When you are introduced to world cinema, one of the major images teachers often expose you to is the fountain scene in La Dolce Vita (1960). It’s around then you also learn about how deified Federico Fellini is in film circles. While my first exposure to him was 8 ½ (1963), there’s no denying that somewhere in the background, I had this image of Anita Ekberg joyously prancing through water. That is why for the next decade of my life, as I saw video packages of this man’s career, I thought that La Dolce Vita was just an arthouse version of Roman Holiday (1953). Basically, it was about a frivolous relationship that wouldn’t last to dawn. It would end and suddenly everything would return to normal if bittersweet.
It isn’t wrong to suggest that the whirling epic has that quality, but not in any way that I had assumed. Watching the first hour, I was ready to place Ekberg’s performance as Sylia as one of my favorite Fellini performances. She had this magnetism. I loved how carefree she was and even the act of dancing at a meandering public concert felt like electric cinema. She embodied a figure that spoke to some greater allure. By the time we got to the fountain, I understood everything. She loved her life. People flocked to her at airports carrying food. They respected her opinion. Even if she’s visiting from Sweden, I had trouble not believing this could’ve been a Marilyn Monroe type: blonde and voluptuous. Her innocence in discussions may be an affect, but it could be genuine. Either way, she knows how to lure you in with nothing more than a finger.
Putting in contrast to the protagonist is where things begin to reveal Fellini’s bigger picture. Despite being one of the most iconic roles, Sylvia isn’t around for long. She’s fleeting and in its place is protagonist Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) attempting to feel connected to a world where he’s burned out. Quite staggeringly, the opening section features Marcello having to respond to his wife’s overdramatic behavior. Maybe she’s suicidal or seeking attention. Given that Marcello insists on calling her a “slut” numerous times throughout the final hour, it’s clear that neither member of this couple is the best. By virtue of being the focal point, Marcello can be painted as the moral center. Even then, he’s a man whose dive into nihilism would make Albert Camus proud.
The aspect that surprises me most about La Dolce Vita is how fragmented everything is. There is no elevation from moment to moment. Instead it feels like chapters starting their insignificant cycle as Marcello enters new conversations. He’s quick to hop into cars with strangers while flagging down paparazzo to capture the moment. Given that they run rampant like pigeons at fast food joints, there’s always somebody there waiting to capture the most unflattering moments. The elegance slowly strips away and, quite impressively, the cinematography manages to be gorgeous without objectifying stardom. It’s a beautiful film but everything feels ugly and gross. Nothing feels desirable. It’s mostly a way to pass time until everyone approaches death.
Somewhere in the wayward middle hour of this piece, Marcello reveals why he seems so morose. Along with feeling disconnected from his philandering father, he is in the middle of two careers that are in theory similar but symbolically achieving different goals. He is a former journalist who has turned his attention to fiction writing. On the surface, this could simply be an example of Marcello wanting to detach himself from reality. Journalism requires a selflessness that encourages people to be aware of the world around them. It needs to capture a larger truth that could be seen in people flocking to Sylvia. Even then, she may be playing a façade, so what is truth? Does she even have feelings for Marcello? Given that the paparazzo would, in reality, later be lumped in with journalism, one can argue that the media is intentionally molding the stories off of their own voyeuristic perversities.
At the same time, fiction can hold more truths through the abstract. I think it’s Fellini’s greater intent with making La Dolce Vita. Where is the greater truth when everyone exists within their own fiction? They have crafted narratives about themselves in order to sell a reality that’s not there. Beyond any greater thought, fiction is a more comfortable opiate for the masses because there is reasonable doubt. It’s allowed to delve into fantasy and challenge our expectations of reality. By 1960, Fellini was an expert in making the real world into a fantasy without totally removing the center.
Even then, there needs to be a center. From the point that Marcello discusses his loneliness as a writer with a party guest, he finds the two modes fighting for focus. From here, it’s a fool’s errand to properly say what La Dolce Vita is trying to say. There are many readings for why Fellini seems fixated on jumping from party to party. Maybe he’s saying something more provocative as masked dancers and showgirls put on an act to please paying guests. Everyone is more willing to go along with the social contract than he is. Maybe it’s because Marcello has seen the reality. Maybe it’s because he’s so far off his own center that the final half is a dissociative episode that lands with one of the most sledgehammer swings I’ve seen in any film.
Most of all, nobody who follows has the immediacy of Sylvia. Where she feels “real,” the people Marcello meets become more and more like caricatures. Starting around the castle scene, I felt like the party guests went from having a sense of elegance to a strange interpersonal dynamic. Fellini did a great job of finding actors whose posture seems comical. There’s even confusion as to whether what he’s intending to say is that the castle is a haven for ghosts or if everyone walking through are the haunted ones. Maybe it’s a greater commentary on Italy’s moral history. No matter what the greater solution is, something unaddressed is wrong.
