La Dolce Vita [VHS]
by Federico Fellini
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Actor: Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aim?e, Magali No?l, Marcello Mastroianni, Yvonne FurneauxDirector: Federico Fellini
Writer: Federico Fellini
Producer: Angelo Rizzoli
Producer: Franco Magli
Writer: Brunello Rondi
Writer: Ennio Flaiano
Writer: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Writer: Tullio Pinelli
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); French (Original Language); German (Original Language); Italian (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 174 minutes
Release Date: 1998-01-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Republic Pictures
Studio: Republic Pictures
VHS Movie Reviews of La Dolce Vita [VHS]
Movie Review: Fifty Years Old and Still Going Strong
Summary: 5 Stars
Federico Fellini's widescreen 1960 B&W masterpiece, LA DOLCE VITA (literally "The Sweet Life") has turned fifty years old, but despite some inevitable anachronisms, its theme of alienation of man from modern society still rings true.
**SPOILERS** The film has no narrative plot per se, but follows seven days and seven nights in the peripatetic career of feckless, dissatisfied Marcello Rubini the journalist (Marcello Mastroanni). In 1960, Rome's Via Veneto was THE place to see and be seen among the international "Jet Set," a term just coming into use for the elite aggregate of Italian paparazzi, Britishers seeking tax haven, visiting millionaires, celebrities and the just-plain-rich. Sidewalk cafes, cabarets, double-parked cars and Beautiful People jam the Veneto well into the light. Already Marcello is tired of chasing celebs for a living and hopes to elevate himself by climbing the journalistic ladder. But for now, he and his buddy the photojournalist Paparazzo (origin of the term "paparazzi," plural) have to chase with the best of them. Off-duty, Marcello rents for the night a dingy bedroom from a prostitute just to have (probably unsuccessful) sex with old acquaintance Maddalena (Anouk Aimee), to the consternation of his faithful but frustrated girlfriend Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), who attempts suicide.
Next morning, Marcello joins an enthusiastic press corps at the airport to greet a busty blonde American sex bomb, Sylvia (played to the hilt by Anita Ekberg), who is both a handful and a headache. Marcello is immediately struck by this vision, even humoring her to scrounge milk for a stray kitten in the middle of the night (think of Charlize Theron vis-?-vis medical echinacea in Woody Allen's 1998 CELEBRITY). But there's a payoff: in one of the many iconic scenes from this movie, a fully-clad Sylvia splashes in the Trevi Fountain, and she is probably sexier in a dress than nude. Marcello joins her in the water and they're about to click, but - the moment passes.
The Roman Catholic Church had a hissy when this film came out. The opening sequence shows an enormous figure of Christ hauled by helicopter(!) into Rome. We cut directly to a pseudo-Balinese dance in a nightclub. Fellini was probably what today would be called a "Christian Humanist," but in no way an orthodox Roman Catholic. In juxtaposing Christ with Buddha, Fellini may be implying that if religion is show biz and show biz is religion, is there that much of a difference? Later, Marcello bumps into an old friend, the intellectual Steiner, in a church. This is not an old cathedral redolent of moisture, stone and incense, but a modern church with an almost fascist severity of fa?ade and rows of uniform wooden pews, not benches or seats. One can practically smell the lemon furniture polish. Although Steiner is on good terms with the priest, it seems to him that religion is simply a matter of finding a good organ on which to play Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor. In a later sequence, when two little children sight an alleged Madonna, the scene quickly turns into a media circus, with a mob of people turned out in curiosity and klieg lights in abundance for newsreel and TV. Marcello, notebook at the ready as always, is told by a priest that miracles do not occur under such riotous circumstances. This seems to be closer to Fellini's own sentiments.
Marcello and Emma are invited to a salon at Steiner's in what will be Marcello's first of three attempts to break into what he imagines is a better, more creative class of people whose lives are accomplished and meaningful. At Steiner's, Emma and Marcello both admire their host's civilized living room full of books and music, his pretty wife and his adorable children. But afterward in a private tete-a-tete, Steiner tells Marcello that he could probably get him a job as an editor, but begs him not to work for the "half-fascist" dailies. Steiner confesses that he considers himself a failure, lacking "enough talent to be an amateur, and enough seriousness to be an intellectual." It also seems that the artists at Steiner's salon of the supposed artistic elite from many fields are mostly poseurs, divided about evenly between those who do not speak and are thought fools, and those who do speak and remove any doubt. While speaking with Steiner, Mastroanni's brilliant underacting, not to mention his expressive face, registers first respect for Steiner but then the respect turns to chagrin, pity, disillusionment and ultimately some of Steiner's own depression.
