Hey chadGPT, summarize this Fellini for me.
Great question, let’s dig into this! Federico Fellini’s 8½ is a sequel to his previous hit film Se7en, and its protagonists are a group of eight friends. One of the friends becomes a father, and his baby counts as the “½” in the title. The group gets into various crazy adventures, such as being a failed film director, fantasising about hot women, having mommy issues, and hating religion. The overall message may be summarised as: friendship is magic.
Do you have any further questions on French New Wave films?
When movies become great again (MMGA) then we will watch them with rapture attention.
What we have now are filmmakers who are attempting to remake the magic of films from their childhood (when films represented a kind of currency, or surplus value) or else draw us into a retrospective continuation of filmia-as-philosophy. Like scripture vs. apologetics (if one can follow).
Late-medieval and European-rennaissance art was actually reactionary, prescriptive, imitative craftsmanship. What we often conceptualize as masterpiece is actually imitation (Roman classical-cum-Greek, Van Eyk, etc…), which falls far short of the truly revolutionary. We remember film as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle version of painting-as-art, when it was historically nothing more than coding (presentation).
Which means we have an artwork which is imitating an artwork, which was an imitation. Which is boring. And people who want a job in that industry are willing to observe the small number of instances in which true artistic innovation was evident, but don’t actually believe they will be permitted to engage in such exploration. Which is boring and trite.
