by guest contributor Darren Smith
Marcello Mastroianni and Federico Fellini in front of a La dolce vita poster
It’s true. Italians do indeed do it better, at least when it comes to ennui in cinema. They do it with such effortless chic and glamour – none of this heady, stuffy nonsense. It’s Balenciaga gowns, Armani tuxedos, Persol sunglasses, sports cars, insouciant pouts and ‘we’ll pick up the tab on the way out, amore mio’. This is no less so than in Federico Fellini‘s La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life).
My first taste of La Dolce Vita came via Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French with their own parody called ‘Franco E Sandro’. Watch it, it’s funny and I’m sure it’s on YouTube.
But back to Fellini.
Marcello Rubini (played by Italy’s answer to Cary Grant, Marcello Mastroianni) is a journalist in Rome reporting on celebrities, religious events and aristocrats. It’s a tough job idling away the hours in cafes with A-listers, swanning from bar to nightclub and back to bar, and charming the latest It Girl with his Casanova smile. It’s the sweet life and he’s living the dream.
But Marcello is also in a marriage that he’s doing his best to forget about, while chasing a selection of beautiful, wealthy women. One of these is Sylvia (played by the Swedish Anita Ekberg), an American actress visiting Italy.
Less the conventional, linear story we’re used to these days, La Dolce Vita is more a set of stories linked together by its protagonist. From a religious visitation by the Virgin Mary to a beach house party/orgy, each episode takes you deeper into Marcello’s troubles and Fellini’s reflection on a morally ambiguous society.
While it’s hard not to be seduced by the lifestyle and plentiful supply of Veuve Cliquot, there’s a languid malaise lingering about – a feeling that something’s not right. For Marcello, and this whole lifestyle, something is missing.
La Dolce Vita was released in 1960, a time when Italy was emerging from post-war ruins and entering a golden age of prosperity, liberalism and consumerism. The film presents a fantastic contrast between the old and the new right from the very start when a statue of Christ is flown in by helicopter past ancient Roman aqueducts, over construction sites for new suburban tenement buildings, and over the rooftop of penthouse apartments decked out with bikini-clad women of the leisure class. La Dolce Vita is full of beautifully filmed moments like this (including the super famous scene at the Trevi Fountain).
Another consistent element in the movie is the media, an industry coming into its own at the time. Like every self-respecting journalist, Marcello has a good photographer ready to snap the money shot. His name is Paparazzo, and legend has it he’s the reason we call these people ‘the Paparazzi’ today. The careless and insensitive way these photographers operate is another reflection of how society and morality is changing.
Overall, I was surprised to discover that La Dolce Vita was not at all as abstract or surreal as French & Saunders led me to believe. Not only is it a beautifully shot depiction of ‘the sweet life’, it’s also a great comedy filled with an impressive number of characters and caricatures. A splendid jazz score by the late, great Nino Rota (think The Godfather) bubbles effervescently throughout.
If you love movies by people like Pedro Almodóvar, then I strongly recommend this. It’s also a great entry point for exploring Italian cinema in the 50s and 60s – there are many more gems, I believe.
For me, La Dolce Vita is like people-watching from a bustling Italian piazza cafe one fine summer evening, drinking a bottle of crisp Prosecco and wondering what life is all about.