Two nights later Marcello -- sans Emma -- winds up in a high-class party full of rich people, high-toned British and faded aristocracy, set in a 500-year-old palazzo. While superficially admiring the edifice's architecture and artworks, the novelty-crazed guests get involved with a s?ance while Marcello almost gets into a necking session with flirtatious Maddalena. Almost. Later that same night/early a.m. Marcello and Emma get into a howling fight that apparently won't stop until they receive word that Steiner has killed himself and his children. Despite having heard a confession by Steiner of his personal unhappiness, Marcello is shocked at the news.
The following night Marcello and an acquaintance from the Via Veneto crash a party of glitterati who try rather desperately to sound informed and with-it, but who settle for small talk and cheap home theatrics fueled by lots of liquor: a couple of gay guys do the Can-Can to a speeded-up version of "Jingle Bells"; and in another of those iconic scenes from this movie, a divorcee (played beautifully by Magali Noel) does a strip-tease to a record of Perez Prado's "Patricia." Marcello tries to organize a proper orgy, but once again the elements do not quite come together. The film ends with yet another daybreak, as the dissolute partygoers find their way to a nearby beach to see a "monster" (monstro), probably a washed-up manta ray. An adolescent girl with whom Marcello once had a chat beckons him to come and see her, but a channel of the sea provides a physical barrier. Marcello smiles wearily, shrugs, and then goes back to the showy mob he has learned to despise, and to whose company he is condemned.
LA DOLCE VITA is a film full of ironies, from its title (nothing about Marcello's life is "sweet"). Fellini abhorred the predations of mass media: photographers and would-be pilgrims stampede what they think is the sight of a miracle, destroying any evidence in the process. Marcello's social and professional climbing does pay off, but usually when he gets there he is still dissatisfied; for him there is no there "there," so to speak. Where are the verities? In what is the film's single most tragic irony, his career advances because of Steiner's suicide. In order to identity the body, the police let him up the stairs into Steiner's flat and in climbing those stairs, he passes a number of fellow journalists. I am indebted to film critic Richard Shickel's remark, in the film's very good Commentary track, that Marcello spatially and symbolically "gets above" the others on his way up "to the top." Perhaps part of Marcello's misfortune was making an idol of a man whose hobby was recording tape-recorded nature sounds, like thunderstorms or birds--blatant symbolism of an ongoing Fellinian theme, modern man's alienation from nature. And of course, Marcello's case is the irony of diminishing returns: the more he pursues truth and verity, the farther away he seems to get.
LA DOLCE VITA is not at heart a film about social climbing and career success as in the previous year's film ROOM AT THE TOP. It is more existential: a search for meaning. Marcello's impotence mirrors his unhappiness at life: he can't "get it up" to enthusiastically commit to anything, not even a pretty and adoring girlfriend. Like the polyglot partygoers Marcello hangs with over the course of the week, he can't "get off" by achieving any satisfaction artistically or intellectually. Like Steiner, he realizes he has neither the talent nor the discipline to become a serious writer. Marcello literally tries sex, booze and rock'n'roll, but nothing gets to him. He had hopes that a more serious job will put him in touch with serious things, but by film's end if not before, we know things won't work this way for him.
Enough time has passed between the film's international premiere and now that we may be in danger of forgetting its influence. The film played around the world and in so doing made an internationally known director of Fellini and an international star of Marcello Mastroanni, some of whose later roles were similarly disaffected, very "Marcello-ish." A handsome but feckless leading man with a distinct anti-heroish streak was unheard of by American moviegoers of the time, whose top movie males included stalwarts like John Wayne, Kirk Douglas and Charleton Heston. The boozy private parties that descend into vituperation and self-loathing anticipate such later plays and movies as THE BOYS IN THE BAND and WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLFE? Perhaps no recent American film has been more informed by LA DOLCE VITA than Woody Allen's 1998 CELEBRITY. Similar themes and plot techniques emerge: the equation of organized religion and show business, the spoiled and adored starlet whom the journalist will do almost anything to please, the search for a coherent life in general. Also, in CELEBRITY there is a life-affirming rabbi who inexplicably commits suicide, without even as much forewarning as Fellini had given us.
