La Dolce Vita

Rating:
Summary: Too much of the "sweet life" can make you sick
Review: "He who looks for God, finds him where he wants." LA DOLCE VITA is a thoroughly modern film that longs for certainty and permanence in a world where the edifices of the past are crumbling. A world where love is illusive. Where the sacred has become sacrilegious. The opening scene of the film has a statue of Jesus being flown past crumbling aqueducts, the "modern" marvel of ancient Rome. The message is clear: nothing is sacred or permanent. The solution? escapism. And so the alcoholic oracle in the film states, "the three great escapes are drinking, smoking and going to bed." What is the point of reflection when a "phone call can announce the end of the world?" Indeed, one should live "outside of passions, beyond emotion." LA DOLCE VITA is a visual spectacle that is as dazzling as it is exhausting. Too much of a good thing can make you sick, and then you have to ask yourself: is it really a good thing?

Marcello Rubini has a gig as a writer, and along with his photographer sidekick Paparazzo, cover (and often uncover) the night scene of the rich and famous, a surreal experience that usually begins around midnight and ends when it runs out of steam in the wee hours of morning just before daylight. This scene is peopled by the privileged few who want for nothing material and yet are bored out of their minds, plagued by an addiction to "the sweet life" which has deprived them of the taste for anything more substantial. Marcello is both a part and apart of this world, and in his quest for meaning, will encounter fantasy in the arms of movie goddess Sylvia(Anita Ekberg); philosophical insight within the intellectual circle of his friend Steiner; spiritual revelation during a Madonna sighting by two young children; commitment from his live-in girlfriend and the possibility of romantic love with Maddalena, another lost soul. But fantasy awakens by the light of day; intellectual honesty is hollow, contrived; the "holy" Madonna is all too human; commitment is a prison; and romantic love is like an echo bouncing from wall to wall until it eventually fades into nothingness. Somewhere in the middle of the film, during a quiet moment of daylight reflection Marcello gets a glimpse of truth in the innocent eyes and warm smile of a beautiful but unglamorous young waitress, and he is enchanted. In a moment there is recognition and understanding but this moment will pass. Our young waitress will make an appearance during the last scene of the film, calling out to Marcello like an angel through the darkness, but the distance now is too great and he cannot understand what she is saying. After several fruitless attempts to grasp at meaning, he turns around and walks the other way - forever lost.


Rating:
Summary: An Existential Masterpiece
Review: Although "8 1/2" is often touted as Fellini's greatest work, this other, equal masterpiece from roughly the same period grows more and more profound over time. An amazingly photographed and energetic survey of ennui and despair, "La Dolce Vita" is Fellini's rumination on the intellectual and moral death of an aspiring artist, who is equally a Fellini surrogate and a stand-in for the director's perception of modern man.

Though it began life as a sequel to "Il Bidone," "La Dolce Vita" ended up an autobiographical precursor to "8 1/2" by fictionalizing Fellini's earlier life as a journalist and newspaper caricaturist rather than his career as one of the great filmmakers of the 50s and 60s. As the celebrity journalist in crisis, Marcello is fantastic -- as graceful and intelligent and sexy a performance as the screen has ever seen -- and his romp with the unbelievably pneumatic Anita Ekberg in the Trevi fountain is one of the great iconic moments of world cinema. There's a haunted, despairing quality to Mastroianni's acting here that is so subtle and cumulative that by the end of the film his predicament of quiet despair overwhelms the viewer.

Bottom line: no thinking person's film collection should be without this movie, which is as beautiful and moving as any piece of art ever created, in any medium. Fellini and his fantastic cast are all at their peak as artists, and few films have ever approached their achievement.

