Following the international success of La dolce vita (1960), Federico Fellini faced a crisis of confidence fuelled by the expectations of producers, critics and audiences waiting to see what he would do next; plunging into that uncertainty he transformed creative paralysis into the defining film of his career, an exuberant, prodigiously inventive fantasia which reinvented him as an artist. Throwing off the last traces of Italian Neorealism, in 8½ he embraced the messy chaos of life which became his enduring theme in all the films which followed. Criterion’s 4K restoration once more makes the film fresh and vital.
