733 La dolce vita

[Drucker]

I have to admit that I don't think I've re-watched a single Fellini film I own except for 8 1/2, but I loved La Strada, thought Juliet of the Spirits was beautiful (and kind of a 8 1/2 centered on a woman), and Nights of Cabiria was absolutely brutal-one of the most heartbreaking endings I've ever seen. Amarcord didn't do much for me, but recently watching the MOC release of Il Bidone, I loved another one of his films.

I get the feeling that Fellini really kind of exists on his own plane of filmmaking. Like Kubrick, he doesn't fit any one major film movement in his country, and sort of falls right in the middle of two of them. His voice and vision is truly unique. Even though I don't really have an interest in his later, indulgent works, his films are full of a whimsy and sense of desperation I really find profound. Marcello, in this movie, from what I remember, seems to fit in the worst and best of Fellini's characters. Fellini's films are full of heartbreak as well as the vibrancy of life. This film's way of tackling both with a non-linear narrative remains intriguing, and I look forward to revisiting it.

[colinr0380]

I'll dissent from the negativity and say this is wonderful news. It is a great film about the paparazzi and the glorious allure yet emptiness of hedonistic decadence. 8 1/2 might be more formally daring, but La Dolce Vita is the key focal point between the smaller dramatic, people focused earlier films such as The White Sheik, La Strada, Il Bidone, Nights of Cabiria and I Vitelloni to the much more stylised, iconographic later films. (Really the focal point together with 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita weighted towards the earlier style and 8 1/2 a premonition of societal and filmic style critiques to come)

Here's a brief introductory clip from the Dolce Vita section of the Scorsese My Voyage In Italy film. Don't worry domino, it stops before Scorsese starts spoiling the plot wholesale!

The Fellini I'd most like to see Criterion go for and try and rehabilitate now would be that strange paen to filmmaking and Cinecitta starring Fellini himself, Intervista. I remember it being rather nutty with its 'film as magic act' conceit but it does have a scene in which, almost thirty years on from La Dolce Vita, Marcello Mastroianni meets up with Anita Ekberg and they both reminisce whilst watching the Trevi Fountain scene from the film!

[FrauBlucher]

I'm a big fan of Fellini. A little surprised by the lukewarm feelings towards his work.

As for La Dolce Vita, it was the bridge from Fellini's neo and post neo realism work to his surrealistic films where imagery became front and center in his story telling, which were more ideas (for example, 8 1/2- creative block) than an actual story telling narrative which was more in line with his pre-60s films . That's why, I believe you get strong opinions about which period people liked better compared to folks who liked and are complimentary about his overall body of work.

I agree with Warren Oates, who wrote that La Dolce Vita was a template for art house cinema, along with Antonioni's early 60's triple threat.

[Highway 61]

I too didn't enjoy Fellini until I had the remarkable experiencing of living in Italy, in a household full of Italians young and old. Since then I've been able to take immense pleasure in his films. Whereas once I saw indulgence in Fellini, now I see a sort of magical realism that is both achingly beautiful and hilarious.

Now, I realize anybody can claim that country and culture are key to understanding a director's work, but for once I think that this truism is helpful. I was listening to a replay of Leonard Lopate's interview with Paul Mazursky, and in passing Mazursky mentioned that Fellini wouldn't work outside of Italy. If this is true, I think it explains a lot. Fellini couldn't go to Paris or Hollywood like Bertolucci. And he wasn't a bonafide cosmopolitain like his admirer Woody Allen. Despite his enormous international success, he remained a regionalist.

Of course, from reading the Travel and Wanderlust thread, I know that many members are very well-traveled, and I'm sure several know Italy better than I do, and will disagree with me entirely. Regardless, getting to know Italy intimately allowed me to fall in love with films like Roma, which previously I could never imagine ever finding any redeeming value in.

[colinr0380]

Highway 61, that reminds me that in the Suspiria commentary Alan Jones talks of always assuming that the hyper-stylised baroque environments were obviously intended to be an over the top commentary until he visited Italy, saw many of the houses that people lived in, and re-evaluated his idea of Argento to being more of a 'documentarian' than simply a 'stylist'! (He isn't entirely serious here but there was apparently a grain of truth there! I also remember talk in another commentary on an Argento film about rural and urban regional differences and the specific style inherent to particular Italian cities giving them a unique character, something that is also present in Antonioni)

[artfilmfan]

I have had mixed reactions to Fellini's films. Although I like Nights of Cabiria a lot, and also La Strada, I could barely make it to the end of La Dolce Vita. I made it to the end of 8 1/2 and Amarcord OK, but I could not finish City of Women.

