LA DOLCE VITA: Blu-ray (Cineriz 1960) Criterion Home Video
"I read your
poetry a few years ago when I thought about writing poetry…I like it…This is
the art I prefer…the one I think we’ll need tomorrow…clear, precise art without
rhetoric that doesn’t lie."- Marcello
Rubini
Mixing the
sacred with the profane, director Federico Fellini arguably reached the zenith
of his career with La Dolce Vita
(1960); at once an exaltation/indictment of the urban decay and decadence in
Italy’s jaded postwar renaissance. An absorbing amalgam of our sycophantic
admiration for all things celebrity, La
Dolce Vita made the buxom Anita Ekberg and Italy’s export, Marcello Mastroianni
internationally famous; Mastroianni’s career, in particular, taking off like a
rocket after the movie’s debut. The film’s original producer, Dino De Laurentis
had endeavored to convince Fellini to cast Paul Newman in the lead; in
hindsight, an unthinkable prospect; Fellini instead pursuing Mastroianni who
had recently had great success in a pair of films: Le Notti Bianche (White
Nights, 1957) and Big Deal on
Madonna Street (1958).
Fellini
reportedly wanted “a very normal face…one
without personality.” While this
last statement is certainly debatable, Mastroianni, in hindsight, having one of
the most iconic visages of the latter 20th century, La Dolce Vita is undeniably blessed to
have Mastroianni as its titular hero. There’s a bottled up sexual frustration
to the movie’s Marcello Ribini; bored and following his crotch through a series
of misadventures taking place over the course of seven sunlit days, but mostly
during a series of unfulfilled nights, fettered by Ribini’s inability to follow
through with any satisfying sexual liaison. Even his diverting tryst with the
affluent cat-like socialite, Maddalena (Anouk Aimée) is more of a transient
episode; their meeting in a prostitute’s waterlogged basement apartment,
Fellini’s projection of that sinking feeling each experiences at the prospects
of finding love with an ‘improper’
stranger. It won’t work. It’s a snore. But ‘what
the hell?’…it passes the time.
In many ways, La Dolce Vita is like a dream
remembered…or rather, one its protagonists would most like to forget. Even
its title, loosely translated as ‘the
sweet life’ is ironic; Fellini gradually revealing the imperfectability of
any life – affluent or ‘un’. None of these characters have attained personal
contentment; each desiring to become something they are not; blindsided by
their chase after the specter of those proverbial ‘greener pastures’ on the ‘other
side’ of the fence. Ostensibly, the
only commonality between tabloid reporter, Marcello Ribini and the present
object of his desire, American film siren, Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) is their
shared boredom with life; hers a ‘happily obtuse’ counterpoint to his more
sullen and desperate longing for escape. The pair aimlessly drifts through
their isolated existences, perhaps too painful to more concretely acknowledge. And
the grass is hardly greener in Fellini’s dystopian postwar reconstruction of
Italy; Fellini, mourning the loss of traditions, faded in the harsh afterglow
of the paparazzi’s flashbulbs; stardom reconstituted as celebrity and an urban
landscape more than vaguely reminiscent of Hiroshima’s nuclear fallout;
monolithic apartment complexes scattered across grassless turf, craggy rubble
and stone and dirt roads littered with human debris.
Nowhere is
Fellini’s complicated concurrence between the sacrosanct and irreligious more
readily on display than in the sequence where two impoverished children claim
to have witnessed the Virgin Mary next to a solitary tree in a desolate field;
a staged event made even more horrendously false by the sudden appearance of
the paparazzi, who erect scaffolding and klieg lights all around this
supposedly hallowed spot, photographing family members on a balcony in
deliberately posed supplications to the Almighty. The sequence, one of the
lengthiest, brings into question Marcello’s own faith – and not only in
miracles. It also, magnifies the fracture in his own relationship with live-in,
Emma (Yvonne Furneaux); who has attempted suicide several times because she
suspects Marcello has been unfaithful to her. Fellini’s own relationship with
Catholicism was tricky and frequently the subtext (or even the subject) of his
movie explorations. Fellini’s struggle to make sense of it all; to justify the
foibles of humanity, set against imagined manifestations and the more concrete
symbols of God’s work on earth (a.k.a, the church) leads to several spellbinding
vignettes scattered throughout La Dolce Vita. Fellini’s harshest critics have often
misconstrued his efforts as being overly critical of his own faith. But in
hindsight, it is the mechanics behind these critiques that seem more richly
deserving of our attention and, on the whole, deeply probative and satisfying.
