This is Fellini's masterpiece, and arguablyone of the two or three greatest films ever made. It brought an entirelynew dimension to the cinema: no fiction film had ever used dream andfantasy images for a serious examination of the psyche in so smooth,seamless, and uncontrived a way. The events in 8-1/2 are galvanized andmade profound by startling representations, like that of Guido trappedin the tunnel, Guido as a boy watching the prostitute dance on thebeach, Guido lashing the women in his harem. Once we understand theirfunction, their sudden and unmarked entrance into the film becomespositively essential to a depiction of the crucial moments in the lifeof this artist who, despite his confusion and uncertainty, is making asupremely honest effort to understand himself and the springs of hiscreativity. The most wonderful moment in 8-1/2 is the ending. After adismal string of seemingly insoluble personal problems, the filmmakersimply accepts his life, and that becomes the subject of his film. Tothe strains of Rota's wonderful circus tune, he discovers the onlypossible solution: there (ecco), for better or worse, goesGuido/Federico, an artist who can do nothing better-indeed, nothingother-than what he wants and needs to do, namely, to put through thehoops of his own aesthetic sensibility the lovable beings who haveshaped his life.-Seymour Chatman Seymour Chatmanis professor Emeritus, Department of Rhetoric, UC Berkeley, and theauthor of Antonioni or, The Surface of the World.