The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

8½
75
How would you describe 8½ to someone who has never seen it?
Jaglom: It’s the ultimate film about a movie director, because it’s about a
movie director who doesn’t know what movie to make next. It becomes a
metaphor for any individual at a turning point in their life, who is asked
to make a certain kind of move that seems inevitable to the people around
them. They do not know what move to make or what move they want to
make, or what the exact goal of their life is or the purpose of their life is. Of
course, because the protagonist is a filmmaker, somebody like myself seeing
it suddenly realized that that’s what I was. I thought I was an actor until I
saw that film. It’s about a man having to decide what to do next in his life.
This is also one of the first metafilms. It comments on the film being
made, which is the film itself. The film 8½ is about the making of 8½.
Jaglom: I can’t think of another film that does that. It’s possibly the first
self-referential film.
I saw it at the Festival Theater on 57th Street in New York, near 5th
Avenue. What I remember most vividly was, it was dark. When I walked
in, it was light. When I walked out, it was dark. And I’m a New Yorker
and yet I had no idea where I was or which way to go—which way was
east, north, south, or west. I was in another universe. I had a hard time
understanding where I was; it had that big of an impact on me.
Can you talk about that transition, from actor to director?
Jaglom: Well, yes. Going into that theater, I was extremely excited because
I loved Marcello Mastroianni. I was young. In ’63, I was twenty years old. I
thought this was a terrific acting model for me. He had an essence, a quality
I had seen in other films, which captivated me. I went in looking for, as an
actor, that confirmation for that part of myself. He played, of course, Fellini,
the director. I had always been interested in filmmaking, but I had always
thought I was essentially an actor.
The film changed my identity. I realized that what I wanted to do was
make films. Not only that, but I realized what I wanted to make films about:
my own life, to some extent. I’ve gone both ways on that, but I suddenly have
been criticized for doing that a lot, and you can blame Fellini. Don’t blame
me, blame Fellini. I saw a film that truly investigated what the filmmaker