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La dolce vita (original title)
IMDb 8.0 (66,000+) Rotten Tomatoes 96%
X | 2h 54min | Comedy, Drama | Italy
Director: Federico Fellini
Writers: Federico Fellini (story), Ennio Flaiano (story)
Music: Nino Rota
Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée
IMDb 8.0 (66,000+) Rotten Tomatoes 96%
X | 2h 54min | Comedy, Drama | Italy
Director: Federico Fellini
Writers: Federico Fellini (story), Ennio Flaiano (story)
Music: Nino Rota
Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée
La Dolce Vita (Italian pronunciation: [la ˈdoltʃe ˈviːta]; Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life") is a 1960 comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Federico Fellini. The film follows Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a journalist writing for gossip magazines, over seven days and nights on his journey through the "sweet life" of Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness. The screenplay, co-written by Fellini and three other screenwriters, can be divided into a prologue, seven major episodes interrupted by an intermezzo, and an epilogue, according to the most common interpretation.
La Dolce Vita won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Costumes. The film was a worldwide box-office success and a critical success, and is now frequently regarded as one of the greatest films in world cinema.
Allegorical.
Plot
By the most common interpretation of the storyline, the film can be divided into a prologue, seven major episodes interrupted by an intermezzo, and an epilogue. If the evenings of each episode were joined with the morning of the respective preceding episode together as a day, they would form seven consecutive days, which may not necessarily be the case.
Prologue
1st Day Sequence: A helicopter transports a statue of Christ over an ancient Roman aqueduct outside Rome while a second, Marcello Rubini's news helicopter, follows it into the city. The news helicopter is momentarily side-tracked by a group of bikini-clad women sunbathing on the rooftop of a high-rise apartment building. Hovering above, Marcello uses gestures to elicit phone numbers from them but fails in his attempt, then shrugs and continues following the statue to Saint Peter's Square.
Episode 1
1st Night Sequence: Marcello meets Maddalena by chance in an exclusive nightclub. A beautiful and wealthy heiress, Maddalena is tired of Rome and constantly in search of new sensations while Marcello finds Rome suits him as a jungle he can hide in. They make love in the bedroom of a prostitute to whom they had given a ride home in Maddalena's Cadillac.
1st Dawn Sequence: Marcello returns to his apartment at dawn to find that his fiancée, Emma, has overdosed. On the way to the hospital, he declares his everlasting love to her and again as she lies in a semiconscious state in the emergency room. While waiting frantically for her recovery, however, he tries to make a phone call to Maddalena.
Episode 2
2nd Day Sequence: That day, he goes on assignment for the arrival of Sylvia, a famous Swedish-American actress, at Ciampino airport where she is met by a horde of news reporters.
During Sylvia's press conference, Marcello calls home to ensure Emma has taken her medication while reassuring her that he is not alone with Sylvia. After the film star confidently replies to the barrage of journalists' questions, her boyfriend Robert (Lex Barker) enters the room late and drunk. To Sylvia's producer, Marcello casually recommends that Sylvia be taken on a tour of St Peter's.
Inside St Peter's dome, a news reporter complains that Sylvia is "an elevator" because none of them can match her energetic climb up the numerous flights of stairs. Inspired, Marcello manoeuvres forward to be alone with her when they finally reach the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square.
2nd Night Sequence: That evening, the infatuated Marcello dances with Sylvia in the Baths of Caracalla. Sylvia's natural sensuality triggers raucous partying while Robert, her bored fiancé, draws caricatures and reads a newspaper. His humiliating remark to her causes Sylvia to leave the group, eagerly followed by Marcello and his paparazzi colleagues. Finding themselves alone, Marcello and Sylvia spend the rest of the evening in the alleys of Rome where they wade into the Trevi Fountain.
2nd Dawn Sequence: Like a magic spell that has suddenly been broken, dawn arrives at the very moment Sylvia playfully "anoints" Marcello's head with fountain water. They drive back to Sylvia's hotel to find an enraged Robert waiting for her in his car. Robert slaps Sylvia, orders her to go to bed, and then assaults Marcello, who takes it in his stride.
Episode 3a
3rd Day Sequence: Marcello meets Steiner, his distinguished intellectual friend, inside a church. Steiner shows off his book of Sanskrit grammar. The two go up to play the organ, offering up a jazz piece for the watching priest before playing Bach.