As example: Fellini
opens La Dolce Vita with an image of
a stone-carved Christ, arms outstretched and sailing over the urban topography with
cables attached to a helicopter. This celestial illusion garners the attentions
of a flock of bikini-clad sunbathers, lounging on a rooftop. “Look, it’s Jesus!” one sun worshipper
playfully declares, “Where is he going?”
There is another helicopter following close behind ,carrying members of the
press, including Marcello, far more interested in getting one of the girl’s
phone numbers than in the destination of this graven image. At once, Fellini is
undercutting the importance of the Christ figure. But in another consideration,
he may be offering a sincere commentary that bemoans the lack of God’s
influence on contemporary society; the diminishment of the church’s authority
and autonomy quite clear. The age of technology (i.e. the helicopters) commands
the direction of salvation itself; a foreshadowing to our present-day
dependence – nee worship – of man-made progress. This, perhaps, is Fellini’s
way of suggesting how technology will lead mankind astray and to his own
eventual ruin.
Later, Fellini
stages the first ‘cute meet’ between
Sylvia and Marcello high atop the Vatican. Yet again, his focus is twofold – on
Sylvia’s naïve beguilement as she ascends the stairs, seemingly closer to
heaven, but also, on Marcello, succumbing to the pit of his carnal pursuit even
as he makes his way towards this pinnacle of supreme religiosity. To punctuate
the point, Sylvia is sheathed in an impossibly fanciful, and cleavage revealing
garment designed by Piero Gherardi, reminiscent of a priest’s vestment,
complete with wide-brimmed hat and tassel. Having reached the balcony, a strong
gust of wind tears the hat from Sylvia’s wavy blonde tresses; in essence,
defrocking her in Marcello’s presence. There’s more than a hint of naughty eroticism
to this moment, writ large on Marcello’s mien, but alas, to remain unfulfilled
as Fellini moves us from the dawn into Rome’s bustling nightlife.
Fellini
juxtaposition of this mostly barren contemporary landscape gives way to flashes
of that ‘old world’ Rome made full and luscious in movies like Roman Holiday (1953) and Three Coins in A Fountain (1954). But
Fellini’s version of the Via Veneto is actually a set built on the back lot at Cinecittà
Studios, evoking a more regal era, presently distilled by a sort of embalmed
glamour as the glitterati meet and frolic. The illusion is uncanny; Anita
Ekberg being spun around the dance floor of an outdoor nightclub like an
airborne top-heavy albatross by the enigmatic and curly haired, Frankie Stout
(Alain Dijon). Here is an image as indelible and as devastating as the much
touted and perennially revived ‘fountain
sequence’; Ekberg playing to Fellini’s vacuous image of the American movie
star - more symbol than substance, and, onto which every man can – and usually does – project his own
masochistic fantasies. Marcello Ribini’s
are hardly cerebral; although he harbors a particularly farfetched opinion of
this glamor gal as all things to every man – whatever his taste or season.
“You are the first woman on the first day of creation.
You are mother, sister, lover, friend, angel, devil, earth, home,” Marcello tells
Sylvia as they slink together in the Trevi Fountain. But these are dreamlike properties
Sylvia does not possess. In fact, they can only be seen through the eyes of a
daydreamer like Marcello, whose passion impugned is rechanneled into platitudes
bestowed on an unworthy of such praise.
It’s
Marcello’s misfortune, in fact, that he cannot work up even the basest
affections for Emma who has grown possessive and unyielding in their absence. Marcello
is, in fact, very cruel to Emma. “A man
who agrees to live like this is a finished man,” he tells her, “He's nothing but a worm! I don't believe in
your aggressive, sticky, maternal love! I don't want it! I have no use for it!
