La Dolce Vita

The central character is a journalist who comes across a great variety of people who all want something different from life - and more or less each time the dreams of the night are being taken away by the dawn. He encounters the young (the girl in the tavern who wants to go back home), the old (his dad who feels way younger than his actual age and longs a corresponding lifestyle), the intellectuals (Stainer and company who desperately try to grasp the concept of happiness and the meaning of life and when he fails to do so, he resorts to extreme measures), the aristocrats (his rich friend/lover of sorts who is fascinated by the lifestyle of a prostitute and all her peers who spend their time in a ridiculously absurd party), the struck by fate (they suffer from some illness and are waiting for a miracle. And if that doesn't come, they will make it happen), the glamorous (the cinema star/ultimate sex symbol who is always looking for a new adventure). All sorts of people, really.

And in the center of it all stand Marcello and his fiancé. All she wants is someone by her side to love and be loved, but she can't have that, not with him at least, that's Marcello's idea of hell, his spirit is trapped and he wants to break free.

Marcello, on the other hand, is back to square one after all these experiences and interactions or perhaps even more confused compared to where he was at the start. He remains clueless and his seemingly endless wandering ends in the sea, just like in La Strada. He can't find anywhere what he is looking for, so he hopes the sea might provide some answers, but sadly to no avail.

By the way, this hopeless quest for happiness and for meaning in life is somewhat reminiscent of Hemingway's characters, especially the main one in The Sun Also Rises.

In terms of style, he sidesteps his neorealistic roots in favour of a surreal, ecstatic, Dionysian spectacle.

I just saw a new print of this wonderful film after not having seen it for maybe 20 years and it is still spellbinding. Fellini sums up an era and an attitude here, and succeeds in doing something that ought to be impossible: he makes a full and meaningful film about empty and meaningless lives. Mastroianni seems to have been to Fellini what DeNiro has been to Scorsese--a perfect embodiment of a personal vision. What a wonderful actor he was--brilliant in his youth and in his age. Many other performers are hardly less fine here, and the cinematography and composition are stunning throughout. There are so many indelible images from this film, images that have become iconic over the decades: Ekberg in the Fontana di Trevi, the statue of Christ flying over Rome, the astonishing, candlelit procession at the castle, to name a few. It seems plot less and yet it isn't plot less at all; Marcello's ultimately fruitless search for meaning, a search that he abandons in the end, as he stares across a slight and yet unbridgable abyss on the beach at a lovely young girl who seems to possess the knowledge and understanding that is denied to him. I'm astonished at the number of people who don't get this movie, who seem to think that Fellini expects us to admire the bizarre characters who people the film, or who think that a movie about worthless individuals must be a worthless movie, or who don't seem to understand that movies that are full of what become clichés usually do so because they capture an important vision. Fellini made several exceptional films: 81/2, La Strada, Amarcord, and The Nights of Cabiria come to mind, but La Dolce Vita may be, when all is said and done, his masterwork.

This is one of those films where I just don't want it to end as I enjoyed it so much. So many memorable and humorous scenes - Fellini successfully captured the atmosphere of picturesque Rome lifestyle. All of the characters are interesting, complex and I especially loved Anita Ekberg's performance! Amazing!

In many ways, this has to be regarded as the defining film of its era. It presaged a new style of cinema. It had a fluid, dreamy, symbolic visual and narrative form, and its resonance stems from its visual set pieces and overall ambience. It is also a fascinating exploration of the lifestyles and attitudes of an incipient, flash, indulgent and directionless generation.

The film is mainly remembered for the iconic scene of Anita Ekberg ebulliently splashing her way into the centre of the Trevi Fountain, followed by an adoring Marcello Mastroianni. The scene is emblematic of the film in the sense that it represents characters who wish to break free from the constraints of previous generations but their efforts, while perhaps on the surface appearing daring and romantic, often lead to nowhere. There's a sense of searching but not finding: breaking free of one set of constraints only in order to meet another. Marcello, the film's protagonist and perhaps a representation of the director himself, wants to be free of his wife and he doesn't want to sell himself to the capitalist system, but what else is there to provide meaning to his life? He is failing as an artist and his romantic conquests seem empty and unfulfilling. He yearns for a time when life was more clearly defined and yet he loathes the responsibility and entrapment that that definition would impose. And so he drifts from party to party, a little less energetic, a little more cynical on each occasion.

La Dolce Vita shows us the new hedonism and society's burgeoning obsession with celebrity. It is responsible for the word "paparazzi", which came from the name of one of the supporting characters, and it features a very young Nico, who would go on to achieve fame with one of the defining bands of the '60s. The film is a bold and brilliant exploration of life as it was lived by the upper-classes and the emerging chattering classes of the time. It's an enthralling experience which is both sweet and sombre.

There really isnt a plot. This is about a tabloid photographer and some scenarios he gets into. All the characters seem vain, selfish and wanting more from life without actually knowing what they want. The Rome nightlife is brought to life here and there are many scenes at lavish parties where all the characters dont appear to have any emotional connection to one another. There are also disconnected Catholic themes throughout the movie. It leaves you questioning your own life and emptiness.