Episode 4
3rd Day Sequence: Late afternoon, Marcello, his photographer friend Paparazzo, and Emma drive to the outskirts of Rome to cover the story of the purported sighting of the Madonna by two children. Although the Catholic Church is officially sceptical, a huge crowd of devotees and reporters gathers at the site.
3rd Night Sequence: That night, the event is broadcast over Italian radio and television. Emma prays to the Virgin Mary to be given sole possession of Marcello's heart. Blindly following the two children from corner to corner in a downpour, the crowd tears a small tree apart for its branches and leaves said to have sheltered the Madonna.
3rd Dawn Sequence: The gathering ends at dawn with the crowd mourning a sick child, a pilgrim brought by his mother to be healed, but trampled to death in the melee.
Episode 3b
4th Night Sequence: One evening, Marcello and Emma attend a gathering at Steiner's luxurious home where they are introduced to a group of intellectuals who recite poetry, strum the guitar, offer philosophical ideas, and listen to sounds of nature recorded on tape. An American woman, whose poetry Marcello has read and admired, recommends that Marcello avoid the "prisons" of commitment: "Stay free, available, like me. Never get married. Never choose. Even in love, it's better to be chosen." Emma appears enchanted with Steiner's home and children, telling Marcello that one day he will have a home like Steiner's, but he turns away moodily.
Outside on the terrace, Marcello confesses to Steiner his admiration for all he stands for, but Steiner admits he is torn between the security that a materialistic life affords and his longing for a more spiritual albeit insecure way of life. Steiner philosophizes about the need for love in the world and fears what his children may grow up to face one day.
Intermezzo
5th Day Sequence: Marcello spends the afternoon working on his novel at a seaside restaurant where he meets Paola, a young waitress from Perugia playing Perez Prado's cha-cha “Patricia” on the jukebox and then humming its tune. He asks her if she has a boyfriend, then describes her as an angel in Umbrian paintings.
Episode 5
5th Night Sequence: Marcello meets his father (Annibale Ninchi) visiting Rome on the Via Veneto. With Paparazzo, they go to the "Cha-Cha" Club where Marcello introduces his father to Fanny, a beautiful dancer and one of his past girlfriends (he had promised to get her picture in the paper, but failed to do it). Fanny takes a liking to his father. Marcello tells Paparazzo that as a child he had never seen much of his father, who would spend weeks away from home. Fanny invites Marcello's father back to her flat, and two other dancers invite the two younger men to go with them. Marcello leaves the others when they get to the dancers' neighbourhood. Fanny comes out of her house, upset that Marcello's father has become ill.
5th Dawn Sequence: Marcello's father has suffered what seems to be a mild heart attack. Marcello wants him to stay with him in Rome so they can get to know each other, but his father, weakened, wants to go home, and gets in a taxi to catch the first train to Cesena. He leaves Marcello forlorn, on the street, watching the taxi leave.
Episode 6
6th Night Sequence: Marcello, Nico, and other friends meet on the Via Veneto and are driven to a castle owned by aristocrats at Bassano di Sutri outside Rome. There is already a party long in progress, and the party-goers are bleary-eyed and intoxicated. By chance, Marcello meets Maddalena again. The two of them explore a suite of ruins annexed to the castle. Maddalena seats Marcello in a vast room and then closets herself in another room connected by an echo chamber. As a disembodied voice, Maddalena asks him to marry her; Marcello professes his love for her, avoiding answering her proposal. Another man kisses and embraces Maddalena, who loses interest in Marcello. He rejoins the group, and eventually spends the night with Jane, an American artist and heiress.
6th Dawn Sequence: Burnt out and bleary-eyed, the group returns at dawn to the main section of the castle, to be met by the matriarch of the castle, who is on her way to mass, accompanied by priests in a procession.
Episode 3c
7th Night Sequence: Marcello and Emma are alone in his sports car on an isolated road. Emma starts an argument by professing her love, and tries to get out of the car; Marcello pleads with her not to get out. Emma says that Marcello will never find another woman who loves him the way she does. Marcello becomes enraged, telling her that he cannot live with her smothering, maternal love. He now wants her to get out of the car, but she refuses. With some violence (a bite from her and a slap from him), he throws her out of the car and drives off, leaving her alone on a deserted road at night. Hours later, Emma hears his car returning as she picks flowers by the roadside. She gets into the car with neither of them saying a word.
