8½ vs City of Women

8½

Fellini moves between Guido's present, his childhood memories, his fantasies about women and his recurring harem dream. He gives you no warning and no transition when he switches. The way the film is put together copies the director's state of mind. That is, every time period and every desire is in his head at once, and he can't organize them into a film.

City of Women

One strange scene leads to the next by feeling, not by plot. The roller-skating escape, the mansion and the trial all follow a dreamer's logic.

8½

The film opens with Guido's dream of suffocating. It ends with the director inside the film ordering all his characters to dance together. Coming full circle settles something. Guido starts out paralyzed and ends up at peace with it. The film he couldn't make becomes the film Fellini made about not being able to make it.

City of Women

The film begins on a train and ends back there. The return tells you the whole adventure may have been in Snaporaz's head.

8½

At any moment, what you're seeing could be Guido's memory, his fantasy, his anxiety or what is really happening. Fellini gives you no reliable signal when he moves between them. The film is about a man who can't separate his imagination from reality. It shows you that in the story, and it also makes you feel it through the way it is put together.

City of Women

Snaporaz follows a woman off a train, and the film keeps slipping between hotel, mansion and nightmare. At the end, you learn it was a dream.