 Scorsese said it was inspired by an Algernon Blackwood short story, Mel Brooks's 1963 short animated film "The Critic", and French-Italian New Wave cinema.He created and directed the film after watching Federico Fellini's surrealist comedy-drama "8½" (1963) for the first time, which he listed as one of his favorite films.Author Ben Nyce describes it as "a light-hearted treatment" of self-destructive behavior.