La dolce vita

Returning to this film after many years, I was mesmerized for its entire three hours and could have stuck with it for even longer. More than just a parade of degenerate Sixties Eurotrash, all of human life is captured in these frames, from prostitutes living in flooded slum apartments to glittering nobility in their crumbling castles.

The common thread is the thoroughly captivating Marcello Mastroianni as the gossip columnist/aspiring novelist, later turned burned-out publicist. His relationship with the parade of females who inhabit his world, often fleetingly, is nuanced and authentic feeling, while the episode with his father, who shows up for an unexpected visit, is a delight that brought a wide smile to my face.

The unique, episodic structure of the film feels neither showy nor forced, and the film moves through its segments with the natural grace of a great symphony.

An added bonus for me was seeing a young Nico of Velvet Underground fame , looking relaxed and happy. Would that things always turned out that way for her.

In sum, a totally unique tour de force and, unquestionably, one of the greatest achievements in cinematic history.

This is one of those films where I just don't want it to end as I enjoyed it so much. So many memorable and humorous scenes - Fellini successfully captured the atmosphere of picturesque Rome lifestyle. All of the characters are interesting, complex and I especially loved Anita Ekberg's performance! Amazing!

LA DOLCE VITA presents a series of incidents in the life of Roman tabloid reporter Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni)--and although each incident is very different in content they create a portrait of an intelligent but superficial man who is gradually consumed by "the sweet life" of wealth, celebrity, and self-indulgence he reports on and which he has come to crave.

Although the film seems to be making a negative statement about self-indulgence that leads to self-loathing, Fellini also gives the viewer plenty of room to act as interpreter, and he cleverly plays one theme against its antithesis throughout the film. (The suffocation of monogamy vs. the meaninglessness of promiscuity and sincere religious belief vs. manipulative hypocrisy are but two of the most obvious juxtapositions.) But Fellini's most remarkable effect here is his ability to keep us interested in the largely unsympathetic characters LA DOLCE VITA presents: a few are naive to the point of stupidity; most are vapid; the majority (including the leads) are unspeakably shallow--and yet they still hold our interest over the course of this three hour film.

The cast is superior, with Marcello Mastroianni's personal charm particularly powerful. As usual with Fellini, there is a lot to look at on the screen: although he hasn't dropped into the wild surrealism for which he was sometimes known, there are quite a few surrealistic flourishes and visual ironies aplenty--the latter most often supplied by the hordes of photographers that scuttle after the leading characters much like cockroaches in search of crumbs. For many years available to the home market in pan-and-scan only, the film is now in a letterbox release that makes it all the more effective. Strongly recommended.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Long, episodic film by Federico Fellini about the conceits and facades of life: fame, intellect, sex, friendship, despair, innocence, etc.

Marcello Mastroianni is perfect as the shallow tabloid reporter who joyfully follows around Rome a blonde movie star from Sweden (Anita Ekberg) as she prowls around the city's bars and bistros. He is also having an affair with a woman (Anouk Aimee) while his girl friend (Yvonne Furnaux) seems to be going nuts.

But as Marcello moves through the city following the movie star, the miracle of the virgin, a few parties, etc. we see that his life is very empty because the things he reports on are meaningless drivel. We see that fame and fortune and the trappings of success are meaningless.

Marcello starts to realize that the movie star is a vapid airhead, the miracles are a sham, and his friend's (who seemed quite happily married) ghastly murder and suicide show the futility of life itself.

The Fellini themes are common to many of his films, but what makes La Dolce Vita so memorable are the cynical tone, the Nina Rota music, and the string of terrific visual images.

The opening scene is of a helicopter hauling a gilded plaster statue through the air across Rome. The flying saint is a bizarre image but serves to set up the movies which is all about images and events that are never what they seem to be.

Notable are the scenes of statuesque Ekberg in that terrific strapless black dress with the voluminous skirts as she swishes around dancing and eventually wading through a city fountain. The party scenes are also notable. The first because of the intolerable intellectuals who sits around and talk and talk but never do anything. The last party has the indelible image of Mastroianni "riding" a drunken blonde woman as though she were a horse. The final image of the giant dead fish is quite unsettling as it symbolizes their bloated lives.

Fellini is brilliant in filling scenes with odd people as extras, usually hideously dressed or wearing ugly glasses. The "gallery" of people who inhabit the city is one of grotesques, vapid fashion slaves, the rich, hangers on, etc.

A long film, but highly recommended and very memorable.

In many ways, this has to be regarded as the defining film of its era. It presaged a new style of cinema. It had a fluid, dreamy, symbolic visual and narrative form, and its resonance stems from its visual set pieces and overall ambience. It is also a fascinating exploration of the lifestyles and attitudes of an incipient, flash, indulgent and directionless generation.

The film is mainly remembered for the iconic scene of Anita Ekberg ebulliently splashing her way into the centre of the Trevi Fountain, followed by an adoring Marcello Mastroianni. The scene is emblematic of the film in the sense that it represents characters who wish to break free from the constraints of previous generations but their efforts, while perhaps on the surface appearing daring and romantic, often lead to nowhere. There's a sense of searching but not finding: breaking free of one set of constraints only in order to meet another. Marcello, the film's protagonist and perhaps a representation of the director himself, wants to be free of his wife and he doesn't want to sell himself to the capitalist system, but what else is there to provide meaning to his life? He is failing as an artist and his romantic conquests seem empty and unfulfilling. He yearns for a time when life was more clearly defined and yet he loathes the responsibility and entrapment that that definition would impose. And so he drifts from party to party, a little less energetic, a little more cynical on each occasion.

La Dolce Vita shows us the new hedonism and society's burgeoning obsession with celebrity. It is responsible for the word "paparazzi", which came from the name of one of the supporting characters, and it features a very young Nico, who would go on to achieve fame with one of the defining bands of the '60s. The film is a bold and brilliant exploration of life as it was lived by the upper-classes and the emerging chattering classes of the time. It's an enthralling experience which is both sweet and sombre.