Sunday, August 24, 2003

8�, and on DVD
I saw it for the first time in a brightly lit room on a 21-inch TV trying desperately not to miss the subtitles at the bottom of the screen and found the movie confusing. I then saw it again, after drawing all the curtains; absorbing the vision of Fellini, and boy: it became one of the most profound films I have seen. The DVD from Cinema Paradiso (incidentally, a very good video parlour) was in pristine condition. And I have to thank Rohini for renting it out for me. If you want to watch 8� on DVD, get the Criterion Collection�s Double Disk Set. Gianni di Venanzo, the cinematographer, would definitely be pleased. There is also two documentaries: one by Fellini himself, and another on the genius of Nino Rota. Don�t miss Sandra Milo�s interview and the booklet that comes with the disks.
Usually, when one watches the �special features� on a DVD, it gives an extra dimension to the film�s understanding, but in the case of 8�, the interview�s, commentaries etc., were extensions of the film itself: watch the movie to know what I�m talking about. So is the DVD the best format for the film to be experienced fully? Fellini definitely intended it for the big screen.
That brings me to Fellini himself. Usually I find it very easy to identify some thing in every filmmaker that I find in myself. This very �mirroring� achieved in 8�, makes the movie more valuable to me personally. Fellini (from what I infer from the extra features on the DVD) is someone I would eventually become if some small things in my life had been different. But I am what I have been made into; I definitely would not become Frederico/Mastroianni/Guido, precisely because I have seen what had made them, and those are not the things that have made me. Yet, I identify with them so much; maybe because inside, we are all the same; circumstances have made each of us different and special in our own ways.
My own memories help strike a chord here. Once in school when I had no script and a play had to go up within a few days, we got together and in desperation put up a play about us trying to put up a play with disastrous results: it was a hit. That was really a long time ago and I did not know anything about films, life or 8� then. Now I know more about my play.

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