Guido is dragged to the press conference. He is ready to pull the plug yet nobody listens to him.

He eventually crawls under the table and commits suicide.

This is of course happening in Guido's head as we see him in the next scene alive and well sitting next to Carini in the car. The suicide signifies the film production’s end. As we see right after in reality, they start tearing the tower down.

At this point in the film, Guido's producer is angry at him, his wife left him, his film is dead, his mistress is sick and his friend Mario is lost. Guido is ready to accept the bad advice of the critic, the intellectual: It is better to destroy something than to accept it with flaws.

Presumably, between the press conference and the car, he told his crew he was giving up on the film. His creative block did not clear and he could not make the film he wanted with the giant spaceship where everybody escaped earth.

At this moment, Guido realises an alternative. He stops listening to Carini, an intellectual who Guido was ready to surrender to.

The magician who led him to his childhood memory of the precious asa nisi masa, (the power, the magic Guido lost) leads him to a possible solution to his problem.

We see Claudia return in white. As she walks left, others in Guido's life walk right. Maybe they will meet in the middle? Guido's solution to his confusion is found in everything about him. The characters walking towards each other in white dresses signify this.

Instead of escaping with the spaceship, the message is the opposite: Acceptance. Guido attempts to come to an agreement with life, with people in his life. He makes a great effort to make friends with himself, without false modesty, without fears, without hopes.

“I want to stop building myths around myself, I want to see myself as I am: a liar, incoherent, hypocritical, cowardly… I want to have done with making problems out of life: I want to put myself in a position where I can love life, where I can love everything.” Fellini explains.

Guido is able to regain his status as a director again as we see him direct everyone.

Even though Guido makes his great leap, we haven't entered a magical realm where everything is suddenly alright. His friend is still wasting his time with Gloria. His parents are distant. Carla is still bugging him. Guido's problems haven't disappeared.

Guido realises his problems cannot be resolved but to be lived with through acceptance.

Suddenly real Claudia appears. She is in black, rather than white. Her theme music is of Seraghina's. She emerges from the shadows not from light as Guido fantasised.

It is not what Guido expected. You can see as soon as he realises this, he is distraught once again. Perhaps more than ever.

When Claudia is driving, we can imagine in a normal film this is supposed to be the moment where the main character meets the girl of his dreams. But Guido is distant, cold, disappointed.

The way this scene is filmed underlines the feelings Guido is experiencing: The two characters are not framed together. The divide between them is deep.

The one shot where they are seen in the same frame visually separates them as much as possible; Guido is in shadow.

Guido asks if she would sacrifice everything and leave. This is of course another question that is left unanswered by the person the question was directed to. However, we can feel Guido is really at the end of the rope now.

Guido answers his own question from the point of view of the character in his film he is trying to make. This is unsatisfactory to Guido as he is failing to realise yet again, escaping isn't the answer (more on this later).

When they arrive, Guido is still holding on to the vision of Claudia who is perfect in his eyes.

You'll notice sometimes what Carini is talking about is quite true and insightful. So what's the problem? Isn't criticism meant to make your work better? Shouldn't all artists accept constructive criticism?

Fellini actually thought "blunt" criticism killed creativity. He thought criticism should stop at some point and the artist should be left alone even if it meant failure. Because through failure came truthful art.

Guido’s creative block is further deepened by Carini for the reasons we described above.

For Fellini, film was a space for fantasy and memory. 8½ incorporates a lot of the criticism Fellini received: They accused him of not truly “committing” to the established form; in the film, “commitment” is one of the central struggles of Guido.

In this scene, the lines between reality, the film and the film within the film gets less and less distinguishable. We are watching the movie 8½, at the same time we are watching the movie Guido is making. Finally, we are watching the reality behind the movie which is inspired by real events that occurred during the making of 8½.

Luisa cannot stand the lies any more and she storms out.

Guido's decision to tell her to "cut the melodrama" at this pivotal scene shows how out of sync with reality he is. He is trying to direct his wife as if she is an actor in one of his films. Later on, Guido will learn how to do this but only in the finale.

