Nine (& 8 1/2)
Saying that Nine is “based on” Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece 8 1/2 is akin to saying that a painted reproduction of “Guernica” is “based on” Guernica. It doesn’t quite do the trick, but you see where this is going. Nine is a musical version of 8 1/2. Where 8 1/2 depicts dream sequences, Nine depicts musical numbers. This isn’t to say that the dreams in 8 1/2 aren’t musically inclined at times or even that the musical numbers in Nine aren’t also dream sequences. It’s simply to point out one of the major differences between the two. Both films are very good, though the original (as in so many cases) is superior.
One might contrast the two films by saying that, whereas 8 1/2 may not entertain as much, Nine may not be as thought-provoking. This is only partly true, as they are telling the same story. There are a number of details missing in the latter, due to a very consistent choice throughout, that is, to (almost) eschew the relationships with men in the director’s life, leaving women to play fill all the roles that were littered with a few more men in Fellini’s original (the director’s father, other producer-types, a philosopher-critic). In Nine, this works to great effect, in large part due to the fact that it is a burlesque musical, which is a more-or-less feminine performance, albeit a very masculine experience.
The role of the seamstress/costume-designer in Nine is enormous compared to the single line she is given in 8 1/2. Whether this was for the benefit of Judi Dench (who is superb, as we have come to expect) is debatable, but it seems a reasonable assumption, not to mention a pretty good decision by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella (the writers) and the producers as well, of which one is the director himself, Rob Marshall (Memoirs of a Geisha). The entire cast is aptly chosen, except for Kate Hudson, whose character was flat and one-dimensional and whose dancing had two (or more) left feet. However, it is one of Nicole Kidman’s best performances since Moulin Rouge (another musical), and Marion Cotillard is brilliant as the director’s wife. Penélope Cruz’s performance has become expected, lacking originality in some ways, though this is certainly due in some respect to type-casting.
Having directed Chicago, Marshall already had his musical-movie legs, and thus was able to guide this film with lucidity and a respect for the original, much as he had to with Chicago as well (in stage form, of course). The entire film is laced with women (pun intended) and Catholicism and their hold on the director’s fragile psyche. In each film, we see the director raised to be a good Catholic little boy, though he rebels constantly, seeking respite in, among other things, the devilish Saraghina (played here by Fergie, resembling the original character in many ways). We see him wrestle with the ideas he grew up with, philosophical and religious, and we witness the struggle of a genius in the throws of sublimated artistic creation, owing to the epic scenes in which the director chews up the scenery, and for good reason.
In Nine, what is most evident in the director (Daniel Day-Lewis is a tour de force) is the physical breakdown as a response to his mental confusion and restlessness. In 8 1/2, the director, though brooding in equal amounts, speaks his mind a bit more, a modern day Hamlet, letting the viewer in on his personal philosophical outlook, something that is mostly missing from Nine, probably due to the soi-disant “marketability” of the film to a mass audience. Opposite him (only in 8 1/2) is the philosopher-critic, always diminishing the director’s ideas for the film in the name of a kind of pompous nihilism. At one point, he tells the director that the best thing we can learn from artists is silence, because there is so much chaos already in the world, that to add to it is senseless, and if we cannot speak with pristine logic and lucidity, we should not speak at all. He says, “If we can’t have everything, true perfection is nothingness.” He speaks in this pseudo-Sartrian way throughout the entire film, to little avail.
The director, however, says at one point, “I really have nothing to say, but I want to say it all the same.” This is artistic expression, the human desire to say imperfectly what we experience imperfectly, lacking logic and lucidity at times, neither of which is necessary to speak artistically, or to speak at all. Finally, near the end of 8 1/2, the director makes it a little more clear, when he says, “Everything is true. I don’t know how to explain. I wish I could explain. But I don’t know how to. … But this confusion is me. Not as I’d like to be, but as I am. I’m not afraid anymore of telling the truth, of the things I don’t know, what I’m looking for and haven’t found. This is the only way I can feel alive and look into your faithful eyes without shame. Life is a celebration. Let’s live it together!” He says this to his wife, but it could just as easily be the artist speaking to himself and to the world.
Fellini, the film director, directs a film about a film director, in which the film director can’t figure out how to tell his own story. He says, “I thought my ideas were so clear. I wanted to make an honest film. No lies whatsoever. I thought I had something so simple to say. Something useful to everybody. A film that could help bury forever all those dead things we carry within ourselves. Instead, I’m the one without the courage to bury anything at all. When did I go wrong?” This is where he concludes with, “I really have nothing to say, but I want to say it all the same. ” If you have something to say, say it. That is part of the beauty of artistic expression, that we, alone among all the animals, are not silent, do not have to be silent, but can choose to tell the world about ourselves and how we see the world.
The philosopher-critic has gotten everything wrong. Silence is not called for in the face of the enormity of confusion in the universe; on the contrary, speaking as much and as loudly as possible, though with grace (as Dench’s character reminds us), in order to communicate thoughts, ideas, and, perhaps above all, stories. All of art is essentially story-telling, whether our own, a historical figure, or a fictional character. And they are all true stories. Harold Pinter wrote, “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.” Art helps us to understand this.
The stories we tell are our own, in some capacity. Fellini knew that as well as anyone, being one of the most autobiographical film-makers in the history of cinema. Nine has attempted to capture that, to retell 8 1/2 for a contemporary audience, using brilliant costumes, dramatic cinematography, and a mixture of color and black-and-white to highlight the predecessor, and bringing a new life to a story which stands alone as one of the best films of all time. And it succeeds. In spades and flying colors. Though it has a few flaws, they do not hamper its success, and it may very well be one of the best films of the year. See it.
Rating: 4/4 Stars
