This harkens back to the priest's warning, since Fellini, by the priest's logic, seems ultimately to want to "educate," not "corrupt," his audience by the end of 8 1/2.
What follows is a quasi-religious fantasy sequence in which all the people from his life, dressed in white, march in a circle. It is only after accepting his artistic failure that Guido grants himself this forgiveness, embracing his own imperfections in the final moments of the film. Ultimately, Guido seeks redemption, whether religious or personal, for his perceived sins in life, which he attempts to achieve via filmmaking. Guido himself has a complicated relationship to religion, as we see in his childhood memories, particularly the one in which he was forced to do penance for sneaking off to watch Seraghina dance. In this scene, however, a priest argues that cinema rather possesses great power to affect people's ideas about religion. Daumier is often cinema's biggest critic, asserting that it lags behind all other mediums by 50 years. The question of cinema's role as an artistic medium is a major theme in 8 1/2, since everyone around Guido seems to have an opinion on film's power (or lack thereof) to affect people. You can either educate or corrupt millions of souls." Priest Visually, this is expressed in Claudia's dress, since she wears white in Guido's fantasies (including this one) but later wears black and proves a disappointment in comparison with his fantasy of her as the perfect woman. When Claudia utters these words in Guido's dream, she functions as a projection of Guido's search for truth in his art what Guido wants most is "order." Later, however, we understand that Guido's search for truth is an unrealistic one, particularly as it relates to his relationship with women, since he refuses to settle for the woman he loves (Luisa) for fear that she is imperfect or lacking qualities that he admires in other women. In the beginning of the film, Claudia functions purely symbolically, embodying the purity and authenticity that Guido associates with the ideal woman.
I want to clean.” Claudia, in Guido's dream One might even say that it is precisely because of these gratuitous cultural critiques that Guido's film is destined for failure. All the same, it is important that critiques like this one pervade the film, since they plague Guido to the point of existential and creative crisis. This shades 8 1/2 in a thick layer of irony, since Fellini depends on cinema as a valid medium Daumier's very existence as a character in a Fellini film demands that cinema thrives. Daumier often functions as cinema's harshest critic, embodying classically stuffy critiques of film as a fundamentally lower art form than the novel, sculpture, etc. "Forgive me, but this might be the most pathetic demonstration ever that cinema is irremediably behind all other arts by 50 years." DaumierĪ motif on which 8 1/2 absolutely depends is the constant critique of cinema's role as an artistic medium. Just as the bees suck the life from the flowers in Gloria's eyes, so too does Guido suck the life from the women he believes he's pleasing. This quote, to the extent that it embodies Gloria's independence from men, ties into themes of Guido's at times chauvinistic relationship to women. She openly critiques Guido's past films and dances to the beat of her own drum, bucking social norms that would have her date a man her own age. Gloria is also the most educated woman we see in the film, as she is writing a doctoral thesis on the solitude of man in modern theater. During Guido's fantasy of his harem, Gloria notably spearheads the rebellion of women against Guido and even seems entertained by his decision to whip those who rebelled. In this quotation, Gloria reverses the notion that bees pollinate and give life to flowers, which strikes a chord with the feminist leanings she displays in the film.
Gloria is a constant source of oblique, poetic statements about life and death, making this line (her first in the film) characteristic of her playful yet morbid taste. The cruel bee has sucked the life from these poor flowers.” Gloria Morin
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