"I always like to see life in a fantasy key," the director said in a 1963 interview with journalist Oriana Fallaci, summing up his creative vision. The director is still arguably Italian cinema's most celebrated figure with a wealth of noteworthy films, from dramatic classics such as La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957) and La Dolce Vita (1960) to more surreal vehicles such as Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Roma (1972) and Amarcord (1973). Turning 60 this week, it is still one of the coolest cinematic illusions of the 20th Century.Ĩ 1/2 is a witty self-reference to Fellini's own career the film being technically his eighth-and-a-half after seven features and two short segments for compilation films. And, true to the magician's adage, 8 1/2 is both a film of fantastical trickery, and one that retains a beating heart beneath its stylish exterior. Guido, played by the endlessly cool Marcello Mastroianni, is the protagonist in 8 1/2 and a fictional alter-ego for the Italian maestro. He may as well be talking about the director's art too. "There are many tricks but part of it is real somehow," suggests the magician when discussing his art. In one particular scene in the film, filmmaker Guido and an illusionist are chatting on a terrace. If considering what might constitute the ultimate example of cinematic "cool", however, then it's not a stretch of the imagination to believe it would look something like Federico Fellini's 1963 masterpiece 8 1/2 – all of which brings us to a film director and a magician. From the films of Jean-Luc Godard to classic Hollywood stars such as James Dean and Marlon Brando, "cool" in cinema has often been a mixture of fashion, flair and finesse. This feels especially true in cinema, where films, filmmakers and performers labelled "cool" over the years are heavily copied. If there's any one element that defines "cool", it's perhaps a sense of calm confidence – a quality desirable enough to encourage emulation. In fashion, music and cinema, the genesis of "cool" feels heavily tied to the emergence of popular culture in the 20th Century – from the US jazz scene that first popularised the term, to the fashion world's post-war development of ready-to-wear clothing aimed at the newly emerging teenage market, as well as mass media such as pop music and cinema that became the dominant modes of creative expression in the same period. What counts as "cool" exactly? It's not easy to pin down: as a notion, "coolness" is both frustratingly intangible and constantly in flux.
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