La Dolce Vita 1960

This classic of cinema is an exhibition of the “beau monde” of spectacle, scandal, aristocracy and wealth. From the perspective of the journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), Fellini shows different episodes where the luxury of a privileged life leads to banal love relationships, ephemeral carnal pleasures and hypocritical friendships. The sweet life has some of the most significant scenes of the filmmaker's work. And it was the film from which the term paparazzi was taken to designate social photographers obsessed with portraying the superficiality of public life. A milestone in the film career of Fellini that greatly influenced filmmakers such as David Lynch or Paul Thomas Anderson.

Life has three great turbulent forces, which manifest as an attractive whirlpool that traps humans in chaotic spirals, something discredited by modernity in traditional Christian symbols these are; the devil, the world and the flesh, the three enemies of man: the malice of licentious reasoning; the attraction of riches and materiality and the sweet enchantment of overflowing sexual energies. When you live under the attraction of these forces you can enjoy the dolce vita, a space without compromises, in which the severe admonitions of normality are not applied, since you live according to the moment, with full disposition to take advantage of opportunities, without sticking too much in the consequences.

We all have those dolce vita instincts, although restrained by social norms and fears of acting in public, of making a fool of ourselves. Federico Fellini has shown in his famous film La dolce vita what is experienced during a series of frantic days and nights, in which everything that happens to a person who lets himself be dragged by the swirls of life. It is a story that focuses on three aspects: what an attractive man, a womanizer, who experiences life with no signs of maturity; what happens in a city like Rome, in a time when everything is changing, and what happens in the feminine worlds, reflected in the stories of the women who cross in the life of this singular man.

The great Marcelo Mastroianni is the protagonist, incarnating Marcelo, a journalist who knows everyone, who is covering everything that happens, who is envied by his colleagues and adored by his photographers and collaborators for his self-confidence and skill. His attractive face, his smile, his gestures, his witty phrases, fill the film and serve as the driving axis, so that the viewer identifies himself, becomes interested in this man so fortunate and so disturbed, that he has time for everything, less to sleep and to behave normally. In an impetuous week he relates to five or six beautiful women; he sentimentally approaches his father, whom he knew little or nothing about; he experiences for a moment mysticism when listening to a work of Bach interpreted by his admired mentor and friend; it is related to the superficial world of spectacle and fashion; participates in orgiastic parties of the upper class; presence death; He experiences machismo and approaches loneliness and tenderness. It gives the impression, and this can be the essence of the dolce vita, that nothing affects you, that nothing learns, that simply exists, lives and experiences, without really realizing it.

Rome is the protagonist city. At the beginning of the film, a figure of Christ is transported by helicopter through the air of the city, with outstretched hands, crossing symbolic places (the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, the new neighborhoods, the ancient city and the Vatican). He is a Christ made of concrete, without real power, who moves according to the whims and the modern means of man; that does not settle in the hearts, hardly fits in the superficial news of a sensationalist journalist. The Virgin, the traditional Madonna of this Catholic city, is the false appearance of children trained to deceive the unwary, an object of show business, which is filmed as a mass spectacle. In the Roma de la dolce vita one lives in night parties, in the streets at fast paces, in gossip or in cabarets. It is not the life of family homes, nor that of commerce or work; neither of academia or of science. The apparently saner character of this crazy city and of this film, the intellectual Steiner, who looks relaxed, musical and familiar, unexpectedly chooses the madness of suicide and violence against his children. Perhaps if he had aligned himself with the principles of the unbridled dolce vita, he would not have fallen into the depressive networks of which he has everything and knows everything, but without real meaning in it. Marcelo's father, a village man, witty and without apparent complexes, who briefly passes by the Rome of his son, approaches it with relish and then suddenly walks away, almost with fear, when he realizes that he is not a man capable of living the Roman turbulence.

Fellini has managed to film a masterpiece in good part due to the performance of the women,  the scenes in which they dominate the collages of this plotless film. The figure of Anita Ekberg, with her blond, undulating hair, with her cheerful and expressive body, incredibly light and attractive, like a nocturnal goddess, in the fountain of Trevi, remains in the retina of the spectators forever. But the scenes in which this actress answers the disordered questions of journalists with cheerful sensuality and intelligence, or in which she does a picaresque dance with her black outfit, her sensual smile and her blond hair are no less spectacular. In the film, she plays the role of dreamy woman, unattainable for the protagonist, showing that in the dolce vita real satisfaction is not achieved, although it can be slightly touched. Another singular woman is Paola (Valeria Ciangottini), a young waitress from Perugia, who symbolizes the idealized and angelic woman, equally unattainable for a man of the world, by touching her, he corrupts her and makes her lose her innocence. The protagonist moves between two women: his girlfriend Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), jealous, suicidal, resigned to suffer the machismo of his beautiful and unfaithful boyfriend and his occasional lover Maddalena (Anouk Aimée), a rich heiress, so superficial as intelligent. These two women symbolize the forces of stability and turbulence that strike the protagonist, unable to focus and commit.

La dolce vita is a story without plot, admirably narrated. It is worth seeing it carefully, several times, in order to appreciate the expressive art in all its magnitude. Precisely because it is a succession of loose events, only connected by the life of the protagonist, it has been possible for the performance to be sweet, unrestrained, loose, full of other subtle protagonisms. Fellini really managed to make his cast feel drawn by the whirlwinds of his crazy story.

Credits:

Directed by Federico Fellini

Produced by Giuseppe Amato and Angelo Rizzoli

Screenplay by Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, Brunello Rondi. Uncredited: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Story by Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli

Music by Nino Rota

Cinematography Otello Martelli

Edited by Leo Catozzo

Starring:              

Marcello Mastroianni

Anita Ekberg

Anouk Aimée

Yvonne Furneaux

Magali Noël

Alain Cuny

Nadia Gray