8½

Fellini's unique self-analytical movie casts Marcello Mastroianni as Guido, a filmmaker trying to develop a new project amid frequent visions and countless subplots. He is the creator on whose words everything waits. He can do anything and the possibilities confuse him. We see his conflicts between his love for his wife, his desire for his mistress, his ideal of innocence and his dreams of a harem, and we are given to understand that he must come to grips with himself as a precondition to "creation." A long, difficult, but fascinating film, overflowing with creative and technical wizardry.