Rating: 
Summary: Living the sour life
Review: 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 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 or her favorite sequence: the sex goddess wading in the Fontana di Trevi, the giggling children leading a gullible crowd to a "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 cat nip 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 Aimée as a jaded heiress who drifts in and out of Marcello's life and Yvonne Furneaux as Marcello's mistress, pathetically attempting domesticity in an unfurnished apartment. Between beds, he wanders around viewing Roman fever in various locales: a Renaissance castello, a tacky nightclub (where his visiting father picks up a chorus girl), and the Via Veneto, crowded with celebrities and sports cars. Rarely has decadence looked so attractive, photographed in black-and-white widescreen and hopped-up by Nino Rota's nervous music. (Incredibly, I can't find a 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. Each 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 smile) hope. All you have to do is sit back with a glass of Chianti and enjoy the show.
Rating:
Summary: Living the sour life
Review: 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 a "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 Aimée 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.
Rating:
Summary: Get this onto DVD!
Review: My favorite Fellini film, combining the brilliant kaleidescopic parading of faces that characterize his later films with the humanistic neorealism of his earlier work. Told in a series of all-night parties that each end with the recognition of dawn, the movie tells the story of a tabloid writer who has risen to the top of his profession only to be dragged down because he can't find any sustaining meaning in the glitz and glamour.But the story line, although more important here than in later Fellini films, is really just a device to put actors on the screen, and nobody does this better. The cast is real reason to see this; Mastroianni in the role of his life, Anouk Aimee as a bored rich woman, and Anita Ekberg spilling out of her dress as an American actress are merely the most famous - every single performance, even by the most trivial of parts, is astounding and some of the best ever captured on film. My personal favorite is the clown trumpet player with the balloons at the Cha-Cha Club - in the middle of his performance he flashes one quick look at Mastroianni that speaks volumes. Unfortunately, the only version I have ever seen is in a standard screen ratio that is obviously badly panned - in a film this full of images there is almost more panning than actual camera movement going on, and still too much is happening off-screen. This movie needs badly to be letterboxed and given a new subtitle translation - but in the meantime, even if you have to settle for the poor VHS version, just enjoy what we have, from the awesome set pieces like the chasing of the Madonna and the final party, to the amazing Nino Rota score and the haunting organ melody of "Patricia".
Rating: 
Summary: A musty period piece, smelling bad
Review: Only its undeniable status as one of central relics of the Sixites (one that has held up as well as, say, the Nehru jacket) saves this dull, pretentious, massively over-rated film from the lowest rating. Maybe you had to be there, but I wasn't, and, judging from this, I'm not sorry.
Rating: 
Summary: cautionary tale
Review: The beginning and end of this movie tell you everything you need to know: it opens high above Rome as a helicopter transports a larger-than-life image of Jesus through the air; and it closes at sea level as a dead seafish washes up on a beach. This is the metaphor for the moral descent of the film's protagonist, a gossip columnist. LDV is a cautionary tale of the temptations of the so-called "good life". It was the last of Fellini's so-called neo-realist, socially-conscious films before he embarked on his bizarre, ultra-personal, quasi-hallucinatory phase.
Rating: 
Summary: One Of Fellini's Masterpieces!
Review: The English translation for "La Dolce Vita" as many know by now is "the sweet life". And, that's what Marcello Mastroianni seeks throughout this entire film. He plays a thrid-rate newspaper man who writes a gossip column. He thinks life would be so much better if he was wealthy, as does everyone else I know! He wants to be a respected reporter. This movie as with other Fellini movies contains things besides the story-line that keep your interrested. Movies like "Amarcord" can charm you with it's style and the wonderful music by Nino Rota. Or, "8 1\2" with it's brooding story-line as once again Mastroinni's mind drifts into the past. "La Dolce Vita" offers great location shots of Rome. There are many priceless visual shots in this movie, and I don't want to spoil them for those who've never seen this movie. But, there is one I feel I should tell you about. It deals with a hugh statue of Virgin Mary. That scene is shot beautifully. Those who have seen this movie know exactly what scene I'm talking about. The acting in this movie is enjoyable. Marcello as usual steals the show. Our hearts go with his character because sometimes we have wished for the same things. Maybe sometimes you yourself have thought, "There has to be something better out there"? This movie was nominated for 4 Oscars, in won one for "Best Costume Design". But, Fellini was up for an award as well. Here's some trival for everyone. Did you know that Paul Newman was the original choice for the lead? Can you imagine how that would of turned out?