This isn't love! It's brutalization!” Alas, Marcello is too caught up in the
emptiness of the physical to appreciate the inner strength of sentiment or –
more to the point – the content of a real woman’s character. His deification of
the external represents Fellini’s own partial condemnation of Hollywood and its
shift away from genuine talent to attractive pin-ups who are little more – if anything – than what they first
appear.
Of course,
Marcello isn’t much more clairvoyant at spotting the true merit in men either.
He placates his own father (Annibale Ninchi) with an air of self-pity for this
aged bon vivant; amusing, but past his prime, and he chooses to embrace the
affluent Steiner (Alain Cuny) as his contemporary instead. Once again, it’s
through Marcello’s inability to connect with even his own past, exemplified by his
total lack of contact with the folks back home, and presently, his estrangement
from this man who gave him life, that Fellini offers a more painful critique of
the disconnect between the older and younger generations; the solidness of
tradition forsaken for a fast and urbane materialism, promising so much, but
proven equally as unfulfilling. Marcello is, therefore, still searching for his
place in the world, believing it will be discovered somewhere higher up the
proverbial ‘food chain’ of life.
Marcello’s counterbalance
in La Dolce Vita is Steiner; an
affluent Jewish industrialist with an insular sycophantic following of
pseudo-intellectuals; poets, artists, self-proclaimed prophets and lazy-headed
drifters. To Marcello, Steiner has everything he would hope for himself; money,
position, respect. Alas, this too is mere illusion, Steiner pointing out to
Marcello this unattractive artificiality in a startlingly predictive moment. “Don't be like me,” Steiner quietly
implores, “Salvation doesn't lie within
four walls. I'm too serious to be a dilettante and too much a dabbler to be a
professional. Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence
in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected.”
Two underlying
currents of dissension run through La
Dolce Vita, the screenplay by Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Brunello
Rondi (with contributions made by an un-credited Pier Paolo Pasolini) focusing
on the sterility of contemporary society – all plasticized flashiness and
bounce, but no nub beyond its own navel-gazing, and the homogenized ennui its
wanderers have with life in general. Fellini’s predictions of an imploding
culture, having sacrificed its principles and faith for nothing better than a mindless
weekend getaway to the Riviera, rings more ominously true with each passing
year. Fellini was, in fact, heavily criticized for this unflinching critique,
remaining unapologetic of his views. But for some time thereafter, La Dolce Vita was to endure as his most
controversial and financially successful movie; the latter a source of
contention, as Fellini had signed away all rights to a percentage of the
profits in trade to secure the necessary funds for his recreation of the Via
Veneto on Cinecittà’s back lot.
Yet, Fellini
was hardly contemptuous of the city that had given birth to his fertile
imagination and renown to his reputation as a film-maker. He once explained his
affinity for Rome – unquestionably, as much a character in La Dolce Vita as any of flesh and blood – thus; like an extension
of his own apartment, the sloppy way its inhabitants meandered to and fro with
an entitled familiarity, from the crowded piazzas to the equally congested
streets and down the tight little alleys and byways. Viewed in this light, La Dolce Vita is very much a
celebration of Rome, Fellini bringing an intimacy to these fantastic
proceedings; some, even more remarkably, borrowed from life. The famed moonlit
dip in the Trevi Fountain, as example, (shot under frigid conditions in the
middle of February no less) was excised from an incident involving Anita Ekberg.
A real life ex-Miss Sweden and professional model, she had cut her foot during
a photo shoot for Pierluigi Praturlon, electing to wash the wound in the
fountain’s waters. One thing led to another and before Pierluigi realized it, Ekberg
had waded into the fountain. In La Dolce
Vita, Fellini uses the Trevi Fountain to extraordinary effect: to punctuate
a moment of anticipated consummation suddenly denied; the turning off of the waters,
symbolic of a more deep-seeded impotence that plagues our disillusioned hero
for the rest of the movie.
