Years & Movies: 1963

 The best film of the world cinema of 1963 according to FilmGourmand's version is the film "Eight and a half" by Federico Fellini. This is the second time we have recognized Fellini's film as the best film of the year. First time - the film "La strada", recognized as the best film of 1954.

"Eight and a half" premiered in Rome on February 13, 1963. In the same 1963 the film took part in the Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF). This participation was accompanied by a number of scandals. Firstly, at the viewing of the film, which took place on July 18, then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev simply fell asleep. And secondly, when summing up the results and determining the winners, the communist leadership of the USSR behaved completely unworthy, putting pressure on the festival jury with all its might to award the Grand-prix the absolutely gray picture "Знакомьтесь, Балуев! (Meet Baluyev!)" Is there anybody who remember this movie? Only thanks to the firmness of the chairman of the jury, Grigory Chukhrai, Fellini's film was recognized as the winner of the festival. After that, Federico Fellini pledged to take part in the Moscow Film Festival for almost a quarter of a century, and only in the perestroika years, in 1987 he presented his film "Intervista" to the festival.

The next year, 1964, "Eight and a half" received 5 Oscar nominations, of which it won two, including Best Foreign Language Film. For Best Director, Academy members deemed Tony Richardson, director of "Tom Jones", more worthy of the Oscar.

"Eight and a half" was also nominated for the British BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Film. But here, the preference was given to the film "Tom Jones", too.

Also in 1964, the film "Eight and a half", together with Stanley Kubrick's film "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" was awarded the Danish Bodil Film Award as Best European Film.

It is widely known that the title of the film has nothing common with its content. Federico Fellini simply indicated the serial number of his creation. Prior to this film, he shot 6 full-length films, two shorts, which he equated to one full-length, and also shot one film together with another director, which, according to his calculations, is half the film. But the film could have gotten a different title, as its working title was "La Bella Confusione", i.e. "The Beautiful Confusion". But this name is most directly related to the background of the creation of the film.

As you know, Federico Fellini, as a rule, worked without a well-defined, complete script. At some point during the pre-production stage for the next film, he completely forgot the original idea of ​​this film. And forgot so deeply that he was even going to inform film producer Angelo Rizzoli of his intention to abandon the project. But it so happened that during the celebration of the birthday of the chief operator of the film studio Cinecittà, Fellini suddenly had a new idea: he decided to make a film about a director who was going to make a film, but suddenly forgot what the film was about.

And as a result the film was created which Roger Ebert called "the best film ever made about filmmaking". And then, in a review dated May 28, 2000, he wrote: "I have seen "8 1/2" over and over again, and my appreciation only deepens. It does what is almost impossible: Fellini is a magician who discusses, reveals, explains and deconstructs his tricks, while still fooling us with them. He claims he doesn't know what he wants or how to achieve it, and the film proves he knows exactly, and rejoices in his knowledge" Ebert wrote this in his second review of Fellini's masterpiece.

 And 7 years earlier, on May 7, 1993, in his first review of the film, Ebert wrote: "Thirty years after Fellini made "8 1/2," films like this have grown rare. Audiences demand that their movies, like fast food, be served up hot and now. The self-indulgence and utter self-absorption of Fellini, two of the film's charms, would be vetoed by modern financial backers. They'd demand a more commercial genre piece...These days, directors don't worry about how to repeat their last hit, because they know exactly how to do it: Remake the same commercial formulas. A movie like this is like a splash of cold water in the face, a reminder that the movies really can shake us up, if they want to. Ironic, that Fellini's film is about artistic bankruptcy seems richer in invention than almost anything else around."  

70% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users around the world gave this film an 8 to 10 rating.

Considering the above, FilmGourmand's rating for "Eight and a half" was 9,703, placing it 65th in the Golden Thousand.

In addition to the film "Eight and a half", the following films were included in the "ten" best films of world cinema of 1963:

- Suna no onna  砂の女  (Woman in the Dunes). Director Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japan. Movie's Rating - 9,333; 99th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Le feu follet (The Fire Within). Director Louis Malle, France. Movie's Rating - 9,326; 101st Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Director Stanley Kubrick, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,740; 232nd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Живые и мертвые (The Alive and the Dead). Director Aleksandr Stolper, USSR. Movie's Rating - 8,630; 269th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Tengoku to jigoku  天国と地獄  (High and Low). Director Akira Kurosawa, Japan. Movie's Rating - 8,543; 305th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- За двома́ зайця́ми За двумя зайцами  (Chasing Two Hares). Director Viktor Ivanov, USSR. Movie's Rating - 8,200; 473rd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Il gattopardo (The Leopard). Director Luchino Visconti, Italy. Movie's Rating - 8,128; 566th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Tystnaden (The Silence). Director Ingmar Bergman, Sweden. Movie's Rating - 8,118; 577th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Sedotta e abbandonata (Seduced and Abandoned). Director Pietro Germi, Italy. Movie's Rating - 8,066; 630th Rank in the Golden Thousand.


10 most "cinegenic"*, in our opinion, events of 1963:

- The Kennedy assassination. In Dallas, US President John Kennedy was murdered.
- The Battle of Ap Bac. In the first major battle of the Vietnam War near the village of Ap Bac, the South Vietnamese army lost 80 soldiers killed and about 100 wounded; the US lost 3 soldiers killed (helicopter pilots and a military adviser) and 8 wounded; the Viet Cong lost 18 men killed and 39 wounded.
- The Eric Cook trial. The trial of Eric Cook, a serial killer also known as the "Night Caller" and later the "Nedland Monster", took place in Perth, Australia. Between 1958 and 1963, he carried out 22 attacks on women, 8 of which were killed by him. Eric Cook was sentenced to death by hanging.
- The wreck of the "Thresher". The US Navy nuclear submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593) sank in the Atlantic Ocean during tests on the strength of the hull when submerged. 16 officers, 96 crew members and 17 civil engineering technicians were killed on board.
- Great train robbery. In the UK there was a so-called Great train robbery. An amount equivalent to £ 46 million in modern prices was stolen. Most of this amount has not been found so far.
- First woman cosmonaut. In the USSR, a spacecraft was launched with the first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.
- The Skopje earthquake. In Yugoslavia, in the city of Skopje (now – North Macedonia), a strong earthquake occurred. As a result of the earthquake, 1,070 people were killed, about 3,000 were injured, and approximately 75 % of residential buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged.
- Explosion at the Miike mine. In Japan, an explosion occurred at the country's largest coal mine Miike. 458 people died, most of whom died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Another 839 people were hospitalized.
- Chemical attacks in Huế. Soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) poured liquid chemicals from tear gas grenades on the heads of praying Buddhists in Huế, South Vietnam. Buddhists protested against religious discrimination by the regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem. As a result of the attacks, 67 people were hospitalized with skin blisters and respiratory diseases.
- The Vajont Dam disaster. At the Vajont dam in Italy, as a result of a landslide, one of the largest accidents in the history of hydraulic engineering occurred, which claimed the lives, according to various estimates, from 2 to 3 thousand people.

In addition, Quentin Tarantino, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Emmanuelle Béart were born. Yasujirô Ozu died.

* -With "cinematic" in the present context, we mean events that either have already found their reflection in world cinema, or deserve to become the basis of the plot of a future film.