Although briefly touched here, he was surrounded by talent that boosted his vision: Giulietta Masina, Nino Rota, and, of course, Mastroianni. 8 1/2 is beyond words; for some reason I still tear up in the "circus ring" finale, but I watch it on YouTube every couple of months (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvrcRSvpI78), it is so sad and yet refreshing in some sense (I had an outfit like that when I was a kid, but it was blue!) Little known fact: Barbara Steele (of Black Sunday fame, this movie plays in the background in a scene in Matrix 2, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sunday_(1960_film)), who plays a sweet young thing in the movie, was dubbed, because her own voice was not found feminine enough :-)
I also love "La Città Delle Donne", although many find it overdone; unfortunately it was not included in this essential set. The "woman hunter" depicted here is really scared to death of them.
In his The Great Movies Roger Ebert writes:
"Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw La Dolce Vita in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom “the sweet life” represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamor, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello’s world; Chicago’s North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello’s age.
When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal.”
As I also love and pity Marcello when I now watch the film, I must be getting old (Ebert was 49, I'm about that age)! No worries though: now I'm having the joy of introducing them to my son.