"This is Fellini's masterpiece, and arguably one of the two or three greatest films ever made. It brought an entirely new dimension to the cinema: no fiction film had ever used dream and fantasy images for a serious examination of the psyche in so smooth, seamless, and uncontrived a way. The events in 8-1/2 are galvanized and made profound by startling representations (whose) sudden and unmarked entrance into the film becomes positively essential to a depiction of the crucial moments in the life of (an) artist who, despite his confusion and uncertainty, is making a supremely honest effort to understand himself and the springs of his creativity." (Seymour Chatman) Mastroianni told a journalist in 1965, "I did those two Fellini films (La Dolce Vita and 8-1/2) not as an actor but as a man...to realize myself through them. They are the best mirror of my real self. It's not that I play myself, actually, but rather more that I am looking for myself in the roles."