7th Dawn Sequence: Marcello and Emma are asleep in bed, tenderly intertwined; Marcello receives a phone call. He rushes to the Steiners' apartment and learns that Steiner has killed his two children and himself.
8th Day Sequence: After waiting with the police for Steiner's wife to return home, he meets her outside to break the terrible news while paparazzi swarm around her snapping pictures.
Episode 7
8th Night Sequence: An unspecified amount of time later, an older Marcello—now with grey in his hair—and a group of partygoers break into a Fregene beach house owned by Riccardo, a friend of Marcello's. Many of the men are homosexual. To celebrate her recent divorce from Riccardo, Nadia performs a striptease to Perez Prado's cha-cha “Patricia”. Riccardo shows up at the house and tells the partiers to leave. The drunken Marcello attempts to provoke the other partygoers into an orgy. However, their inebriation causes the party to descend into mayhem with Marcello riding a young woman crawling on her hands and knees and throwing pillow feathers around the room.
Epilogue
8th Dawn Sequence: The party proceeds to the beach at dawn where they find a modern-day leviathan, a bloated, sea ray-like creature, caught in the fishermen's nets. In his stupor, Marcello comments on how its eyes stare even in death.
9th Day Sequence: Paola, the adolescent waitress from the seaside restaurant in Fregene, calls to Marcello from across an estuary but the words they exchange are lost on the wind, drowned out by the crash of the waves. He signals his inability to understand what she is saying or interpret her gestures. He shrugs and returns to the partygoers; one of the women joins him and they hold hands as they walk away from the beach. In a long final close-up, Paola waves to Marcello then stands watching him with an enigmatic smile.
Themes, motifs and structure
Marcello is a journalist in Rome during the late 1950s who covers tabloid news of movie stars, religious visions and the self-indulgent aristocracy while searching for a more meaningful way of life. Marcello faces the existential struggle of having to choose between two lives, depicted by journalism and literature. Marcello leads a lifestyle of excess, fame and pleasure amongst Rome's thriving popular culture, depicting the confusion and frequency with which Marcello gets distracted by women and power. A more sensitive Marcello aspires to become a writer, of leading an intellectual life amongst the elites, the poets, writers and philosophers of the time. Marcello eventually chooses neither journalism, nor literature. Thematically he opted for the life of excess and popularity by officially becoming a publicity agent.
The theme of the film "is predominantly café society, the diverse and glittery world rebuilt upon the ruins and poverty" of the Italian post-war period. In the opening sequence, a plaster statue of Jesus the Labourer suspended by cables from a helicopter, flies past the ruins of an ancient Roman aqueduct. The statue is being taken to the Pope at the Vatican. Journalist Marcello and a photographer named Paparazzo follow in a second helicopter. The symbolism of Jesus, arms outstretched as if blessing all of Rome as it flies overhead, is soon replaced by the profane life and neo-modern architecture of the "new" Rome, founded on the economic miracle of the late 1950s. (Much of this was filmed in Cinecittà or in EUR, the Mussolini-style area south of Rome.) The delivery of the statue is the first of many scenes placing religious icons in the midst of characters demonstrating their "modern" morality, influenced by the booming economy and the emerging mass-consumer life.
Seven episodes
The most common interpretation of the film is a mosaic, its parts linked by the protagonist, Marcello Rubini, a journalist.
Interrupting the seven episodes is the restaurant sequence with the angelic Paola; they are framed by a prologue (Jesus over Rome) and epilogue (the monster fish) giving the film its innovative and symmetrically symbolic structure. The evocations are: seven deadly sins, seven sacraments, seven virtues, seven days of creation. Other critics disagree, Peter Bondanella argues that "any critic of La Dolce Vita not mesmerized by the magic number seven will find it almost impossible to organize the numerous sequences on a strictly numerological basis".
An aesthetic of disparity
The critic Robert Richardson suggests that the originality of La Dolce Vita lies in a new form of film narrative that mines "an aesthetic of disparity". Abandoning traditional plot and conventional "character development", Fellini and co-screenwriters Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli forged a cinematic narrative that rejected continuity, unnecessary explanations and narrative logic in favour of seven non-linear encounters between Marcello, a kind of Dantesque Pilgrim and an underworld of 120 characters. The encounters build up a cumulative impression on the viewer that finds resolution in an "overpowering sense of the disparity between what life has been or could be, and what it actually is".
