La Dolce Vita

Well... the only thing I am not happy about is that I bought the 2-disc version 6 months ago... and now this!!! But anyway... in this era of new-editions-that-just-keep-on-coming-down (LOL) we all should be used to that by now. But basically, this is the same 2-disc edition with a 3rd disc containing extras that will not make me pop up my wallet (mainly because I got european and brazilian Fellini DVDs where I already have those added extras).But still it's great to know that such an important film like La Dolce Vita is getting a 3-disc treatment. I and very very very happy to know the DVD industry does care about the good films... the ones that really matter.This is one of the best and most important films ever made in film history by a director whose (I am sure) command of his art puts him easily at the same level as Hitchcock, Ford, Kurosawa and two or three others.ROME, 1959.The war is a thing of the past. Rome is now a bright city full of stylish, vain, beautiful, rich people parading around exotic nightclubs, private parties and hot spots. The Via Veneto is the place to be seen while driving a big american car. While the moon is high, morals are ... well... low.Marcello (Mastroiani) is a journalist who earns his living writing about the beautiful people. He goes where they go... and boy, how do they go!!! . He knows everybody... and everybody knows him. He may be just a guy earning a living... but he is there in the high life with the ones he write about: rich lonely women starving for sexual adventures, internatonal starlets with nothing to say and big apetite for wild parties, cheated husbands, princes, expensive prostitutes... you name it. He knows them all!But deep down, Marcello is frustrated and unfulfilled. His ambitions of being respected, of having a meaningful job, of leaving that shallow circle are constantly being destroyed by circumstances he cannot control.He is the perfect example of a character unable to make a stand and take control of his own life. For every effort he makes there's always the constant set back to the fact that he is just a stupid, cheap, selfish journalist covering stories that are only meaninful to those he write about... for a day or two.AND YET... it is all there: a woman who loves him, the old dream of writing a book, family and roots to be rediscovered, the understanding of the need to make a change of life... but he is too blind to see (or maybe he is too deep to jump out of that Dolce Vita).And every day is the same... parties, scandals, fights and sex. And just when Marcello starts to believe the change is possible... an old friend (someone who was his model of integrity and moral virtues - values Marcello dreamt for himself) murders his own family and commits suicide. ...The incomprehensible caos of life blows everything into a meaninglessness....And that is too much to take. From then on... it's straight downward for Marcello who looses all his faith in truth, morality, hope and change. He allows himself to become a portrait of all the things he wanted to run away from.THIS IS ONE OF the most fascinating portraits ever put on celluloid. Everything is right in this masterpiece. The performers are top-notch with Marcello Mastroiani, Anouk Aimee, Anita Ekberg, Yvonne Furneaux, Alain Cuny, Nico and Lex Barker.Wardrobe (Oscar winner) and art direction by Piero Gherardi, cinematography by Otello Martelli, and music score by the legendary Nino Rota are more than perfect... and remind us about the few films who are lucky enough to have so many gifted professionals in peak form.The screenplay of La Dolce Vita is a masterclass in modern Cinema. The whole film is composed of episodes in the life of Marcello. Every episode follows a similar pattern: it starts as a promissing evening... develops Marcello's part in "the game"... add a sweet taste of a possible redemption (through love or honesty or truth)... goes on all night long......and ends up by dawn with a bitter unexpected negative twist of fate, exposing the lies, disonesty, unsensitivity, coldness, humiliation, detatchment, death and all the evil that goes with Marcello's high life (and that's what makes the film title such a lesson in irony... the sweet life).That's how it is written: several episodes, each comprising about 15 hours in the beautiful/horrible life of Marcello - a man whose biggest enemy ends up being himself.One cannot say enough about the quality of La Dolce Vita and its importance to modern Cinema. The film remains today as it always was... an unsurpassed flawless gem that begs for a mature viewer... someone who can comprehend all its richness and detail... the wisdom and the irony. A viewer whose arms are big enough to get the whole thing... the whole film.Certainly it may feel difficult to follow for some viewers... but I think with a film like this... the problem lies with the viewer's ability to read all that's there. Like any great work of art, La Dolce Vita demands time and a close look. IT IS ALL THERE!!! See it once, see it twice. A film like this comes once in a hundred years (next may be in 2060 - laughs!).AND NOW IN A 3-DISC EDITION!!!!!!!beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Fellini!We miss him so much!

La Dolce Vita is the outcome of a crossroads for Federico Fellini as Italian neo-realism influenced him prior making this film, Variety Lights (1950) and I Vitelloni (1953). After La Dolce Vita Fellini's creations became more extravagant and dreamlike as the films often became some sort of allegorical celebrations to mankind such as the autobiographical 8 ½ (1963) and dreamy Juliet of the Spirits (1965). This crossroad is heavily influenced by a search for something, maybe happiness, which is depicted through the main character, Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), who drifts from day to day with no particular existential ambition.Marcello, a gossip columnist, works the upper society creating stories built on rumors supported by pictures taken by his friend and photographer, Paparazzo. A side note is that Paparazzo's name is the origin for the name of paparazzi that now stalks the famed and fortuned. Marcello's job has driven him to a soul search as he finds himself short of qualitative accomplishments and good deeds, which leads him in some sort of despair. The despair is augmented through Marcello's work that provides several opportunities to act upon his sinful desires. Marcello is led into a continuous negative cycle, as he does something good that is shortly followed by a sinful act. This is how Marcello searches for a meaning to his existence as it becomes painfully evident that he searches in all the wrong places as his desires leads him astray.At home Marcello has a heartbroken and suicidal fiancé that needs his love, but never fully receives it as he desires other beautiful women such as the voluptuous starlet Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) and the aristocratic beauty Maddalena (Anouk Aimée). Despite his desire for other women Marcello longs for the strong connection of a family as he envies his friend Steiner (Alain Cuny) and his seemingly perfect family. Marcello tries to seek redemption to his wrongdoings by nurturing his fiancé, yet restlessly he wonders what he might be missing. This leads him to continue to search for something to silence his internal desires, which seem infinite.Fellini displays his artistic brilliance as he displays Marcello's lost character through strong allegorical connotation with several different themes such as Catholic values, greed, desire, and existentialism. These themes are essential to the story as they reflect the identity of Marcello who, in essence, does not understand himself as he attempts to find an answer to life. Thus, Marcello's own confusion of self reflects his own dimwitted search for a meaning to his own life in places other than himself.Fellini directed a brilliant film with much to ponder and contemplate as most shots leave most of the story for the audience to reflect upon. For example, most scenes are left open ended such as when Marcello stays in a prostitute's apartment with Maddalena behind closed doors. The audience wants to think they know what happened, but they will never really know what happened behind the closed doors. The brilliance of La Dolce Vita lays in the clarity in which Fellini describes the ambiguous as the complete interpretation of the film is left to the audience. The result of the cinematic experience is an artistic experience that encourages thought and reflection upon life and self, which is nothing but brilliant.