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La Dolce Vita (2-Disc Collector's Edition)
: Most critics consider the soulful "La Strada" to be Federico Fellini's masterpiece, but for just plain entertainment nothing beats "La Dolce Vita". From the opening shot of the hovering Christ statue suspended from a helicopter blessing the City of God to the final close-up of the Umbrian angel gazing after the debauched hero (literally stranded very much like Zampano in "La Strada') "La Dolce Vita" has one scene after another to fascinate on the first viewing or to anticipate time and again. I'm sure everyone has his favorite sequence: the sex goddess wading in the Fontana di Trevi, the giggling children leading a gullible crowd to aý"vision" of the Virgin Mary, or the beach house orgy which climaxes this study of jet-set corruption. Corruption is the key word here, and the movie was critized for saying "tsk tsk" to its characters while exploiting their depravity. The cast (or type-cast) is headed by Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello, a bachelor who is catnip to females. Anita Ekberg, a Swedish-born American movie star, plays ... a Swedish-born American movie star! On a sadder level, Lex Barker, a washed-up Tarzan, plays a washed-up Tarzan. The plot consists of Marcello's affairs with a succession of beauties, including Anouk Aimýe as a jaded heiress who drifts in and out of Marcello's life, and Yvonne Furneaux as his mistress, pathetically attempting domesticity in an unfurnished apartment. Between beds, Marcello wanders around viewing Roman fever in various locales: a Renaissance castello, a tacky night club, and the Via Veneto, crowded with celebrities and sports cars. Rarely has decadence looked so attractive, photographed in black-and-white wide screen and hopped- up by Nino Rota's nervous music. (Incredibly, I can't find a video cassette in letter-box format.) Marcello is a journalist who specializes in tabloid scandal stories. His sidekick is a ruthlessly aggressive photographer named Paparazzo -- his plural is "paparazzi". An intellectual acquaintance named Steiner (hauntingly played by Alain Cuny) encourages Marcello to pursue more serious writing, but it is Steiner's incomprehensible act of destruction that finally sends Marcello over the edge, causing him to fall headlong into the sweet life which becomes increasingly "acida". Fellini shows the lassitude and futility of these beautiful but blank lives, the characters bored and, yes, basically boring. So why is the story so engrossing? I think it's because the director never repeats himself; every sequence is a variation on the same theme. Fellini, fascinated by the circus, knew how to hold an audience's attention; and in "La Dolce Vita" he has all three rings going at once: a tremendous life force, degeneration, and (in the closing shot of the innocent girl's face) hope. All you have to do is sit back with a glass of Chianti and enjoy the show.
It would be easy to write off the movie that launched Federico Fellini to international acclaim as a decadent feast of glamour and vanity that adds up to little (the textbook for my film class does just so). If you did so, though, you'd be robbing Fellini's best, most complex, and most deeply moving film of everything it deserves. A first viewing of Vita was enough to convince me that it's a brilliant film; after seeing it again this weekend I'm kind of humbled at its very existence. Here is a movie that, for nearly three hours, holds you for dear life and then has you wanting it to go on at the credits. Here is a movie that has moments of oddball recklessness and quiet beauty, both deliriously gorgeous; one that puts its protagonist through hell and back but still gives him hope. Yeah, I could tell you a plot synopsis (gossip columnist (Marcello Mastrioanni) experiences the night life of Rome), but that would be cheating and wouldn't do it justice. La Dolce Vita, though about vanity and emptiness, is a movie of ideas. I've been thinking about it all day, I think I know what he's saying, and I just want to experience it again. And what an experience: the cinematography is graceful (not a handheld shot to be found), the performances surrounding that of Mastrioanni are gleefully over-the-top (look for Nico, of Warhol's 'Factory,' near the end), and the conclusion to which the film inexorably builds is as powerful as it is ambiguous. Yes, 8 1/2 is an interesting film, but its pretention gets in the way. Sure, La Strada and I Vitelloni are wonderful little neo-realistic works, but they seem to just hint at something on the horizon for the director. This is it, the Fellini movie that is perfect in every way. With La Dolce Vita, Italy's most beloved director shows he belongs in the same breath as The Bicycle Thief and The Passion of Joan of Arc when we talk about the best foreign films ever made. A+
I saw this film when I was five and it has haunted me my whole life. I watch it every couple of years to see who I have become, and how my viewpoint of living has shifted. Any sane soul living quasi-consciously through the last few decades of unbridled mammonism and pop trash may likely identify with its semi-impotent protagonist, Marcello Rubini, who wanders the graytone alleyways of dear old Rome in great suits and sports cars, sporting sexy ennui. Torn as he is between the Idealized Feminine and the Matronly Woman - and committed to neither, Marcello finds himself permanently detached from the eternally-themed scenarios that he watches unfold in whacked-out tableaux around him (sort of like a day in Los Angeles, maybe). Yes, it is a Sweet Life, even as dread and the sense that "nothing ca n be done" overcomes the best of us. Add to this Nino Rota's timeless score; the best costumes ever splashed across a black and white fresco; pregnant dialogue; and, a devastating vignette featuring the sad and lonely Steiner and the fate of his family in an E.U.R. highrise apartment complex. It's three hours of the most penetrating stuff I've ever seen, yet totally entertaining and charming, and ofttimes very, very funny. In a dark way, of course.
Although many argue about the meaning of his films, few will debate Fellini's impact on cinema and popular culture. I find it amusing how many people try to find a moral message in his films and characters. The brilliance of his films is that characters are presented without sympathy or scorn. They simply exist like fleeting emotions. Sure, you'll love, envy and hate Marcello's character all at the same time. That's a lot like real life. Feminists always hate Fellini's portrayal of women as sex objects. Get a critical life! The same director who gave us La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2 turned around and made a brilliant film about a middle aged woman's point of view in "Juliette of the Spirits".
Returning to la Dolce Vita, Fellini seems as obsessed as we are with the celebrity lifestyle and glitz of the famous. This film is oddly prescient in predicting that mania for the rich and famous. I'll go out on a limb here and say that fans of Reality TV Shows will find La Dolce Vita oddly familiar. Let's not forget the strange photographer who hangs around Marcello named "Paparazzo". This cinematic leech is precisely where the term "Paparazzi" comes from... Fellini foresaw that bizarre pop culture vulture would be increasingly a participant in celebrity lives (and deaths) as well as a chronicler.
In spite of all this, Fellini's films are fun. He seems to have the unique ability to breezily make biting social commentary, while at the same time showing us all the decadent fun we want. Perhaps the final word is that Life is Sweet, no matter how screwed up it is. Like this film, the best thing is to just jump in and experience it.
What a great movie...It needs to be watched more than once for full understanding...Crikey, get this movie on DVD...I can't say too much but it looks like too little. Watch it if you have an open mind.
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