In a device used earlier in his films, Fellini orders the disparate succession of sequences as movements from evening to dawn. Also employed as an ordering device is the image of a downward spiral that Marcello sets in motion when descending the first of several staircases (including ladders) that open and close episodes. The upshot is that the film's aesthetic form, rather than its content, embodies the theme of Rome as a moral wasteland.
Critical reception
Writing for L'Espresso, the Italian novelist Alberto Moravia highlighted the film's variations in tone,
"Highly expressive throughout, Fellini seems to change the tone according to the subject matter of each episode, ranging from expressionist caricature to pure neo-realism. In general, the tendency to caricature is greater the more severe the film's moral judgement although this is never totally contemptuous, there being always a touch of complacence and participation, as in the final orgy scene or the episode at the aristocrats' castle outside Rome, the latter being particularly effective for its descriptive acuteness and narrative rhythm".
In Filmcritica XI, Italian poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini argued that "La Dolce Vita was too important to be discussed as one would normally discuss a film:
"Though not as great as Chaplin, Eisenstein or Mizoguchi, Fellini is unquestionably an author rather than a director. The film is therefore his and his alone... The camera moves and fixes the image in such a way as to create a sort of diaphragm around each object, thus making the object’s relationship to the world appear as irrational and magical. As each new episode begins, the camera is already in motion using complicated movements. Frequently, however, these sinuous movements are brutally punctuated by a very simple documentary shot, like a quotation written in everyday language."
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, film critic and co-founder of Cahiers du cinéma, felt that:
"what La Dolce Vita lacks is the structure of a masterpiece. In fact, the film has no proper structure: it is a succession of cinematic moments, some more convincing than others… In the face of criticism, La Dolce Vita disintegrates, leaving behind little more than a sequence of events with no common denominator linking them into a meaningful whole".
The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther praised Fellini’s:
"brilliantly graphic estimation of a whole swath of society in sad decay and, eventually, a withering commentary on the tragedy of the over-civilized… Fellini is nothing if not fertile, fierce and urbane in calculating the social scene around him and packing it onto the screen. He has an uncanny eye for finding the offbeat and grotesque incident, the gross and bizarre occurrence that exposes a glaring irony. He has, too, a splendid sense of balance and a deliciously sardonic wit that not only guided his cameras but also affected the writing of the script. In sum, it is an awesome picture, licentious in content but moral and vastly sophisticated in its attitude and what it says."
Roger Ebert considered La Dolce Vita as Fellini’s best film, as well as his favourite film of all time and listed it consistently in his top ten films for the Sight & Sound Greatest Films poll every ten years. Ebert's first review for the film, written on October 4, 1961, was the first film review he wrote, before he started his career as a film critic in 1967. The film was also a touchstone for Ebert, in how his perspective of the movie and his life changes as time passes by, giving this summation in his 1997 Great Movie review
"Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw "La Dolce Vita" in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom "the sweet life" represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello's world; Chicago's North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello's age. When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal."
Roger Ebert's Review of La Dolce Vita
"I have heard theories that Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" catalogs the seven deadly sins, takes place on the seven hills of Rome, and involves seven nights and seven dawns, but I have never looked into them, because that would reduce the movie to a crossword puzzle. I prefer it as an allegory, a cautionary tale of a man without a center.
Fellini shot the movie in 1959 on the Via Veneto, the Roman street of nightclubs, sidewalk cafes and the parade of the night. His hero is a gossip columnist, Marcello, who chronicles "the sweet life" of fading aristocrats, second-rate movie stars, aging playboys and women of commerce. The role was played by Marcello Mastroianni, and now that his life has ended we can see that it was his most representative. The two Marcellos -- character and actor -- flowed together into a handsome, weary, desperate man, who dreams of someday doing something good, but is trapped in a life of empty nights and lonely dawns.
The movie leaps from one visual extravaganza to another, following Marcello as he chases down stories and women. He has a suicidal fiancée (Magali Noel) at home. In a nightclub, he picks up a promiscuous society beauty (Anouk Aimee), and together they visit the basement lair of a prostitute. The episode ends not in decadence but in sleep; we can never be sure that Marcello has had sex with anyone.
Another dawn. And we begin to understand the film's structure: A series of nights and dawns, descents and ascents. Marcello goes down into subterranean nightclubs, hospital parking lots, the hooker's hovel and an ancient crypt. And he ascends St. Peter's dome, climbs to a choir loft, and to the high-rise apartment of Steiner (Alain Cuny), the intellectual who is his hero. He will even fly over Rome.