In the exact same farmhouse from Guido's childhood, he imagines a harem; a private place in Guido's mind reserved for women. In real life, the word harem refers to domestic spaces that are reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. Another meaning for it is the wives (or concubines) of a polygamous man.

This clearly starts out as a safe space for Guido. We learn many things about how Guido thinks of women. For example, women over the age of 30 are forced to live upstairs where they are discarded and out of sight. This is presented as a rule and rules in this harem are used to oppress women into submission.

Seraghina starts a rebellion. She is the perfect character do so. She brings creativity and freedom to the table.

Something interesting happens in this scene as we are now rooting for the women and not the protagonist of the story.

As this scene echoes his childhood memories, we observe how they get warped. Guido's power fantasy and how he is in the harem are quite the opposite of how he is in real life. He has all the control here while in real life, he cannot control any of his relationships or his film.

This contrast is important as sometimes this scene is interpreted as offensive. It might be worth considering the film as a whole rather than the singular meaning of this one scene. Guido, is clearly weak and therefore resorts to the harem.

The film doesn't invite us to support Guido's harem but it also doesn't condemn it. As the ending will reveal later on, the film is about coming to terms with one's flaws and therefore becoming a better person. The harem, is clearly something of a flaw but not something to be ashamed of. Because, our flaws make us who we are and we should learn to see and deal with them.

There isn't a clear indication how Luisa knows but she is able to figure out Guido is lying and cheating.

The scene reveals Guido and Luisa's relationship. How they have grown apart from each other yet they can't be without each other.

Rosella, channels the spirits in this scene and tells Guido he is free but he must choose. Rosella is saying Guido is the creator of his own confusion.

Rosella gives the choice to Guido. This is in contrast to the cardinal's advice that includes Guido surrendering to a higher power.

The camera then pans up to show the enormous set, signifying his inability to make a choice, and therefore a film.

The crew visits the spaceship in order to figure out what to do with it. In real life, Fellini was actually building this set. Fellini kept saying "build higher" to the workers who had no idea he didn't know what he wanted to do with it.

This is a moment of alienation for Guido as he is both mesmerised by her and can't recognise her.

Guido seems relieved to see her and she as well.

It doesn't take long until Luisa withdraws and becomes silent.

We don't know yet what is up with her but we will find out soon.

The spa visitors are herded by the employees with harsh attitudes.

The imagery throughout the steam baths is supposed to remind us of hell.

When Guido sees his friend Mario out of himself, this is another reminder Mario's friendship has become even less of an escape for Guido.

The meeting with the cardinal is filmed in a way so we can't quite understand if the scene is a dream or reality.

The camera movements resemble the dream sequences. Guido seems to have vanished from the scene, he is somewhere behind the camera, still communicating with the cardinal, yet he isn't physically in frame.

This is a clever way of increasing the ambiguity between Guido and Fellini, the director in the film and the director of the film.

It might not seem like it at first but the film is trying to show the cardinal's human side rather than trying to ridicule him.

In the end, Guido realises he is not ready. The cardinal to him is like an old mummy wrapped in sheets. He can't make sense of his advice: "Outside the church you are not safe".

Guido's meeting with the cardinal is not fruitful. He starts to ask a question but the cardinal interrupts him to talk about birds. Guido is not able to understand the message cardinal is trying to give.

Cardinal might sound like he doesn't make sense but his words are right on point with the theme of the movie. He talks about the sobbing bird and a funeral. How this is supposed to help Guido is unclear, perhaps he is reminding him that death exists and that he should try and enjoy things while he can, in any case Guido's confusion is the point of the film.

A woman coming down the hill launches us to another dream sequence.

In real life, Seraghina was a prostitute who lived in a hut by the beach in Rimini where Fellini grew up. She sold herself to fishermen in return for sardines. Sardines in that part of Italy are called Seraghina.

Fellini remembers a prostitute like Seraghina from his childhood who exposed herself.