La Dolce Vita begins with a lengthy prologue; a helicopter carrying
the stone Christ past the ancient Roman aqueducts, accompanied by a second
copter transporting Marcello Rubini and other members of the paparazzi en route
to cover the story. Momentarily sidetracked
by a gaggle of rooftop sunbathers, Marcello is unsuccessful at getting any of
their phone numbers, the copter turning in pursuit of the statue to Saint
Peter's. We shift focus to a posh nightclub, Marcello casually hooking up with
the affluent, Maddalena; a spoiled, bored and morally bankrupt gadabout who is
on a constant quest for ‘new sensations’
as she puts it, of which Marcello just happens to be the latest. Unlike
Marcello, who prefers the autonomy of a big city he can effective disappear in,
Maddalena would much prefer anyplace to Rome. Picking up Ninni (Adriana Moneta)
a prostitute who needs a lift back to her apartment, the pair is invited into
Ninni’s basement for a cup of coffee. Fellini mixes humor with pathos here;
Ninni’s waterlogged digs also affording him an opportunity to infuse a bit of
social commentary about the squalid living conditions in these new housing projects.
Maddalena wastes no time seduce Marcello. It doesn’t take much. But even they
can both see the spark in their illicit flagrante delicto has fizzled. They go
through the mechanics of having sex, but their hearts are not in it.
Returning to
his apartment at the break of dawn, Marcello discovers his fiancée, Emma has
attempted suicide by swallowing a whole bottle of pills. It isn’t the first
time either. At once outraged, forlorn and panicky, Marcello rushes Emma to the
hospital; perhaps most concerned over how her death might cast a pall on his
own reputation. From this low-key of
‘almost’ tragedies, Fellini segues into La
Dolce Vita’s most stylish vignette: the arrival of American film star,
Sylvia at Ciampino Airport; the voluminous uber-fairytale princess of the
movies inundated by a barrage of flashbulbs and obtuse questions from the
paparazzi. Any sound bite will do. Marcello telephones Emma from the hotel
press conference, accused of being alone with Sylvia when, in fact, there are
more than fifty reporters in the suite, each salivating for a headline.
Sylvia’s boyfriend, Robert (Lex Barker) arrives late to these proceedings - his
usual inebriated self; Marcello diffusing the tension in the air by suggesting
Sylvia be taken on a tour of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Dressed in a
black frock reminiscent of a priest’s sacramental vestments, Sylvia ascends the
steep winding staircase to the top of the dome, pursued by various members of
the paparazzi, whom she tires out: all except Marcello, although even he is
winded as he rejoins Sylvia on the balcony overlooking Vatican square. A strong
gust of wind tears Sylvia’s hat off; she and Marcello wistfully staring at one
another for a long moment. Fellini cuts to the evening: the Baths of Caracalla,
then an outdoor nightclub. The arrival of Sylvia in a stunning cleavage-revealing
gown, its silken entrails flaring about as she dances, ignites the room in an
incendiary and unbridled display of human sexuality; the tenor elevated to near
orgy status by the arrival of an old flame, Frankie Stout; momentarily causing
Marcello to feel like a cast off. Robert is seemingly disinterested in Sylvia’s
flagrant display, too intoxicated to care but not nearly drunk enough to hold
his tongue; his glib admonishment, enough to wound Sylvia’s feelings. She takes
off in a huff and Marcello promises to bring her back.
Alas, the
night has other plans for them; Marcello pursuing Sylvia as she explores the
deserted alleyways, taking pity on a poor white kitten she coddles and caresses
in a way Marcello would so obviously prefer to be held. Encouraging Marcello to
find some milk for the poor orphaned cat, Sylvia disappears into the night;
Marcello discovering her wading into the Trevi Fountain, outwardly under an otherworldly
power; hearing fantastic music inside her own head. Marcello is hypnotized by
Sylvia. She encourages him and he follows her into the pool, presumably with
the anticipation of some fantastic overture to love reciprocated at long last.
For the briefest of moments, this appears to be Sylvia’s modus operandi. She
gazes adoringly at Marcello and reaches down to sprinkle a few beads of water
atop his head. Regrettably, with the first glints of rising sun the mood
between them is broken. Marcello drives Sylvia back to her hotel. Robert, who
has been waiting for her return all night, is in a foul temper and wallops
Sylvia across the cheek as several paparazzi snap the couple’s picture.