[Koukol]

Interesting how this thread is mostly attracting comments of disappointment.

I find the negative reaction disappointing.

[Highway 61]

Highway 61, that reminds me that in the Suspiria commentary Alan Jones talks of always assuming that the hyper-stylised baroque environments were obviously intended to be an over the top commentary until he visited Italy, saw many of the houses that people lived in, and re-evaluated his idea of Argento to being more of a 'documentarian' than simply a 'stylist'! (He isn't entirely serious here but there was apparently a grain of truth there! I also remember talk in another commentary on an Argento film about rural and urban regional differences and the specific style inherent to particular Italian cities giving them a unique character, something that is also present in Antonioni)

Oh I totally agree with that. Suspiria is pure Italian baroque. And that Antonioni observation is spot-on. Being a provincial America from the suburbs, I could never understand what all this fuss was about Antonioni and architecture. Then after studying Italian art history and living in the country, I found myself in La Défense in Paris. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I instantly felt depressed in that environment, and had a kind of revelation where I thought, "Oh, this is what Antonioni is getting at."

But at any rate, Antonioni seems to me within a modernist tradition that is easier to get your head around. Fellini, on the other hand, is so eccentric—and yet his reputation is so colossal—that he lets down a lot of viewers. Or at least this was my experience until I got to know Italy.

[scotty2]

Highway 61, I got to spend a couple of summers in Italy and very quickly I realized that just about everything you see there is staged for maximum effect (hundreds and even thousands of years ago in most cases) and the things you expect to be overrated are actually richer than you could have imagined. The village that clings to a cliff over the sea. Stroll through a winding street and then burst out into a piazza with a glorious fountain or cathedral or both. You think you've seen the best of it and then there is something else around the corner that makes the jaw drop. Everything I saw just reinforced my love for Fellini's (and Antonioni's, and Leone's and on and on) approach to cinematography and the dramatic "reveal." They grew up steeped in visual drama everywhere they looked, whether in small towns or cities. I began to feel drunk on it in a good sense. And yes, as you say, hanging with the people helps the films make more sense too. It is an intensely verbal culture--ordinary life is lived in streets that have such incredible character. I guess I'm missing it some. La dolce vita will have to do for now.

[Dylan]

It's interesting how some of the more positive posts here are from people who warmed up to Fellini's work after an initial coldness, as this was also Woody Allen's experience. Allen has stated in a few interviews that he didn't understand what the big deal with Fellini was until several years after first encountering his work (and we see where that led, Stardust Memories being one of Allen's greatest films). That said, Fellini being my favorite director, it is a bit staggering just how many people here consider him a blind spot.

[scotty2]

Something has shifted and I think it has to do with the availability of such a wide range of cinema from around the world on video. Twenty or thirty or forty years ago not merely Fellini, but La dolce vita itself would have been many self-indentified cinephiles (this forum's members, I think) entry into international art cinema, not a film that after several years of viewing some are still getting around to seeing. Not a criticism of anyone, but it just would not have been conceivable because La dolce vita (I feel the same thing is happening with Persona) would have been standard on the rep circuit, crowding out other worthy films, yes, but also providing a common language and starting point for people venturing into adventurous cinema. Domino is a worthy moderator of the Criterion forum and has probably seen thousands of films, but this will be new for him. I'm a little envious of that, but it is telling.

Edit: disclosure: I first saw the film on VHS in the early 90s and yes, it was one of the few foreign titles at the video store (and it was cropped of course.)

[domino harvey]

(I feel the same thing is happening with Persona)

If it makes you feel any better about the state of the next generation of film lovers, I just screened Persona for my high school film class this past semester and not only were they spellbound, but our lengthy discussion rivaled any I ever had in college in terms of insight and it's pretty awesome to see a bunch of 16 and 17 year-olds get their minds blown by something so radically different from the norm (even though it was in the midst of a 60s Foreign Film class, so they had plenty of prep in advance with other national cinemas). So, I'm doing my part!

I wish I could make a better excuse for why I never got around to La dolce vita, but after seven other Fellini films that failed to dazzle me and waiting for the old fancy set to go on sale and then hearing that a restoration might be happening and so on, I just kept putting it off. Try as we might, none of us can see every film!

