat note as a train pulls out of a station, only to reveal the entire cast on the opposite platform performing a high-kicking dance. (I was so wowed by Fellini's ending and by those of his imitators that I chose to major in film production at university - I earned the degree, but that was it.)
It's essential in a fantasy to have the right music, and Fellini was blessed with a gloriously jaunty score by Nino Rota. For his ending, Marquand used a song by the Byrds; Sarne used an upbeat number by Rod McKuen.
Then, Maury Yeston wrote the music and lyrics for an entire stage musical based on 81/2 , upping the number (which originally referred to how many films Fellini had made) to Nine. (Director Rob Marshall's new film musical version of Nine opened Christmas Day to a lukewarm critical reception.) But then, Fellini was no stranger to musicals; his 1957 film Nights of Cabiria , starring wife Giulietta Masina as a too-trusting prostitute, was the basis for the musical Sweet Charity .
The surprising note about Fellini's ending is that, while he had mused in 1960 about such a scene, he planned to conclude 81/2 aboard a train, with the philandering director Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) and his unhappy wife Luisa (Anouk Aimée) inching toward a reconciliation.
He shot the scene twice, once with the cast dressed all in white and once with them all in black. Then his producer asked him to make a theatrical trailer. Fellini revived his circus idea, and was so pleased with the result that he scrapped the train scene and used elements from the trailer as his ending.
Those who have seen 81/2 will need no selling on its beauty, on the dream-like logic that propels many of its scenes, on the fluidity of the camera and on the calibre of the actors.
Alongside Mastroianni and Aimée, Claudia Cardinale plays Guido's muse, Barbara Steele plays the panther-like fiancée of a much older diplomat and Sandra Milo plays Guido's mistress. Milo starred as the temptress in Fellini's first colour film, Juliet of the Spirits (1965), and she and the director had a long affair. As with so much else in 81/2 , art and life co-mingled.