La Dolce Vita [M]

Marcello Rubini was once a fine writer who has now descended to the rank of fine journalist. Seemingly, he has it all: women, sophistication, connections, the best of everything, but the sweet life proves not to be everything as, despite everything he has, he’s not a happy or satisfied person. When a glamorous American actress comes to Rome, she enchants Marcello and the inaccessibility of his desire slowly sends him on a downward spiral. 

Like A Clockwork Orange and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita takes what is considered glamorous and sophisticated and overcharges it, turning it into something that is almost repulsive. This film is probably most famous for coining the term ‘paparazzi’, which stems from one of its photojournalist characters, so there’s your bit of trivia for the day. But trivia aside, La Dolce Vita still stands as a remarkably cool and glamorous movie that depicts something not very nice, but does it in such a way that makes it look amazing. 

Marcello Rubini was once a fine writer who has now descended to the rank of fine journalist. Seemingly, he has it all: women, sophistication, connections, the best of everything, but the sweet life proves not to be everything as, despite everything he has, he’s not a happy or satisfied person. When a glamorous American actress comes to Rome, she enchants Marcello and the inaccessibility of his desire slowly sends him on a downward spiral. 

Whilst it took me a while to establish what was happening (I think this happens more often than not for Western viewers of foreign movies who aren’t quite as ‘cultured’ as they could be), I cannot deny that there is something incredibly glamorous but at the same time un-glamorous about this movie. The fact that it’s a 60s movie done in black and white instantly says ‘sophistication’, taking us back to the Classical Hollywood Era. There are fast cars, champagne, beautifully clad women with exquisite makeup, irrepressibly cool sunglasses, parties, colourful characters, and the image of the beautiful blonde American actress in the fountain is one that is recognised the world over! Everything about this movie is dripping with glamour and classiness but its story then works against that by chronicling tales of woe and descent in social circles. A line towards the end of the film, “by 1965, there’ll be total depravity” really highlights the messages that this movie sets out to convey: the dehumanising effect of socially sanctioned glamour and sophistication as well as the slow erosion of willpower and ambition that comes as a result of having the finer things accessible to you. There’s an awful lot going on this movie and every event that happens carries some hidden message or dual meaning, which makes it a great film to watch and interpret. 

Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimee, Yvonne Furneaux, Magali Noel, Alain Cuny, Annibale Ninchi, Walter Santesso, Valeria Ciangottini, Riccardo Garrone, Ida Galli, Audrey McDonald, Polidor, Alain Dijon, and Enzo Cerusico, La Dolce Vita is an elegant movie filled with glamour, romance, drama, descent, and comedy. It’s a film that I don’t think I appreciated as fully as I could (because I’m really not all that cultured or cinematically aware no matter how it sounds here), but it’s definitely a film that I was entranced by. Only a handful of movies in history have been both glamorous and un-glamorous and Fellini does it very well.