Seraghina is integral to understanding Guido's relationship with women. We see him unable to stop himself from going back to Seraghina, even though he gets in trouble for it.

It is a nod to Guido's childhood where they watched these types of silent movies with sped up chase scenes for comical effect.

This sequence seems like the film is criticising Catholicism and/or religion. However, it is a known fact Fellini was a Catholic. He is actually criticising a particular type of Catholicism he said tended to humiliate a person rather than to restore them to their dignity.

Fellini saw the Catholicisim he depicted in the film as the same one that drove people mad and made them commit suicide. It also created an unhappy humanity by “separating the spirit from the body”. He was of course referring to the physical and psychological punishment and “education” that were applied in Catholic boarding schools or convents: Smacking on the knuckles, repeatedly being told god is always watching you etc. He identified these were wounds to a child and it took immense strength to recover from them.

When Guido arrives, it is clear he doesn't want to be there. This is a man who cherishes memories of being bathed and carried to bed in white sheets. Nursing isn't his strong suit.

If you think Carla looks a bit like Seraghina, the prostitute on the beach, you are not wrong. Both Seraghina and Carla represent Guido's sexual desires in different parts of his life.

Carla admits she gets these fevers often. It is clear these fevers are a reflection of her intemperate nature. This one in particular is aimed at Guido; even though she talks about her possessions throughout the scene, her underlying motive is to make Guido express his love to her.

Guido does not respond to Carla. When she reaches for him, he is already out of frame, thinking about his meeting with the cardinal the next day.

Guido is fantasising about Claudia once again. She is as dream-like as before but now she also speaks.

She "came to bring order", she will "purify" and she will "stay forever". Claudia speaking these words reaffirms her status in Guido's eyes as the authenticity and soul Guido has lost (Guido doesn't know it yet but that couldn't be further than the truth).

Guido's dream is rudely interrupted by the phone ringing.

Carla has the opposite effect of Claudia on Guido. So when she interrupts Guido's fantasy about Claudia, this is similar to how Guido was roped back to reality at the opening sequence.

Whenever Fellini was making a film, an ad in a newspaper would appear saying "Fellini is making a new film and needs extras" and he would get thousands of pictures.

This situation is represented on the screen in this scene.

In the Italian films of this era, the filmmakers didn't record sound for intention of using it in the film. They recorded something called a "wild track", which is a recording made on set with the intention of replacing it later.

The reason for this is because Italians made films during the silent era as well and they built all these studios without sound proofing (Italian cinema was huge before the world war and they were actually larger than American studios).

After the invention of sound recording, making all those studios sound proof was quite a complicated task. This is why most Italian films were just shot without sound and dubbed later.

A lot of the actors of this era weren't allowed to use their voices in the film. Because the sound gets replaced in post-production, they all had voice actors who did their voices.

Claudia Cardinale who plays Claudia was one of the actors who weren't allowed to use their real voice up to this film. Her voice was thought to be too deep and she had an accent. 8½ is the first time audiences heard her voice on film.

The room is full of pictures and various objects for the film we are watching, as well as the film within the film.

The girls tell him he can't make a good love story. This points to both his personal and professional life. Guido must seem very unhappy because one of his crew tries to comfort him on the way out by clowning.

This gives us insight into what the relationship is like between Guido and his crew members. Rather than a professional environment where everyone is there to just do a good job, we also get the feeling of a tight-knit family.

From his interviews and people's observations, Fellini was like this in real life. He keeps mentioning how he loves cinema because cinema and life can go on at the same time. This is a difficult to understand phrase at first. But it was known Fellini's life outside the set wasn't a very lively one. He lived on the set and as soon as he left it, it was like hitting a pause button for him.

In the corridor, Guido runs into Conocchia.

Conocchia represents old age, all things that scare Guido. When Conocchia confronts him, we can see how uncomfortable Guido is with the situation.

Conocchia says to Guido he isn't the man he used to be. This is of course something Guido has been feeling for some time now and is the main reason he is depressed.