Rating:
Summary: La Dolce Vita, Forty Years After
Review: Even when I saw La Dolce Vita many years ago, at the time of its first release, I found it hard to take the film's moralizing pretensions very seriously. Pauline Kael sarcastically compared the later Fellini Satyricon to a Cecil B. DeMille epic that simultaneously titillates the audience and inveighs against the wicked pastimes of the rich and famous. Here the reproach seems equally valid. At some moments, Fellini's point of view seems just as naive and shallow as that of the the main character played by Marcello Mastroianni. Worst of all are the sequences devoted to the decline and fall of an "intellectual" played--very ponderously--by Alain Cuny. Those episodes made my flesh crawl at age sixteen, and they still make me wonder if Fellini got his idea of "intellectuals" from watching Italian soap operas on television. Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte--available on quite a good DVD--is far more demanding than La Dolce Vita, but at least the director knows what he's talking about.
Having said made those criticisms, I would have to aver that La Dolce Vita is one of the definitive works of post-World War II European cinema. The movie has visual style to burn, the use of anamorphic composition has rarely been equalled elsewhere, and the idea of offering a panorama of Roman high life through the experiences of a reporter during a few days remains a brilliant inspiration still today. Last but not least, La Dolce Vita is really fun to watch. Even Fellini couldn't take himself seriously too long, and the best thing to do is to forget the sermonizing and dig the fabulous party.
As a final note, I heartily concur with other customers about the inferior quality of the VHS tape put out by Republic. Having seen the film numerous times in a theater, I too look forward to the day it will appear in a good DVD letterbox edition.

Rating:
Summary: five star decadence!
Review: Fellini's masterpiece brilliantly showcases Roman decadence. Top rate performances from Marcelo Mastroianni and Anouk Aimee. Humorous, haunting and almost surreal only Fellini or Bunuel could create for the screen. Can't wait to own the DVD version. Catch that unforgettable song "Arrivederci, Roma" in the club scene.

Rating:
Summary: Classic of European cinema
Review: Fellini`s opening scene puts the stamp on this one: a helicopter flies over Roman ruins, a statue of Christ suspended beneath. A second helicopter stalks it, a journalist and photographer onboard. They fly on over new blocks of flats - ugly, functional buildings, dallying to wave to bathing beauties, men and women failing to communicate above the noise of the aircraft. An atmosphere of cynicism is established: Rome is a crumbling ruin, decadent, devoid of real values, its institutions moribund, its peoples unable to talk to one another.

Set in 1950's Rome, La Dolce Vita follows a few days in the life of a journalist (Marcello Mastroianni), a man who can write great prose, but whose work is devoted to the trivia of society gossip, the sensational, and celebrity hype: his life is empty and meaningless, filled only by sex, boredom, and flight from commitment. His girlfriend wants to marry him, but is driven to attempt suicide because of his philandering. He prefers, instead, to romp with the society figure, Maddalena (Anouk Aimee) on a whore's bed, or to flirt with a visiting Hollywood screen idol (Anita Ekberg).

Modelled on a Rome which had become an outpost of Hollywood, attracting many American actors, La Dolce Vita presents that unreal world which working class Italians could only glimpse through the pages of a new generation of celebrity, illustrated magazines. In Hollywood, the studios protected their stars and managed their publicity: in Rome, they were exposed to the local press - Mastroianni's ever-present photographer, Paparazzo, would give his name to the job. Indeed, two of the film's memorable scenes - Anita Ekberg dancing in the Trevi Fountain, and the striptease towards the end - were modelled on Ekberg's own, well-publicised exploits.

Throughout the film, Italian references are sparse. The real Italians are merely onlookers. Mastroianni drives an English sports car; a pianist delivers Bach's Toccata and Fugue; the characters drink whisky, gin, Coca Cola; Mastroianni`s father reminisces about Parisian nightlife; many of the actors speak passages in English. Only the scooters, used by the paparazzi, are Italian. And there is an absence of Italian life: we meet a whore on the streets, a young girl working in a café, but otherwise the city is empty of working life. Only the clubs and bars are in full swing, and then only by night, peopled by the privileged.

