La Dolce Vita: Film Review
Being Italian, I knew La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1961) was one of the Cornell Cinema films I had to see last semester, especially since it is a well-known classic film among my friends and family from Italy.
The title itself engaged me, as it seemed comedic and fun when translated to English: the sweet life. The Sweet Life reminded me of one of my favorite childhood television series to watch, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Similar to the playfulness and antics of Zack and Cody in the tv show, the main character of La Dolce Vita, Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) was a very playful journalist with female stars he was assigned to cover, but his antics often involved sneaking around with such women despite being engaged to another lady. His behavior throughout the film seems childish as he is disloyal and noncommittal to each actress, but the audience gains a better understanding of how he potentially became this way. For example, two possible reasons for his lack of commitment and flirtatious personality include the nature of his work as an attractive man surrounded by celebrities who often get what (and who) they want and the fact that his father (Annibale Ninchi) displayed similar non-commital characteristics with both women and Marcello as a child.
One of the most striking aesthetic choices of the film occurred during the opening scene when a statue of Jesus Christ was transported via helicopter over Rome, and the audience sees Marcello in a news helicopter closely following it while eliciting phone numbers from women in bikinis below. The fact that Jesus hovers over Rome at the beginning of the film adds a comedic aspect and symbolically introduces the idea that Marcello is a player-like and sinful person--one who we witness cheat on his fiance (Yvonne Furneax) with other women--while also introducing a motif related to Catholicism. For example, there is a huge broadcast about two children claiming to have seen the Madonna (Virgin Mary), and Marcello’s fiance prays to the Virgin Mary to be the only woman in Marcello’s life.
Marcello’s wife overdoses due to her skepticism of his cheating behavior, but he continues to sleep around with an heiress named Maddalenna (Anouk Aimee) and a Swedish-American actress named Sylvia (Anita Ekberg). We witness intense arguments between Marcello and Emma, but later see them cuddle in the same bed shortly after. Similarly, Marcello’s father demonstrates the lack of commitment to his own family as well as other women. By seeing his father flirt with a past girlfriend of Marcello named Fanny (Magali Noel), as well as hearing Marcello tell his friend Paparazzo (Walter Santesso) about his father’s long absences away from home when he was a child, the audience witnesses Marcello’s learned behavior.
Two other scenes that struck me include one in which Marcello confesses his love to Maddalena while she is embraced by another man, further representing the disloyalty and conflicted stances on love within the film. A scene that takes place years later in which a divorce is being celebrated at a party reveals a sloppy, drunken Marcello. The mayhem of the party left an uneasy feeling in my stomach, as freedom from commitment seemed to be celebrated in the film, but also showcased a sadness which people were trying to disguise through drinking at a party. The figure behavior of the party-attendees seemed robotic and sloppy, yet restricted as well--revealing that they likely do not want to be attending the party at all. The last striking scene was the finale, in which a young waitress who Marcello had spoken to much earlier in the film, and at an earlier point in his life, sees him from across an estuary. She smiles and waves to him, yelling inaudible words silenced by surrounding wind and waves as Marcello walks off holding hands with a woman. This scene presented an interesting contrast between Marcello’s matured future and a hopeful, energetic and beautiful youth eager to socialize with others, similar to the younger Marcello. This final scene was beautifully presented and invited the audience to reflect on their own life decisions and views on love by recognizing that Marcello’s wild past still eventually led him to that calmer point in his life in which we assume (and hope) he has finally settled down with one person.