He was the one next to the film producer. This helps connect Conocchia's character to old age and death.

There isn't much of an explanation for how the magician is able to transmit Guido's thoughts to the clairvoyant. It's just magic.

However, this doesn't come across strange within the boundaries of the world the film has established where fantasy mixes with reality.

It is a children's language/word game similar to pig latin. The original world is "anima", Italian for soul. If you take the word, double each of its vowels and put the letter "s" between them you get asa nisi masa.

In the flashback, Guido's friend clues us in to the meaning of it. We get two pieces of information:

1. Uttering the phrase makes you rich (Not in the financial sense but spiritually)
2. Gives you the ability to make the picture move

The second point is similar to Guido's job: Making films. We can go a step further and say through making films Guido makes his and others' lives richer.

Notice how the grandmother closes the door to the bedroom; does it remind you of theatre doors?

Now back to today, Guido is no longer able to make films. So this is the thing he lost.

We know Fellini was quite fond of the psychologist Carl Jung. For Jung, anima is the word given to the feminine aspects of the psyche. The women who inhabit a man's dreams and imagination are called an anima projections.

Claudia then, who inhabits Gudio's dreams is Guido's anima projection.

Also; Jung's "projection spinner" is also named Maya, the name of the clairvoyant who initiates the flashback.

First time we see Guido in this scene, he is wearing a fake nose. An obvious Pinocchio reference, this is one of the many indications to Guido's dishonest nature.

Guido's dishonesty is the central inner conflict his character is dealing with.

On the table, we watch the film's director Fellini's various pet peeves he encounters in real life as he turns them into characters, questions he gets asked in this scene.

One of the questions Guido gets asked about his politics was something Fellini had to deal with in real life.

Time for a little context: A lot of the time Fellini's films in Italy were not received well for political reasons. During a time period called "neorealism" in Italian cinema, films were political. Even though this period produced some really interesting films, with Fellini's lead, it was coming to an end. At first, Fellini's brand of dreams and fantastical elements were considered unlike neorealism and were frowned upon. Ironically though, when Fellini started to make it big abroad, Italian press would become more positive about his films.

It is important to take note Guido does not answer any questions again in this scene and the one time he answers, he tells the actress there will be only 5 scenes in his film, which sounds ridiculous and not really the answer.

When Guido says there will be only 5 scenes, this echoes reality. He of course has no idea how many scenes there will be and this was often the case with Fellini's films. He didn't believe complete, detailed scripts allowed for creativity both in himself and his actors.

Carla is only trying to get some sort of acknowledgement and perhaps spend some time with Guido. We see yet again Guido unwilling to acknowledge Carla longer than it amuses him.

Guido is also not interested in saving her from the drunk man and instead sends one of his crew members to keep Carla busy.

To Guido, Mario is in some sort of a midlife crisis. Guido can't stand Gloria, not just because he thinks she is pretentious but also because she steals his friend from him.

Guido is not entirely jealous though. Mario is a way of escape from his depression and that is what Gloria is taking from him.

In the elevator, Guido seems like he is about to ask a question to the cardinal. He doesn't though. Perhaps because it wouldn't be appropriate?

The elevator itself feels like a confessional booth, which is a clever way of designing this scene and creating an atmosphere around one of the most important themes of the film: Soul searching.

Guido is bombarded by the production crew with questions. He avoids answering them. We further get an idea of how clueless he is about the film he is trying to make.

This scene is similar to the dream with his father. This time, Guido is the one avoiding questions.

We also start to understand the film we are watching is not just a film about making a film but it is about making the exact film we are watching.

When asked to choose an actor to play his father, Guido exclaims "They are all too young!" It is clear to the audience they are not too young to play a father role but Guido is probably thinking they are too close to his own age to play his father.

This ties into one of the main themes of the movie: Fear of getting old.

The camera movements, sound design and cuts between individual shots serve to disorient the audience and pull them further into the dream-like sequence.