Reference is, however, made to the peasants, to the superstition of the country people. Mastroianni reports on a claim that two children have seen the Virgin Mary. The kids are persuaded to re-enact their vision for the cameras. They do so with gusto, leading the crowd on a merry dance which culminates in a stampede. A man is trampled to death. For centuries before the illustrated magazines, the gullible masses could be fed hype and imagery! Now, it appears, the press has ousted the Church in orchestrating the spectacular.

The film is delivered in a series of scenes, often unlinked and disjointed, like the articles in a magazine - you open the pages and the subjects are exposed by the camera. Mastroianni rushes around, hardly ever staying at home, finding time to write only in an empty café, bemoaning the fact that he never saw his father as a child ... and now nearly missing him when the old man visits Rome. Only his successful, intellectual friend, Steiner, appears to offer any hope of stability, encouraging him to write, to use his talent, to abandon the "semi-fascist" scandal magazines for which he writes.

Yet Steiner is consumed with worries and doubts - the threat of the Cold War and imminent nuclear destruction haunts him. Steiner makes the only real reference to the existing political world - this is the 1950's, post-Fascist Italy, an Italy recovering from civil war, German invasion, American invasion, torn now between the collapse of the old order and the struggle for its political soul between Communism, Catholic Church, and Capitalism. It's an intensely political city ... yet one reduced to the trivia of the paparazzi.

Mastroianni, himself, has no values, no ideals, no political, moral or spiritual base. Beset by tragedy, he does not discover any sense of humanity or direction, but, instead, plunges further into decadence and dissipation. The film comes full circle. At its end, Mastroianni and his fellow party-goers discover some fishermen hauling a rotting "sea monster" up onto the shore. Christ, swinging beneath the helicopter, had created fishers of men. Now we have the partygoers carrying off some monstrous spectacle, symbol of the rotting society they inhabit, following it who knows where. Mastroianni turns to wave to the young girl across a stream, unable to hear her above the noise, still unable to communicate with women. He turns his back on her and follows the pack off to their next party, where the paparazzi will be competing to fish for images of men.

The film escaped the censorship which had dominated Italian culture for centuries, setting a new sense of libertarianism and a new, sexy image. Tame by modern standards, it nevertheless scandalised Italy ... while doing much to make Italy fashionable and a fashion leader! An intriguing film, a classic of European cinema, at nearly three hours in length, it demands some concentration in following the subtitles and numerous asides.


Rating:
Summary: Turn Off Your Mind, Relax and Float Downstream
Review: For those who have been raised on soap operas, La Dolce Vita may be a movie that is, in many ways, difficult to grasp. As opposed to portraying a central character with either a fixed purpose or definite goal, Federico Fellini introduces the audience to Marcello Rubini, an Italian tabloid reporter who struggles to find meaningful aspirations in life.

Adeptly played by Marcello Mastroianni, Rubini is not the type of leading role personality that many audiences will be frequently exposed to. He is neither protagonist nor antagonist. He is, instead, a juxtaposition of paradoxes. For instance, he comes across as a great Italian lover who has finally found the woman of his dreams, only to rediscover hours later that he cannot commit himself to any one person. Throughout, Rubini constantly puts himself in start-and-stop modes, implicitly advertising himself as a socialite one day only to withdraw himself into utter isolation later in the evening.

From one scene to the next, Rubini seems to want to reach out to those around him, but for some reason, he ultimately decides not to. It is as if he has an invisible wall that somehow separates himself from the rest of society, and the perceived complexities that he either creates for himself or else are created for him evolve and never seem to subside. Perhaps the movie was a parallel to a mid-life crisis phase that Fellini was about to enter.

Near the conclusion, Rubini is essentially faced with a decision that one might extrapolate as a Heaven or Hell option. Either way, it seems as if Rubini will continue his course only to change routes and then pass from one interest to another. One might argue that he is a hedonist, but Rubini, to me, is not exactly that. He is like the dog who loves the wheel and will get up close to it but not close enough for contact.