All the major players in LA DOLCE VITA are excellently cast and well played, including former Tarzan Lex Barker as a boozy American actor who has unresolved issues with Sylvia. But ultimately it is Mastroanni's movie, and he played it so well that he became not only an international star, but virtually a symbol of modern (or, if you will, European) disillusionment and anomie. It is to Fellini's and the actor's credit that the Marcello character retains some sympathy even while behaving abominably, registering minimal concern at his girlfriend's suicide attempt, and trying to two- (or is is three?) time her by pursuing cosmetically beautiful women of whom he knows little or nothing. Since there is no unified, three-act structure to this movie, but more of a picaresque form, we count on Marcello to keep us concerned for him and wondering what is to come.
A few words as well to Nino Rota's witty musical score, which blends some new "ultramodern" music performed on pre-Moog synthesizer instruments with new compositions for the orchestra, adding quotations from his prior work and American pop culture, such as "Ma, He's Making Eyes at Me" or "Stormy Weather." The Criterion DVD extras are slim but good; they include yellow subtitles and Shickel's expert commentary track. I only wish Shickel had said more about the production values of this film other than that Fellini used the massive Cinecitta complex on the edge of Rome. But this should not obscure the fact that LA DOLCE VITA is an outstanding film. In fact, it came to this reviewer's shock at his first viewing that he had watched a nearly three-hour movie without checking the time or becoming bored. This is a film that I intend to see again and again.
Movie Review: La Dolce Cinema...
Summary: 5 Stars
Of all of Fellini's films, this one is the one that most of my friends consider the greatest. I adore it, admire it and consider it a masterpiece. I still feel that `La Strada' and `8 ?' are his more accomplished works and the ones that I immediately flock to when longing for some Fellini, but `La Dolce Vita' (appropriately, or shall I say inappropriately translated `The Sweet Life') is an outstanding representation of how advanced foreign cinema is from what we experience here in the states. In 1960 this Italian gem possessed more gusto, more acute sense of realism and more profound intellect than nearly 90% of what we had released stateside. I'm not knocking American cinema (for I love it) but I am also moved by how much more realism and passion is found in foreign releases; especially those released in the 50's and 60's, before the 70's changed the way American cinema was constructed.
This film basically follows the aimlessness that permeates the life of Marcello Rubini (an astonishing Marcello Mastroianni), a journalist who is striving to make something more meaningful of his work yet finds himself almost `struck' in the world of glamour, prestige and debauchery. He is blinded by his ambitions, which are lost amidst the glitz and glamour that is splashing itself all around him. Moving from one party to another, from one woman to another, from one drink to another; Rubini becomes another statistic, losing what makes him distinct and falling into the rut of complete abandonment.
The final moment, on the beach, where he just abandons all hope of change and walks away...I mean WOW.
This film is a complete showcase for Mastroianni, who just runs us through the gamut of emotions with his three-dimensional character. He delivers charm, wit, rage, depression, sensuality, hysteria, apathy...everything. Watch the way he completely crumbles without moving a muscle when he realizes what a (close?) friend is capable of. Notice the way he reacts to his fianc?s rash decisions. Watch the way he completely explodes when finally pushed too far into the hole he is trying desperately to climb out of (that confrontation with his fianc? is just brilliant).
He is just marvelous, from top to bottom.
This film is a brilliant look at the way life can encompass and conform you, even when you are fighting fervently against that said conformation. It showcases the way you can become completely overtaken to the point where your struggle is apparently in vain and you guard is destroyed and next thing you know you have given up and embraced all that this `sweet life' has to offer.
Sweetness has never left such a sour taste.
Movie Review: Great Movie, Bad Edition
Summary: 1 Stars
Warning! -- Avoid this edition. The subtitles are hideous, yellow, and intrusive. They are laid over the picture and absolutely ruin the image. I know there is a letterbox edition where the subtitles are white and appear below the picture. Find and purchase that edition, not this one!Movie Review: THE DVD CASE CAN BE USED AGAIN...
Summary: 1 Stars
I NEVER let boredom get in the way, and always watch a picture til its end. I had to take a nap in the middle of this one.
It's one of the most unbearable, boring films I have EVER watch, and I've seen a few (10 in the last week). Lars Von Trier's "Antichrist" was pure fun and action in comparison!!!
Once it was over, I saved the case and threw the movie away. There's not plenty of room in my house...
Movie Review: sublime movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I never get tired of watching this film. It's like a dream. Makes me dream some more.
Summary of La Dolce Vita [VHS]
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 m?nage ? 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 McCoyGeneral Video
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