[criterion10]

Interesting how this thread is mostly attracting comments of disappointment.

Well, even though I'm not personally a huge fan of the film, it's still good to see the film receiving a Criterion release, and I am interested to watch some of the special features analyzing the film in a scholarly manner.

If it makes you feel any better about the state of the next generation of film lovers, I just screened Persona for my high school film class this past semester and not only were they spellbound, but our lengthy discussion rivaled any I ever had in college in terms of insight and it's pretty awesome to see a bunch of 16 and 17 year-olds get their minds blown by something so radically different from the norm (even though it was in the midst of a 60s Foreign Film class, so they had plenty of prep in advance with other national cinemas). So, I'm doing my part!

Not to go off on a tangent here, but speaking as someone who just finished high school, I can say without hesitation that Persona is one of my favorite films. All I hope is that my peers in school next year share a similar passion for the medium.

[colinr0380]

The extreme outlier Intervista was my first ever Fellini film, which was a pretty strange way to start! I must admit that I particularly love the earlier Fellini period to the more extravagant, stylised films that I have not really begun to explore in any meaningful way yet, and this is where Criterion has helped me and I guess others in discovering wonderful films such as The White Sheik for the first time (in which the flights of fantasy are proscribed within the illusions of the photoromance world). In that sense Criterion providing access to the earlier films has ended up providing access to the 'foundational' material more indebted to neo-Realism of Rossellini on which later embellishments get built upon. (In a sense it happened quite early on with Criterion releasing Nights of Cabiria and then Juliet of the Spirits, both starring Giulietta Masina).

[MichaelB]

My first was And the Ship Sails On on its original release. Which was a pretty good one to start with, although it's a shame that the version I saw - in English, with the great Freddie Jones narrating onscreen with his own inimitable voice - has never made it to any video release that I'm aware of.

[Cold Bishop]

I quite like Fellini, indulgent Fellini especially

Same! The run from 8 1/2 to ...And the Ship Sails On is why I consider Fellini one of the Great Ones. In fact, I Vitteloni may very well be the only 50s work of his I truly love (while its spiritual successor Amarcord, oddly enough, being one of the few films from his golden period I'm lukewarm on.)

To paraphrase John Boorman (who attempted his own less-successful, bonkers self-indulgent period): "Fellini always indulged the audience, not himself."

This is a movie long overdue for a reconsideration from me, and the sort of film that should have made it into the Collection long ago.

[FrauBlucher]

I too didn't enjoy Fellini until I had the remarkable experiencing of living in Italy, in a household full of Italians young and old. Since then I've been able to take immense pleasure in his films. Whereas once I saw indulgence in Fellini, now I see a sort of magical realism that is both achingly beautiful and hilarious.

As someone who grew up in an Italian American household in a very Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York in the 60s and 70s, where many folks were recent immigrants and still spoke their native language, I will attest to Fellini's portayal of Italians and the way they live as real and unaffected as one may think otherwise. That loud, chaotic and emotional family in Amarcord really hit home for me. I've been to Rome and other parts of Italy as well and one can feel that same energy that you see and feel in a Fellini or Antonioni film, much like you get from a Scorsese and Allen film that takes place in New York. There is nothing fake about it.

But at any rate, Antonioni seems to me within a modernist tradition that is easier to get your head around. Fellini, on the other hand, is so eccentric—and yet his reputation is so colossal—that he lets down a lot of viewers. Or at least this was my experience until I got to know Italy.

You are spot on with this point of view. I sense that his reputation creates a false expectation, which leads to disappointment. I think his films need to be re-watched if not satisfied the first time. Especially, by a very learned group like this.

Domino, I'm curious as to how your students would react to La Dolce Vita or 8 1/2, which is in line with Persona as being very unique cinema.

[manicsounds]

I also just noticed, but it looks like Criterion gladly didn't port the Richard Schickel commentary. I remember this and "The Good The Bad And The Ugly" being 2 of the worst supposed "scholar" commentaries I've heard, and what a surprise, both by Schickel.

Richard Schickel's commentary isn't bad - he sketches the big themes and main ideas in the film very clearly - but he's also in his easy-going, conversational mode that makes us think he didn't really prepare before doing the talk, let alone collect any research. His discussion of the film's significance is authoritative, but there's a lot of filler verbiage: "Yes, it's another dawn again ... he's getting into his car ..." .

