La Dolce Vita (1961)

At three brief hours, La Dolce Vita, a piece of cynical, engrossing social commentary, stands as Federico Fellini's timeless masterpiece. A rich, detailed panorama of Rome's modern decadence and sophisticated immorality, the film is episodic in structure but held tightly in focus by the wandering protagonist through whom we witness the sordid action. Marcello Rubini (extraordinarily played by Marcello Mastroianni) is a tabloid reporter trapped in a shallow high-society existence. A man of paradoxical emotional juxtapositions (cool but tortured, sexy but impotent), he dreams about writing something important but remains seduced by the money and prestige that accompany his shallow position. He romanticizes finding true love but acts unfazed upon finding that his girlfriend has taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Instead, he engages in an ménage à trois, then frolics in a fountain with a giggling American starlet (bombshell Anita Ekberg), and in the film's unforgettably inspired finale, attends a wild orgy that ends, symbolically, with its participants finding a rotting sea animal while wandering the beach at dawn. Fellini saw his film as life affirming (thus its title, The Sweet Life), but it's impossible to take him seriously. While Mastroianni drifts from one worldly pleasure to another, be it sex, drink, glamorous parties, or rich foods, they are presented, through his detached eyes, are merely momentary distractions. His existence, an endless series of wild evenings and lonely mornings, is ultimately soulless and facile. Because he lacks the courage to change, Mastroianni is left with no alternative but to wearily accept and enjoy this "sweet" life. --Dave McCoy Amazon.com essential video

Classic and beautiful

Fellini's gorgeous masterpiece is still as relevant today as it ever was. Brilliant. Watch it. July 31, 2008

"That's it???"

In my quest to see all the great films I've missed by patronizing art houses infinitely less than I should have, "La Dolce Vita" just recently came to the top of the pile. I was still on a massive high from "Once Upon a Time in the West", "Seven Samurai", a rewatch of "The Endless Summer" and my all-time favorite (also Bruce Brown) "On Any Sunday" which I watch at least 3-4 times a year. I was LDV's to throw away....

I think I "get" the movie... Marcello lives amongst the "look at me" crew as a paparazzi and is silently swallowed by their world. In scene after scene, with the exception of his meeting Paola in the quiet little cafe, he descends from being merely a shallow loser to being something worse than that... the kind of evil butt-hole that's too far gone to ever be redeemed.

So I got that... Fellini drove it home through hours of beautifully photographed scenes of easily-bored pretty shiny losers and heavy-handed symbolism... that being a pretty shiny loser is a hollow, unrewarding, waste of your life... duh. All seemingly just to set up a brief ending scene with Paola again... that's about as subtle as Laugh-In's bucket of water.. that if you're a jerk for too long, you just ain't getting back. My first words after putting my time in to this famous piece of cinematic history were "That's IT?".

I researched the film more... trying to understand what I was missing. It had to be me because this film has enormous cache as a film. But the more I read, the more it was cemented for me that the target audience for this was solely the "film elite"... people who could appreciate film on the mere basis of clever structure and symbolism. It felt like one of the 70's sound effects records targeted at the audiophiles who don't care what the musical performance is like... just how the sound is.. that you can sense the "sound stage" and pick up the drummer is also tapping his foot, whether he's playing something great or just a piece of utter musical crap. I used to be one of those guys, so I know I "get" that..

If I had to compare LDV to a recent film, it would be The Aristocrats... or perhaps more accurately, to the joke itself. The greatest practitioners of it are those who immerse in and innovate on the nuance of the setup... who can appreciate pushing the length and complexity of the setup to someplace absurd to most people. But I'd say those practitioners are appreciating something removed from the joke itself. They see it as insiders do. It's about the structure (length and complexity), and how other insiders would see it. The insider is their target audience. I enjoyed The Aristocrats myself, because for some reason I can't explain, I'm interested in how the structure/execution of the joke affects its effectiveness. But most "normal people" I know were, after hearing the joke, "That's IT?". And they came away mis-concluding it was all about the shock value. For them, it was too much foreplay for a really lousy payoff. That's LDV for me. I can check off that I've seen it, and I'll be giving "8 1/2" a try in a week of so, but I think I best try and figure out how to like football or American Idle or something my obvious lack of depth and understanding indicates I should enjoy... my career as a film snob seems doomed from this point forward. Does anyone know what channel football is on? April 6, 2008

A classic italian flick

I know this is a classic award winning movie, but to be honest I just didn't get it. I bought it to work on Italian language skills ( I study Italian at school) and this movie was mentioned in my textbook, so it served it purpose for that, but the movie itself was a bit beyond what I could appreciate. April 6, 2008

still magnificent

I remember seeing this movie when it first came out, in fact it was the first movie I went to see more than once. For some reason it resonated with me then as much as now. I recently watched it again, and found the scene at Steiner's apartment to be quite fascinating. Here we have a man who is hemmed in by the walls of society, and the way for him to experience nature is by making audo tapes of the sounds of rain, storms,and other facets of creation. Then he can play them back in the safety of his apartment, apparently unable to just enjoy the outdoors in all its beauty. He is afraid of the future, and can't break away from society and its walls. Perhaps that is why he is attracted to Marcello's character, who just floats freely about, apparently without a worry. December 25, 2007

[4.5]-It's true that you must appreciate film to appreciate La Dolce Vita

This being my second Fellini film has made want him even more. Knowingly enough its Fellini's breakthrough film. In here it celebrates modern Rome as seen through the eyes of a celebrity journalist, Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a frustrated writer earning his keep by staying out every evening on the Via Veneto where he comes into contact with the rich and famous. We are supposedly witnessing the moral decline of Western civilization, and the worship of movie stars as religious icons. The reporter has a live-in girlfriend, who wants to get married, the possessive and depressive Emma (Yvonne Furneaux). He has many dalliances; one is with a bored nymphomaniac society gal (Anouk Aimee).

In this sporadic tale Marcello moves around the city with the paparazzi, ready to catch the action, and he has the power to make and break the Celebes he covers. Marcello, a celeb himself, attends nightclubs and parties that go on until dawn that are given by intellectuals, hedonists, the decadent rich and various other parties. One such memorable scene is over a false miracle (the media has a field day as a pair of children claim to have seen the Holy Virgin); the most moving scene is the suicide of an intellectual friend (Alain Cuny), that is done with compassion for the morally upright vic; and, finally, an orgy, that became the film's reason for being.

I have a few favorite scenes that lift the film above the muck: the opening shot has a helicopter lifting a statue of Christ into the skies and leaving Rome. As far I can see, it symbolically augments the departure of God for Fellini's prophetic vision. Another memorable scene is over the Trevi Fountain (Mastroianni goes into the fountain where visiting Hollywood actress Anita Ekberg is bathing). The warmest scene had Marcello meeting with his father (Annibale Ninchi) and tempting him with the sweet life.

The film veers between high culture and trash, with a little of everything in between. Because the sex was frank, the Catholic Church condemned it as a dirty movie (which I can imagine increased its box office). The film is much more than that, it's Fellini's statement about him as an artist and how he wants to make movies as both real life and fanciful art. It's winsome because of the stylish cinematography, which fills the screen with mind-blowing bizarre visuals. It's a special film, but has become dated; it points its finger at decadence with a certain titillation but just as easily seems to be grounded with a sophisticated attitude in its need to search for a way to find the sublime. Like its playboy hero Marcello, it can't make up its mind if it wants to grow up. You might say that our hero has become a victim of something that's too good to leave, but ultimately may not really be that good for him.
November 16, 2007

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