The famous opening scene, as a statue of Christ is carried above Rome by a helicopter, is matched with the close, in which fisherman on the beach find a sea monster in their nets. Two Christ symbols: the statue "beautiful" but false, the fish "ugly" but real. During both scenes there are failures of communication. The helicopter circles as Marcello tries to get the phone numbers of three sunbathing beauties. At the end, across a beach, he sees the shy girl he met one day when he went to the country in search of peace to write his novel. She makes typing motions to remind him, but he does not remember, shrugs, and turns away.
If the opening and closing scenes are symmetrical, so are many others, matching the sacred and profane and casting doubts on both. An early sequence finds Marcello covering the arrival in Rome of an improbably buxom movie star (Anita Ekberg), and consumed with desire. He follows her to the top of St. Peters, into the bowels of a nightclub, and into the Roman night, where wild dogs howl and she howls back. His pursuit ends at dawn when she wades into the Trevi Fountain and he wades after her, idealizing her into all women, into The Woman; she remains forever just out of reach.
This sequence can be paired with a later one where children report a vision of the Virgin. Marcello races to the site, which is surrounded by TV cameras and a crowd of the devout. Again, we have an idealized woman and the hope that she can solve every problem. But the children lead the faithful on a chase, just as the Ekberg led Marcello around Rome. They see the Virgin here, and then there, as the lame and the blind hobble after them and their grandfather cadges for tips. Once again everything collapses in an exhausted dawn.
The central episodes in "La Dolce Vita" involve Steiner, who represents all that Marcello envies. Steiner lives in an apartment filled with art. He presides over a salon of poets, folk singers, intellectuals. He has a beautiful wife and two perfect children. When Marcello sees him entering a church, they ascend to the organ loft and Steiner plays Bach while urging Marcello to have more faith in himself, and finish that book. Then follows the night of Steiner's party, and the moment (more or less the exact center of the film) where Marcello takes his typewriter to a country trattoria and tries to write. Then comes the terrible second Steiner scene, when Marcello discovers that Steiner's serenity was made from a tissue of lies.
To mention these scenes is to be reminded of how many other great moments this rich film contains. The echo chamber. The Mass at dawn. The final desperate orgy. And of course the touching sequence with Marcello's father (Annibale Ninchi), a traveling salesman who joins Marcello on a tour of the night. In a club they see a sad-faced clown (Poidor) lead a lonely balloon out of the room with his trumpet. And Marcello's father, filled with the courage of champagne, grows bold with a young woman who owes Marcello a favor -- only to fall ill and leave, gray and ashen, again at dawn.
The movie is made with boundless energy. Fellini stood here at the dividing point between the neorealism of his earlier films (like "La Strada") and the carnival visuals of his extravagant later ones ("Juliet of the Spirits," "Amarcord"). His autobiographical "8 1/2," made three years after "La Dolce Vita," is a companion-piece, but more knowing: There the hero is already a filmmaker, but here he is a young newspaperman on the make.
The music by Nino Rota is of a perfect piece with the material. It is sometimes quasi-liturgical, sometimes jazz, sometimes rock; lurking beneath is the irreverence of tuba and accordions, and snatches of pop songs ("Stormy Weather" and even "Jingle Bells"). The characters are forever in motion, and Rota gives them music for their processions and parades.
The casting is all typecasting. Anita Ekberg might not have been much of an actress, but she was the only person who could play herself. Lex Barker, a onetime movie Tarzan, was droll as her alcoholic boyfriend. Alain Cuny's severe self-confidence as Steiner is convincing, which is why his end is a shock. And remember Anouk Aimee, her dark glasses concealing a black eye; the practical, commonsensical Adriana Moneta as the streetwalker; Alan Dijon as the satanic ringleader at the nightclub; and always Mastroianni, his eyes squinting against a headache or a deeper ache of the soul. He was always a passive actor, and here that quality is needed: Seeking happiness but unable to take the steps to find it, he spends his nights in endless aimless searching, trying to please everyone, the juggler with more balls than skills.
Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw "La Dolce Vita" in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom "the sweet life" represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello's world; Chicago's North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello's age.
When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal. There may be no such thing as the sweet life. But it is necessary to find that out for yourself."