La Dolce Vita, interestingly enough, means The Sweet Life. However, I don't think that Rubini's life would be described as sweet, but it would not be classified as bitter. Just as Rod Serling's Twilight Zone was described as a world between shadow and substance, Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, though not an episode with any fifth-dimensional references, is an interesting portrayal of a man whose role in life seems to fall somewhere between participant and observer. And this facet which, perhaps, plays to the strengths of the movie's brilliance would not be the most useful tool in this age of shallow, Hollywood blockbusters.

All in all, five for five for La Dolce Vita. It is an interesting and highly daring focus on early 1960's Italian pop and underground cultures that might come across as shocking to some viewers over forty years later.

Viva La Dolce Vita!


Rating:
Summary: Caio, Marcello! Bravo, Fellini!
Review: From the unforgettable image of its opening scene, (a giant statue of Jesus, arms outstretched in blessing, being flown by helicopter over the rooftops of Rome), to its sad, unforgiving conclusion, (on the beach in the harsh glare of morning), "La Dolce Vita" is a beautiful, disturbing and mesmerizing film which follows the movements of one tabloid writer (Marcello Mastroianni in the quintessential role of his career) as he first reports on and then becomes one of the dissipated pleasure-seekers among the wealthy elite of Rome. Fellini is at the height of his powers here, combining the earthiness of his earlier masterpiece, "La Strada" and the yet to come surrealism of "Juliet of the Spirits" and "Satyricon" to wonderful and totally satisfying effect. I have watched it many, many times and always find something new.....in the visuals, the dialogue, the hypnotic rhythm set to Nino Rota's perfectly jaded musical backgrounds. One striking image follows another......the midnight revelers with candles in the crumbling castle....Steiner's party with it's assortment of strange, self-obsessed souls....the bored socialite's joyless dance at the club where Marcello begins his long night......the voluptuous American movie star (Anita Ekberg)descending from her plane.......the wild dance led by the satyr-like "Frankie" with Ekberg on his shoulder......the "miracle children" leading the crowd on a merry chase in the rain.....and, of course, the desperate, depraved party that thrives in darkness and, even when the sun comes up, will never end. I know of no other film that more powerfully engages mind and senses than Fellini's eternal tale of the Eternal City, "La Dolce Vita." How sweet it is.

Rating:
Summary: Fellini 's Vita
Review: I am very fortunate to meet Guiletta Masini, the lovely wife of Federico Fellini. I several times wrote letters to Fellini himself and he answered back me. That had been going for a while till he died. If you doubt me, I can provide you copies.
I am only one Deaf authority on Fellini and his movies. I have a good collection of video, vhs or dvd. Many books about him and his movies.La Dolce Vita and 8 and half are my top favorites. I saw them in 35mm, 16mm, tv, vhs and dvd versions but the 35mm verisons are always the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, F.R. Gomez

Rating:
Summary: So ... ?
Review: I does lack a plot. I almost fell asleep during the first half. It picked up during the 2nd half when the main character ran into his father. That was interesting for me, for personal reasons. But, having just watched it, all I can say is that it left me with an emtpy, hollow feeling. If that was the point, then the movie is quite successful. Mind you, I'm not the usual "simplistic" movie watcher. But that was my feeling...

Rating:
Summary: L'Agrodolce Vita
Review: I first saw La Dolce Vita when it was released into American theatres back in the 60s. Until then, movies were just an easy escape for me, something to do on a Saturday afternoon. This first Fellini experience changed everything. Money-and-beauty-don't-buy-happiness is not a new idea. What is new--still--is how Fellini shapes our experience of the idea and of film as art. For contemporary audiences looking for eye candy, many spots in La Dolce Vita can feel like a bad home video. Every time I watch it, I ask why he left in this pointless shot, that futile business. Fellini answers, when I want you to feel good, I'll make Amarcord.