La Dolce Vita by Aaron West

While ultimately a distinctively Fellini arthouse project, La Dolce Vita is also an ambitious, sprawling epic. There’s a lot of story to tell, and it does so through a tightly structured sequence of loosely connected scenes, taking place mostly during the night or at dawn after the night’s events are over. There is not so much a plot as a sequence of episodes that say a little something about the hidden side of Rome, and a lot about the lead character of Marcello, even if he happens to often be a passive observer during these adventures.

At the core is a statement on the media, and given that it’s about celebrity and media, it was ahead of its time. In fact, the term ‘paparazzi’ originated with the film because the photographer that works with Marcello is named Paparazzo. When the American/Swedish actress of Sylvia exits her airplane, a mob of photographers await, and she milks the attention by posing and even making a second, more photogenic exit from the plane. It is a negotiation between the two worlds, and she does a little dance with them, specifically with Marcello into the evening. He is a reporter and is part of the machine, yet he does not quite lower himself to the vulture-like behavior of the photographers.

Marcello, played by Marcello Mastrioanni, is not the most scrupulous individual. He is engaged to a woman that he tolerates, yet does not seem to adore. He is ill at ease basically everywhere he goes, and is always on the pursuit for something better. Whether this is a better looking or more intriguing girl, or a more fun time, he is never pleased with his situation. He seldom acts out, but instead shows his dissatisfaction through nervous energy. Even when he encounters his father in a later scene, having not seen him in ages, he is not pleased with the way the night unfolds and he tries to get away. The only time he raises his voice is when his fiancé finally calls him out. Even then he runs away, only to come back later and reconcile.

Many of the most notable scenes are when Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) is on the screen, whether running up the stairs, dancing to rock and roll music, or walking in the fountains. To Marcello and the audience, she is magical, but she is fleeting. She is not his or ours. She is the unobtainable, and that reminds Marcello that his world of the media can interact but not intersect with the celebrities that he engages. There’s a later scene where he enjoys the company of Nico (of Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol fame) as part of a group that tours an abandoned castle. Like Marcello, she is just a bystander, a participant. It is during this scene that the rich heiress friend and part-time lover Maddalena (Anouk Aimee) finally professes love to him and suggests marriage, but even that is a mirage. The moment the words escape her lips, she is intertwined with someone else’s embrace and hides from Marcello. He never does find her again.

The title means ‘the sweet life,’ but for Marcello, life is not so sweet. He finally stops being merely a passive participant at these late night gatherings near the end, and decides to become active in the party by humiliating a drunk girl and covering her in feathers. It is a sadistic side of him that, aside from the tift with his fiancé, doesn’t materialize elsewhere in the film. It is here that he physically and violently rejects this world, yet he is stuck with it. He cannot leave.

His encounter with a young and pretty teenager is what accentuates his misery and hopelessness. The presence of this childish innocence divides the film in half, and then punctuates it by returning at the end during what is, in my opinion, the best ending in Fellini’s career. The girl doesn’t belong to the world of galas and gatherings. The child’s innocent life is not obtainable, but in a different way that the life of Sylvia and the celebrity are unobtainable. The girl tries to talk to Marcello, but he cannot hear her over the noise of the ocean. After muttering and gesturing and getting nowhere, he leaves her with a slight movement of his hand, not quite a wave, and returns to the world to which he belongs and hates. It is a powerful, unsatisfactory, yet beautiful and moving end to a film.

Film Rating: 9/10

This post is part of the Journey to Italy Blogathon hosted Kristina and Gill.