Oedipal Sructure of Fellini's Film 8 1/2

This paper is a discussion of the Oedipal structures in Federico Fellini's deeply personal film, 8 1/2. The film is ostensibly autobiographical, but Fellini's reputation for fanciful rewriting of his own history makes it more revealing as a psychological document than as a biography. Looked at from the perspective of the Sophoclean model of the Oedipus myth, the film offers some intriguing glimpses into several different kinds of triangular tragedies. Viewed from the Freudian angle, it also offers interesting examples of unconscious drives and murderous impulses. The Oedipal structures include not only the relationship among the main character and his parents but also a number of other father-mother-son relationships, especially that in which the filmmaker becomes parent to his own project. In many of these circumstances, the most challenging task is to identify the mother figure; Fellini offers many decoys, since his film is filled with female figures of almost every description. Nevertheless, the work offers a rich variety of avenues to explore in considering both the Sophoclean and the Freudian approach to the classic story of desire, conflict, and the struggle for ultimate mastery. Fellini avoids the high tragedy of the Sophoclean tale, but many elements of both approaches inform his story.

Fellini's 8 1/2 is a complex tale about a director named Guido who is about to start his next film (Marcello Mastroianni). Although Guido has filmed numerous screen tests, pu

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m to do his job. The possibility of abandonment is a powerful weapon; the two have had a long relationship, and the producer's departure would sever important father-son ties that might prevent Guido from ever regaining his artistic inspiration. Although the producer is the one threatening to leave, it will be Guido's actions that kill the relationship. The situation is resolved in bloodshed in one fantasy, not with the producer's death or departure but with Guido's imagined solution of crawling under the table at a major press conference and blowing his brains out at the producer's feet. However, Fellini is not really aiming for tragedy, and, while elements of his story hint at the classic myth, he is not really trying to build to a horrible, stunning climax filled with death and retribution. Instead, his "Oedipus" arrives at his own kind of peace with the gods. Guido's personal revelations allow him to let go of the past and find ways to embrace all the people who have shaped his life and allowed him to try to arrive at his particular destiny. They end up dancing away into the night, hands joined, in a lovely symbolism of the unified personality, the Freudian Oedipus complex resolved and integrated. Yet the film ends o

Category: Film - O