Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work.
The Fear of Aging
Guido’s first words in the film are “forty-three,” his
age. The placement of this detail so early in the film indicates
Guido’s preoccupation with it. A recent onset of health problems
(he is ostensibly visiting the spa for a mild liver ailment) causes
Guido to worry, like any middle-aged man, that his most productive
years are coming to a close. The idea of aging is especially terrifying
for a man like Guido, because two of the qualities that he values
most—his creative ability and his virility—often rely heavily on
youth. Fellini makes some direct references to the physical characteristics
of Guido’s aging, as when Guido gazes at his wrinkles in his bathroom mirror,
when Mezzabotta comments on his gray hair, and when Claudia teases
him that he dresses like an old man. Fellini makes a stronger statement,
however, with Guido’s response to the sickly guests at the spa and
to his aging companions, Mezzabotta and Conocchia. Mezzabotta’s
age is emphasized by his much younger American fiancée Gloria, in
whose presence he often comes across as ridiculous or pathetic.
When Mezzabotta follows Gloria’s lead on the dance floor and performs
some vigorous steps, for example, Fellini frames his sweaty efforts
from an unbecoming head-on angle to indicate that Guido thinks Mezzabotta
is making a spectacle of himself and aging disgracefully. Guido
expresses a similar feeling toward Conocchia, his senior collaborator,
who embodies Guido’s fear that getting old will diminish his professional
relevance.
The Tyranny of the Mind
Fellini’s subjective technique of documenting Guido’s
train of thought from reality to daydream and back again, unburdened
from traditional perspective shifts and dramatic convention, seems
liberating when we view 8½.
This placement of daydream and reality side by side comes across
as a very convincing depiction of the way in which we actually experience
life, reminding us of the mind’s power to transcend everyday reality.
But at the same time, the film makes this process, in which observation
alternates with imagination, seem somewhat frightening, as it is
something over which we have little control. For example, Guido
would never choose to have the nightmare of the
opening sequence or to imagine his colleagues in the steam baths
as hell-bound invalids. His thoughts and daydreams are involuntary.
Though this aspect of the mind cannot be consciously controlled,
it is interesting to observe the manner in which the subconscious
directs it. In the Saraghina sequence, for example, Guido’s subconscious
alters the memory to make himself seem more innocent. In Guido’s
fantasies about Claudia, excess sound is silenced so that Guido
can focus more closely on her. Guido’s dreams seem designed in order
to call his attention to his problems. In this way the control of
the mind seems constructive, yet the idea of having no free will
is frightening.
The Frivolity of Society
Critics applauded Fellini’s adept and witty social commentary
in La Dolce Vita, and the same element exists in 8½ to
emphasize the frivolity of bourgeois society. While guests of a
ritzy health spa and people in the film industry may seem like easy
targets, the elements that Fellini satirizes are relevant to middle-
and upper-class society in general. Fellini embeds his satirical
references in dialogue that is sometimes off-screen, making it easy
to miss. For example, while Guido eyes Carla at the first grand
evening at the hotel, we hear the voices of the American reporter
and his wife, an American society woman who writes for women’s magazines.
The American reporter is speaking to the French actress and her
manager in French, expressing the simple opinion that a film should
have a hero. His wife interrupts him twice with her nasal cawing,
first with “What the hell are you talking about” then with “I don’t
understand a damn bit of that French.” After the second interjection,
her husband responds in English with “Oh dear, honey, don’t drink
any more.” Fellini’s portrayal of the women’s magazine writer—the
standard-setter for millions of women—as a crass drunk points to
the foolish herd mentality of contemporary culture. The American
reporter’s idle chatting with the French actress in her native tongue
makes a subtler point: that reporters will do anything to get their
story but really have nothing to say. The couple’s American nationality
does not indicate Fellini’s antagonism to America but rather the
quick spread of American pop culture worship into Europe.