[colinr0380]

I'm starting to slowly gain hope that I'm not the only one who prefers Woody Allen's riffs on Fellini to the originals

I'll take both Stardust Memories and Alice over 8 1/2 and Juliet of the Spirits any day of the week.*

*Even though they are among my least favorite Allen's.

I forgot to address this earlier but more than Woody Allen the best Fellini tribute to La dolce vita, at least until The Great Beauty came along, was the opening of L.A. Story, in which the helicopter carrying the statue of Christ across Rome turns subversively into a helicopter carrying a fast food stand shaped like a large hot dog across L.A.!

Oh, and if you hate 'weird Fellini', you might appreciate the kicking that French & Saunders gave him! (Part One, Part Two and Part Three)

[rrenault]

I too didn't enjoy Fellini until I had the remarkable experiencing of living in Italy, in a household full of Italians young and old. Since then I've been able to take immense pleasure in his films. Whereas once I saw indulgence in Fellini, now I see a sort of magical realism that is both achingly beautiful and hilarious.

As someone who grew up in an Italian American household in a very Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York in the 60s and 70s, where many folks were recent immigrants and still spoke their native language, I will attest to Fellini's portayal of Italians and the way they live as real and unaffected as one may think otherwise. That loud, chaotic and emotional family in Amarcord really hit home for me. I've been to Rome and other parts of Italy as well and one can feel that same energy that you see and feel in a Fellini or Antonioni film, much like you get from a Scorsese and Allen film that takes place in New York. There is nothing fake about it.

But at any rate, Antonioni seems to me within a modernist tradition that is easier to get your head around. Fellini, on the other hand, is so eccentric—and yet his reputation is so colossal—that he lets down a lot of viewers. Or at least this was my experience until I got to know Italy.

You are spot on with this point of view. I sense that his reputation creates a false expectation, which leads to disappointment. I think his films need to be re-watched if not satisfied the first time. Especially, by a very learned group like this.

Domino, I'm curious as to how your students would react to La Dolce Vita or 8 1/2, which is in line with Persona as being very unique cinema.

But I think what Fellini's detractors may have issues with, myself not necessarily included, is the way he seemingly glorifies that extroverted side of Italian culture you're referring to. He doesn't just film it the way Rohmer just films French petit bourgeois life but almost romanticizes the extroversion of his characters. Antonioni sort of just films as he did during the orgy sequence in Red Desert. A hypothetical situation would be if a filmmaker were to deliberately draw attention to the way New York is uttered as "Nou Yawk" for maximum theatrical effect. It's the difference between Goodfellas and Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant. Rossellini also presents us with these aspects of Italian culture and the country itself mentioned by Highway 61, Frau, and others, but he just films them instead of glorifying them.

[knives]

I can't tell what's supposed to be the Fellini in that last example.

[rrenault]

Well Goodfellas would be Fellini, as would be the exaggerated accented pronunciation of "New York".

[rrenault]

Something has shifted and I think it has to do with the availability of such a wide range of cinema from around the world on video. Twenty or thirty or forty years ago not merely Fellini, but La dolce vita itself would have been many self-indentified cinephiles (this forum's members, I think) entry into international art cinema, not a film that after several years of viewing some are still getting around to seeing. Not a criticism of anyone, but it just would not have been conceivable because La dolce vita (I feel the same thing is happening with Persona) would have been standard on the rep circuit, crowding out other worthy films, yes, but also providing a common language and starting point for people venturing into adventurous cinema. Domino is a worthy moderator of the Criterion forum and has probably seen thousands of films, but this will be new for him. I'm a little envious of that, but it is telling.

Edit: disclosure: I first saw the film on VHS in the early 90s and yes, it was one of the few foreign titles at the video store (and it was cropped of course.)

Well La Dolce Vita has certainly had perennial rights issues, which have certainly prevented it from being MOST cinephiles' "entry" into 'serious' cinema. You could say the same for Persona. The 400 Blows and 8 1/2 seem to have taken the mantle in the interim, but I also get the sense La Dolce Vita has developed a somewhat more mixed reputation among auteurists than has The 400 Blows over the decades, and that may be another reason. Ideally, the "entry" should probably be The Rules of the Game or Late Spring, but I guess those aren't quite accessible enough, since The 400 Blows fits into a late Romantic/modernist "art" cinema tradition that's an easier pill to swallow for viewers in their late teens and early twenties.