Guido's father is disappointed. He talks about his crypt's ceiling but it feels like he is talking about Guido himself. This idea of disappointment is further deepened when Guido's producer walks in and the father asks him questions about how his son is doing.

It's not difficult to relate to Guido here. Most of us understand what it feels like to try and please our parents, make them proud. When we feel anxious about failing at something, we often think about what our parents will think of us. That is what Guido is going through in this sequence.

The end of the sequence sees Guido's mother turning into his wife and says something a mother would say: "You must be tired, shall we go home?". Yet her emotions quickly turn into disappointment, the main theme of this sequence.

Overall, we understand Guido feels he is failing and in this sequence he projects his own anxieties on to the people in his life. Whether they would actually be so outwardly disappointed in him is not clear. Although it would be safe to assume Guido is exaggerating here judging by his dreams and fantasies throughout the film.

Fellini believed dreams or hallucinations were a “deeper reality”. He didn’t believe in classifying things as “realism” or otherwise. “I see no line between the imaginary and the real; I see much reality in the imaginary”.

Some audiences might have a hard time telling apart what is real and what is fantasy. If this is the case for you, it might get a little frustrating. However, be patient and give it a chance and look for separation points where one scene ends and another begins. For the more seamless transitions, look for where fantasy first starts to bleed into reality. Guido usually gets distracted and that’s when it starts to transition to fantasy.

However, keep in mind as the film goes along, the fantasy and reality are supposed to be more and more difficult to distinguish and that is part of the film's point.

He was the one who invited her yet by the time she arrived, he already changed his mind and has no courage to tell her to go back. Meanwhile, she is imagining they will be together and have a good time.

He describes the character as: "buys everything on credit; refrigerator, television. Sets herself no moral problems. Shows everyone the picture of her little daughter whom she adores."

From these couple of scenes we understand Guido lost his muse. He lost the sight of the film he was making, while making the film.

Claudia is the girl in the white, who puts Guido in a trance. Yet we realise she is just a figment of his imagination.

Claudia will represent something Guido has lost and is looking for in the wrong place (he doesn't know this yet).

First, some background: During the time this film was made, the springs like these were thought to purify you both physically and spiritually in Italy.

So, the perfect Claudia offering the water that is supposed to purify Guido is important. Notice how he snaps back to reality like he did in the opening sequence.

Guido hired the critic to help him get out of the creative block he is in. He works as an adviser and a writer in the film.

The critic is a force to be reckoned with. He pesters Guido often and frustrates him quite a bit. He is one of the key elements in Guido's professional life that makes him feel trapped and strengthens his desire to escape it all.

As we will see in the final scene, the critic is one of the key characters and helps the film deliver that final message.

Mario is Guido's old friend and he just happens to visit the spa to heal his liver and spend time with his girlfriend Gloria.

Gloria appears mysterious and in touch with nature. However, Guido doesn't think much of her and he thinks Mario is wasting his time with her.

The film is visualising how Guido feels. We don't know much about Guido or the situation he is in at the moment but we can see he feels he stuck and suffocating. Nobody is willing to help him.

He then manages to climb out and be free for a while. This doesn't last because he is reeled right back in to it by the people he works with.

The horse-rider is Claudia's agent and the one pulling the rope is her PR agent. We will later see these men at the screen test scene.

You can see Guido’s mistress Carla in a car during the traffic jam pleasured by a stranger.

There are many reasons for why Fellini didn’t shoot many of his films in colour:

He believed colour prevented the audience from immersing themselves in the imaginary worlds he created: “The more you mimic reality, the more you lose in the imitation”.

He believed when the camera moved, the light changes that occurred prevented him from truly expressing the form of his subject.

He didn’t trust the film development laboratories because their errors could destroy the print.

He believed there are many conditions that are required on set and in preparation to make colour work well and even then he felt it was left to chance more often than not.

He believed controlling colour was difficult: "It's like when you're writing and a random word pops on the page and changes the meaning of your writing."