Rating:
Summary: The gist: simply one of the greatest films ever made
Review: The is a movie of stunning images that taken together provide a stunning and ironical montage of "the good life." In fact, by the end I was reminded simultaneously of Thoreau's statement that the mass of people live lives of quiet desperation and Kierkegaard's belief that the natural condition of human beings is that of despair. There is no plot. The movie consists of a series of loosely or unconnected scenes with little or not attempt to link them. Many of the scenes are stunning. Some are disturbing. None of them are boring, which is remarkable given the length of the film (166 minutes). The beginning is memorable, with a helicopter flying over Rome with a statue of Christ hanging underneath. A celebrity journalist, portrayed brilliantly by Marcello Mastroianni (the original producer, Dino de Laurentiis, pulled out of the project when Fellini refused to cast Paul Newman in the lead role), is following the statue in order to write about it, but he and his team get distracted by women sunbathing in bikinis on a rooftop. In this and many other scenes, the tremendous gap between traditional and historical symbols of meaning and current preoccupation with mere pleasure is articulated. The overwhelming sense in the film is of the tremendous triviality of these people's lives and the loss of moral purpose. There are only two exceptions in the film: Marcello's close friend Steiner, whose life is a search for meaning and truth, and a young girl Marcello first meets at a restaurant where she is a food server and then sees again in the last few moments of the film. But Steiner's search is a futile one, leading him not merely to kill himself but his two children as well. And the young girl is not merely a symbol of innocence, but of innocence lost, not to be found again. In the last few seconds of the film, after a drunken debauch, Marcello walks to the seashore at dawn. There he sees the young girl across a watery divide. She waves to him, and tries to shout something to him. But her words are drowned by the waves and the wind, and eventually they both smile, realizing that they he will never be able to hear what she has to say. The way that Marcello wistfully shrugs his shoulders is almost an acknowledgement that he is one of the damned. It is one of the most heartbreaking moments in modern film, as well as one of the most poignant. Rome itself is as prominent in this film as any of the characters, but it is not the Rome one finds in ROMAN HOLIDAY. Much of the city looks not historic or beautiful, but antiseptic, shoddily fabricated, barely reclaimed modern ruins. There are a number of ugly modernistic buildings and a number of the areas look bleak and abandoned. This is all, of course, highly symbolic of the bleakness of the lives of the characters. Many films have discussions like this imposed on them (I think of some of the magnificent parodies in episodes of Monty Python), but LA DOLCE VITA almost demands metaphysical discussion. Fellini is concerned with the fate of human beings in the modern world, with what we have all lost and what we have failed to acquire in its place. Special mention has to be made of the extraordinary music for the film written by the incomparable Nino Rota, and easily stands as one of the very greatest film scores ever written, as integral to the success of the film as Bernard Hermann's scores for NORTH BY NORTHWEST or PSYCHO or Ennio Morricone's for A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. It is not epic or histrionic, but playful and light, almost ironic, as if to underscore the manner in which the characters whistle while Rome burns itself out. A spectacular film, one of my favorites ever. It is arguably Fellini's greatest film, and one of the great monuments of cinema.
Rating:
Summary: Life is sweet
Review: The movie that proves conclusively that decadence is the only way forward
Rating:
Summary: A visually stunning dream of a film
Review: This DVD of La Dolce Vita is excellent. The 3 hour film is visually overpowering with stark Roman cityscapes. The film is intelligent and complex. The story is that of a young tabloid writer, Marcello, who is pulled between 3 women in the course of the film. Marcello is in a relationship with possessive Emma. She is passive dependent, jealous, insecure and extremely beautiful. He is also the boy-toy for rich shallow Maddalena. Maddalenad is beautiful, extremely rich, but distractable, bored, and amoral. She is opposite of Emma in many ways. Then there is the beautiful Swedish actress Sylvie. Sylvie is the archtypal white goddess. She wears sunglasses during the day and she plays all night by the light of the moon. She is served by a satyr actor in a open air nightclub romp. She puts stray kittens in her hair, she howls with the dogs, she is beyond domination by any man. She ends her all night romp bathing in the Trevi fountains until dawn.
Multiple characters and situations come and go, all revealing the struggle of Marcello to define himself. In many ways the film was like a dream, scenes linked together in a tentative way. The scenes are full of strangers in stunning Chanel dresses populating a world of decadence.
Marcello trys to establish honest communication with his playboy father, but is held at arms lenght by this sophisticated lady's man. Marcello idolizes the brilliant talented writer and composer Steiner. Marcellow longs to be a serious writer and he is fascinated by the literary intelligencia that surround Steiner and his beautiful wife. But Steiner's inner demons cause him to kill his children and then commit suicide, depriving Marcello of a mentor and model for stability, respect, and the graceful successful artist.
In the final scenes Marcello is totally decadent, partying with the alcoholic idle rich, aging starletts and drag queens all night long. The sun rises on their party. As the party breaks up peasant men drag a giant dead fish onto the shore. A young 16 year old nymphette waitress calls to Marcello. He says "I can not hear you". He has finally lost his muse, he is beyond the power of women.
Maybe my interpretation is all wet. Who knows? The beauty of this grand dream from Fellini is that the interpretations are endless. It is a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Fellini's Most Insightful Film.
Review: This is a film that is very difficult not to watch. Once you press play, the DVD keeps you stimulated for three very short hours. Mastroianni's performance is every bit as good here as it was in "8 1/2" but this is a far better film. Indeed, I regard it as Fellini's strongest. I am still amazed at how accurately the paparazzi are depicted in the film. Whenever real life intrudes upon the glossy, soma-drugged lifestyle of Rome's socialites, the paparazzi are there to take pictures and instigate more action. Their presence sometimes even changes the events they are there to record. The main character Marcello yearns for a more serious life but the shallow road is the only one that provides constant reinforcement. The lessons on how not to lead your life are all around him but Marcello is unable to synthesize their meaning. His life is sweet only at the surface level. He barely knows his father and barely knows the woman he lives with, but there are always parties, parties, and more parties to attend. The life is drunken and short, but only sweet for a few isolated moments. Fellini's message was profound and I hope that future viewers continue to internalize it.
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