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La Dolce Vita Reviews
Living the sour life
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.
One of the Greatest Films Ever Made
If film is a collaboration of people attempting to clarify one person's view of the world -- that of the director -- then La Dolce Vita is the most spectacular example of this paradox that I've seen yet. A series of intwertwined anecdotes, none of which have much in common, outline the sketchy life that is Marcello Mastroianni's. As a celebrity reporter, he walks the line between living a real life and creating one out of thin air, manipulating the people he knows and loves, hiding his emotions behind a veneer of indifference that threatens to suffocate him -- and us -- as the emotional wight of the film swells throughout, threatening to overwhelm him (and us) unless he acts instead of reacts.
Love and sex, life and death, friendship and family, religion and reality -- all are covered here but none are analyzed. To his credit, Fellini is able to evoke more from a gesture, a pause or a heartbreaking silence than most filmmakers can from a full 90 minutes. From the opening image of a helicopter transporting a giant statue of Jesus over a swimming pool bedecked with bathing beauties, Fellini manages to cover a multitude of feelings, desires, questions and fears simultaneously. Personally, my favorite sequences involve Mastroianni's father, whose silence says more about his regard for his son and his own life than any dialogue would, and the scene in the castle rooms connected by echoes, which sums up the frustration of things unheard, miscommunicated and left unsaid. How different would any of our lives be if we could all speak face to face; how exasperatingly perfect a metaphor for the failures of personal communication.
Although 8 1/2 is regarded as Fellini's most personal film and enduring testament, I've always voted for La Dolce Vita as his masterpiece. Understated (if a Fellini film can be), filled with majestic images that burn themselves into one's subconscious while inviting subsequent viewings, bursting with undiscussed passions and intentions, this is a document of a life ALMOST lived. I find it hard to believe anyone could walk away from this film NOT glad to be alive.
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