Fellini's 8 1/2

Did anyone feel as if this was Malick's "answer" to Fellini's film? It had so many marks of Fellini, Antonioni and old Malick himself. So much going on and then nothing. For those that called it pretentious, I think looking up the word might be the first step in understanding why it wasn't. It's his story, but he's allowing every viewer to make decisions on every step or chapter. He's not telling us what to think, which would be pretentious. He's adding faith, spirituality and even some mysticism, but he never tells us we need to experience it as Rick does. The same way Rick simply reacts to all that is around him, we the viewer can choose what parts of his life are good or bad, important or frivolous and we can even choose if Rick finds what he is looking for. How anyone could deny the beauty and the boldness of the film, then write it off to being pretentious is a mystery to me. Is Days of Heaven pretentious? The Thin Read Line? Tree of Life? All those films use an abundance of beauty and imagery to tell us how to think, yet if they aren't pretentious, how could this possibly be? And here's the great irony. Fellini's masterpiece actually is the most self -indulgent, pretentious movie ever made (OK, Citizen Kane might be more so), but it works, because it doesn't hide that it's pretentious. Fellini even said in interviews that he made the movie for himself and those that understand the rigors of the craft.

This probably wasn't the place to write this....I await being called pretentious, haha