Fellini shifts
focus with his next vignette, to the objectives of Marcello’s life; or rather,
his impossible daydream – to be a man like his mentor, Steiner. The uber-rich,
ultra-sophisticated Steiner appears to have it all; money, family, and a
fabulous atelier populated by fashionable friends; truly the crème de la crème
of society. Steiner and Marcello meet inside a local church, Steiner showing
off his air of culture by playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue on the pipe organ,
and later, by sharing his prized book of ancient Sanskrit. Marcello’s
infatuation with Steiner is fairly transparent and Steiner willingly invites
Marcello and Emma to his home for a weekend party. Later that same afternoon,
Marcello and Emma, along with Marcello’s photog/friend, Paparazzo (Walter
Santesso) make their pilgrimage to an abandoned field on the outskirts of Rome
to cover a story about two ghetto children having observed the sacred Madonna.
Despite
protestations from the Catholic Church, the reported sighting has garnered a
large crowd of devotees. The arrival of the paparazzi transforms the unassuming
field into a garishly orchestrated three-ring circus. Regrettably, it all comes
to not, the candlelight vigil planned as the piece de resistance thwarted by
Mother Nature. An impromptu thunderstorm sends everyone scattering, the
worshipers turning rabid as they tear at the branches of a withered tree,
claimed to have sheltered the Virgin Mary. In the same instance, Emma solemnly
offers a prayer to be given exclusive possession of Marcello's heart. At the
break of dawn it is discovered a sick child who was brought to the site by his
frantic mother to be healed, has been trampled to death in the hullabaloo.
Fellini now
moves us into what is perhaps La Dolce
Vita’s most sobering vignette: Steiner’s house party – a glittering
assemblage of pseudo-intellectuals who, although present in the same room, seem
a disjointed bunch at best: one recites poetry, another strums a guitar; the
bandying about of philosophical ideas while listening to the banal sounds of
nature on a tape recorder more fraught with wasteful self-indulgence than
anything else. Fellini sets us up into believing Marcello and Emma are the
outsiders, when it is actually Steiner who is out of place among these
fair-weather friends. Isolated on a balcony, Marcello sincerely compliments
Steiner on a perfect evening. But Steiner is strangely despondent. Far from being contented, he philosophizes
about the need for love in the world and genuinely fears the many tomorrows his
children will have to face as adults.
Spurred to
make a sincere stab at his own greatness, Marcello spends the next afternoon
toiling on the first draft of his novel, retreating to a lonely seaside restaurant
to be at one with his thoughts. Perhaps, left to his own accord he can free his
mind. It is not to be as the restaurant’s pubescent waitress, Paola (Valeria
Ciangottini) plays Perez Prado's infectious cha-cha on the jukebox while
humming its tune. At first, Marcello is perturbed with the girl, but softens
after taking a more serious look at her. She reminds him of an angel in the
Umbrian paintings, and their conversation takes on the flavoring of a paternal
figure administering kindly advice to the novice. She is innocent in the ways
of the world and quite amused by Marcello’s relaxed familiarity. Returning to Rome without having written a
word, Marcello is informed by Paparazzo his father has come to town. Marcello
is indeed surprised to see his father in the flesh. After all, he has not been
home, written or even called his parents in quite some time.
Nevertheless,
Ribini Sr. is delighted to see his son, enjoying a good meal and chatting about
his life and women. Marcello and Paparazzo take his father to the Cha-Cha-Cha
Club. There, Marcello introduces him to Fanny (Magali Noël); an aged chorine
and a former flame whose photo Marcello promised to get in the paper. It never
happened, and Fanny is still mildly bitter. Her indignation abates, however,
and she decides to show Marcello and his father a good time. Together with
Paparazzo and two other dancers, everyone returns to Fanny’s flat. Marcello is
uncomfortable with this suggestion and decides to leave when they get to their
destination. Regrettably, the night is ruined for Marcello too when his father
appears to have suffered a minor heart attack in Fanny’s company. Marcello
implores him to see a doctor and stay in Rome. Ill and ailing, Ribini Sr.
resists his son’s compassion and elects instead to take the first train home.