[knives]

Well Goodfellas would be Fellini, as would be the exaggerated accented pronunciation of "New York".

Which is something I would have never guessed given what you said beforehand. I don't disagree with the broad of your idea (that the extroverted romanticizing of Italy's grotesque rubs people the wrong way), but how you formulated it into something more specific seems too dependent on your own feelings for things and also seems to miss out on how Fellini's love doesn't preclude a critical look at these outsized characters which of course La Dolce Vita is a great example of. Just for the obvious Fellini clearly enjoys Paparazzo, but all the same disapproves of many of his actions across the film.

[Aspect]

I'm so beyond excited for this release. I love every frame of La Dolce Vita and every note in its ebullient and, at times, melancholy score. I can see why some would consider it a period-piece of a particular time in Rome's history (and I don't see the problem with that - the atmosphere and details of a time gone by are huge points in the film's favor IMO), but that's ignoring many of Fellini's weighty thematic concerns, which are just as timely as ever. Fellini's grand comic view of the world isn't one-sided. His films abound in contradictions that illustrate the essential meaningless of modern life without sacrificing warmth and humor.

Take the famous opening scene for example. Marcello and Paparazzo fly over the rooftops of Rome in a helicopter that carries a large statue of Jesus Christ with his arms outstretched. They're spotted by a bevy of sunbathing beauties who stand up to wave and ask them where they're taking the statue. Marcello, over the noise of the propeller, manages to convey that they're bringing the statue to the pope. Then he asks for their phone numbers, which they reprovingly deny him. He shrugs and tells the pilot to continue on.

This comic vignette (which the film is chock-full of) provides the viewer with a picture (rather than an explanation) of a society and culture in transition. Does religion matter anymore in a media-infused environment that treats celebrities as royalty and move-stars as gods (even in a city as religious as Rome)? Has the Vatican become just another show venue (as Fellini would later explore in his ecclesiastical fashion show in Roma)? After all, Marcello is the 1960 equivalent of a TMZ reporter. Fellini, in his artistic wisdom, doesn't answer that question. He merely poses it in a visual fashion and leaves interpretation up to the viewer. One could argue that he's saying that religion is a joke in such an environment. Or that maybe the shallow people who inhabit it could use something else in their lives, even if it's not religion, to fill the empty void they carry within them. Which leads to another Fellini concern - the pursuit of art (Marcello's an aspiring writer).

Marcello is cynical about the Via Veneto and the characters that inhabit it, but he still has idealistic artistic ambitions that are represented by the intellectual, Steiner. Steiner, however, rebukes emotion and feeling in art and prefers more sterile expressions, such as a recording of nature sounds as opposed to the real thing. I won't spoil the ending of Steiner's story, but it leaves Marcello feeling disillusioned and, possibly, without writing dreams. Fellini is skeptical of overly intellectual pursuits and doesn't see art as one-sided, it should be both intellectual and emotional (human).

While La Dolce Vita seems to be a work of disillusionment, it is one of the most lively and festive cinematic confections ever devised. Fellini, in his magnanimous wisdom, both celebrates and criticizes his enormous cast of characters. He never judges unfairly. He sees himself in many of them, their weaknesses and strengths, and presents them at their most vital. Like any great artist, and Fellini most certainly was, he doesn't condemn any of them to the waste-bin of history. Especially Marcello. Oh, what will happen to our lost hero? Fellini reached a creative dead-end after La Dolce Vita, just like his main character. Who doesn't after creating a colossal masterpiece? I think 8 1/2 was his solution. For Fellini, creativity was religion, and the epiphany at the end of 8 1/2, of immense value for anyone who aspires to be an artist, is a celebration of art for art's sake, of creativity as the ultimate human expression. It's what kept him going as a filmmaker for the next 30 years, and partly explains his wacky, yet equally brilliant, later output. I like to think Marcello, maybe a year after the end of La Dolce Vita, took a good look around him, saw past the facade, and wrote his book. Kind of like Jep in The Great Beauty, a movie that sort of combines the cynicism of La Dolce Vita with the creative victory of 8 1/2.

Anyway, this is much longer than I meant it to be. I think the movie's just wonderful. While Fellini captured a certain moment in time (a changing Rome in 1960), the nascent societal characteristics on display haven't gone anywhere. La Dolce Vita still matters, maybe more than ever.