The big city has worn him out. It’s no use. Marcello and his father will never
be close.
Fellini’s
final acts in La Dolce Vita ante up
both the perversity and desperation of our protagonist; Marcello attending a
house party at the behest of Jane (Audrey McDonald), an American heiress who is
frivolous. The remote castle at Bassano di Sutri outside Rome is owned by
Jane’s aristocratic, though priggish fiancée. But the gathering is hardly
resplendent; rather, decadent and mildly disturbing for its implied surrender
to amorality. Nevertheless, Marcello is surprised to see Maddalena there. She
lures and isolates him in a room, hurrying to another to test its echo chamber as
she whispers a proposal of marriage. Marcello hesitates; only replying that he
loves her. In the meantime, Maddalena is approached by another party guest
(Romolo Giordani) who has no quam about seducing her.
She acquiesces and Marcello begrudgingly rejoins the group, spending the night
with Jane instead. Burnt out, the deflated revelers trundle up the front walk
toward the castle, met by its proprietress on her way to church.
Sometime
later, Marcello and Emma are driving home along an isolated road when she makes
her final play for him. Marcello’s penultimate refusal, even to entertain the
prospect, causes Emma to pressure he stop the car immediately. She demands to
know the reason why Marcello does not love her as much as she so obviously,
emphatically, and greedily desires him. Marcello is frustrated and fed up. He
pulls over, abandoning Emma on the open road and in the dead of night, only to
sheepishly return early the next dawn and discover her not too far from where
he left her. Her abject surrender, as she slinks back into his car without a
word is disheartening at best; the two, predictably, winding up in bed a short
while later. Their peaceful slumber is intruded on by a telephone call;
Marcello informed Steiner has murdered his two children and committed suicide. Waiting for Steiner’s wife (Renée Longarini)
to return home, Marcello breaks the horrific news, shielding her from the swarm
of ravenous reporters.
Time passes:
quite a lot of it, apparently. For when next we meet Marcello, his jet black
mane has turned to greyish chalk. He encourages a group of drunken partygoers
to break into a Fregene beach house owned by a man named Riccardo (Riccardo Garrone); presumably, a friend. To inaugurate her recent
divorce from Riccardo, Nadia (Nadia Gray) performs a striptease; Marcello
provoking the revelers into an orgy. Alas, in all their intoxication, this
scene degenerates into an apathetic farce; Marcello endeavoring to infuse some
mania or eroticism – or both - into the moment by tearing open feather-down
pillows and riding a hunched over young woman like a pony around the room. Amidst this chaos, Riccardo unexpectedly
arrives, disgusted by what he sees and angrily ordering the partiers to leave
at once. Instead, their drunken revelry continues on the beach, the old fools
stumbling upon a stingray-like creature caught in a fisherman’s net.
These final
moments are perplexing and reek of the pall of death, or rather, a queer finality
to the pursuit of that illusive ‘sweet
life’ Marcello has squandered his entire youth on without success. The
perplexity of these moments arises from the return of Paola. She has not aged a
bit since her first encounter with Marcello – despite the fact he has -considerably - in the interim. She beckons from across an estuary, her words
drowned out by the raging surf. Marcello signals his inability to understand
her (Fellini offering an obvious double entendre here) and Paola rather
awkwardly waves goodbye as Marcello returns to the carousers instead. Fellini
holds tight and long on the final close-up, an inscrutable smile creeping
across Paola’s cheeks. Is she pleased to have been briefly reunited with this
gentle man who once bestowed compliments upon her? Or is she grieving the loss
of the man she naively thought he was, or hoped he might live up to satisfy her
memories? We’re never entirely certain and perhaps this is precisely Fellini’s
point; that Marcello Ribini is a creature of misguided habits; a man incapable
of finding love even when it is clearly presented as a viable alternative for
the taking.
La Dolce Vita is a profound and thoroughly bittersweet fable;
Fellini’s defiance of the then popularized neorealist movement in Italian
film-making readily apparent. It’s also the story of a fantastically flawed man,
inadvertently sacrificing his own everlasting happiness to temporary diversions
of every shape and kind. Marcello Mastroianni carves an indelible niche as the
film’s non-existentialist surveyor of life. Unable to commit to anything or
anyone for very long, Mastroianni’s alter ego is an affront to God’s destiny
for man; like Steiner – a dabbler without a purpose, doomed to perpetual
dissatisfaction without ever understanding the fundamental flaw in his
character that prevents him from moving forward. In place of this quest for
absolution and fulfillment, Fellini gives us a dark and demoralizing little
adventure, one from which there is no escape or even a shred of redemption for
our tragic hero.
The women in
Fellini’s chef d'oeuvre remain compelling codicils to this central chase; the purposeless
Sylvia, jaded Maddelena, wounded Emma, and, innocent Paola; each offering Marcello
momentary escapisms. It is Marcello’s inability to choose for himself – not just
wisely – but essentially; his dalliances with all eventually depriving him from
being worthy of any – that ultimately defeats the purpose of his life’s
journey. All of Fellini's characters are
unstable people; fractured individuals plagued by a self-destructive quality.
This kinetically draws them nearer to each other for the briefest of
flirtations. But it inevitably tears them apart. In the final analysis, La Dolce Vita is a tantalizing
chronicle, not so much for the superficialities it brings to light, but for the
sobering way it tempts providence by undoing its characters at their core.
Fellini does not give us archetypes, per say. Rather, he illustrates the ease
with which anyone may fall into any number of such ‘categories’ by their own design; the tail wagging the dog, as it
were; people becoming slaves to their vices after all of their virtues have
been deliberately discarded.
Criterion Home
Entertainment debuts La Dolce Vita
in a brand new and rather extensive 4K digital restoration conducted by
Cineteca Di Bologna - Laboratorio L'Immagine Ritrovata in collaboration with
The Film Foundation. This image harvest is derived from original camera
negatives shot in Totalscope by cinematographer extraordinaire, Otello
Martelli, with a few brief exceptions replaced by lavender prints; necessary,
due to mold damage and other age-related rot. The image is consistently thick
with good solid grain and contrast that yields super rich black levels. The ‘wow!’
factor is in evidence in virtually every razor-sharp frame; the visuals looking
extremely film-like and taking a quantum leap forward in 1080p; which is saying
a great deal considering the magnificence on display on the old Koch Lorber DVD.
But there’s no comparison here. Criterion’s Blu-ray blows everything else out
of the water. So, prepare to be astonished. This is an impressive reference
quality disc, sure to provide decades of viewing pleasure.
Criterion’s
Blu-ray also advances in its PCM monaural soundtrack, Nino Rota’s score in
particular sounding genuinely marvelous. Criterion, of course, gives us
optional English subtitles (Thank heaven! My Italian’s a little rusty.) using a
less obtrusive white font (Koch Lorber’s was a disastrously distracting
yellow). Criterion pads out the extras with new interviews from assistant
director, Lina Wertmüller, film scholar, David Forgacs and Italian journalist,
Antonello Sarno. Cumulatively, they add up to just under fifty minutes of
content, immeasurably fleshed out by a 1965 interview conducted by
NBC’s Irving R. Levine, showcasing an ebullient Fellini (30 min.) who runs the
gamut of topics, from affectionately waxing about his own work, to singing the
praises of other filmmakers and finally, speaking to his own ideals for making
movies. Another vintage interview with Marcello Mastroianni (almost 50 min.)
follows. There’s also ‘Felliniana’: a curious presentation
of the private collection of film buff, Don Young, plus an all too brief, but
densely packed visual essay ‘The Eye and the Beholder’ by
filmmaker, kogonada; deconstructing Fellini’s use of the mobile camera; plus,
liner notes by critic, Gary Giddins. Bottom line: very highly recommended! A real ‘must
have’ for this pending holiday season!
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
5+
EXTRAS
5
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