Many are likely to suggest that, as a greater work, La Dolce Vita is overlong and lacks focus. It’s an understandable complaint, though one that I think is to ignore the greater intention. Fellini’s willingness to zoom in on a moment to the point of painful awkward side conversations becoming the center help to show how much is missing. For most people, the celebrity lifestyle is fast and fabulous, but to Fellini it’s somewhere between fact and fiction. It looks fun, but somewhere in the laughs are long car rides to venues with miserable weather conditions. There’s believing in spiritual forces that are more in the believer’s mind than the rainy field they pray in. Everything is in search of relief, and Fellini never gives Marcello that. There is a moment towards the end where it’s suggested – if you believe it’s there – but it’s unrequited.
Nowhere is this clearer than in one of the most staggering of chapters. Marcello’s father (Annibale Ninchi) ends up laying out the thesis better than his tight-lipped son ever could. As someone who has spent endless nights away from home, his absence is felt in Marcello’s life. The craving for love is evident if, for no other reason, than his father seeks it from everywhere but his family. That is why he flirts with showgirls who flatter him by suggesting he’s still young and vital as they slow dance. She laughs at his tacky jokes. Maybe she’s genuinely amused, but Fellini’s tone feels like it leans too much into artifice for it to be true.
However, the one thing that speaks to the larger intent of La Dolce Vita is that it’s all a distraction. His father can’t understand why Marcello isn’t happy in part because he’s not willing to listen. Instead he speaks about how uncomfortable he is with sitting in silence. He needs stimulation, of which he achieves by traveling far and wide. It’s hard to know if he actually befriends the strangers he meets or if it’s surface level. Whatever the case may be, it falls apart when he’s alone, sitting in his son’s apartment in a state that feels borderline suicidal. For as predictable as it could seem to play this card now, Fellini’s direction allows for it to be the cautionary tale of chasing thrills. At some point it will remove your core self. It’s a moment that feels strained just like the parties, and the emptiness is so apparent that it becomes uncomfortable. A rational person sees him ruminating and seeks to find purpose.
Not Marcello. It could just be that he’s too established as a writer to have any alternative. He’s trapped in his own doings. Credit to Mastroianni for playing the lead role with a weariness that never overpowers his stoic gaze. He’s able to play along with the more sincere-looking laughter of his peers, but the viewer recognizes what’s absent. He’s not OF the group so much as he’s BY the group. He observes and, because he’s an outsider, he can never understand the inside joke nature of their dynamic. It can’t help but feel fake from an outsider’s perspective. As anyone who has tried to make friends will know, there’s nothing more uncomfortable than trying to be accepted by peers. When it’s the popular, it may come with a side of resentment.
There’s a lot of story that I’m foregoing for the sake of a larger review. To me, this is phenomenal. I could understand why it’s one of the quintessential touchstones of world cinema, especially given how it manages to embrace a postmodernist text without fully spiraling into abstraction. It may not totally make sense, but what Fellini film does? It’s melancholy and ugly while being a satire that is often very funny and gorgeous to look at. Much like the journalist/fiction angle of Marcello, there is a need for the viewer to engage with it as an ever-changing puzzle. Maybe the party scenes hold greater truths in the silence. Maybe it’s just that they’re hollow and the only way to convey it properly is to wallow in those uncomfortable minutes of nothingness. Either way, it feels revolutionary and obtuse even now.
For as much as I’d love to have seen Sylvia one last time, I do think the larger point is that Marcello would’ve been too jaded to give into her whims. The attractiveness would be gone. Even then, she remains the shining star in the piece. It could all be cautionary. Maybe everything that was attractive would fade. Even then, I think it’s a return to a naivety that’s unachievable. Once you’ve seen the hollowness, is it possible to find joy in the simple things?
I’m far from the first to write a few words on La Dolce Vita and probably far from the last. Either way, it’s one of those films that manages to pack every minute with so much purpose that you can’t help but admire the intent of everything. Even in its ambiguity, it finds some greater truths struggling to reach out. I love how there are moments where you are desperately wanting the next scene to start already but never get it. Fellini knows how to keep the tension alive even as his audience risks boredom. The results are powerful and thought-provoking. Many have tried to make films like this with less success. Even if it’s Italian, it feels so painfully American that I’m surprised it’s not set here. Then again, we’d probably overdo the sentimentalism. It takes a very special eye to know where the line is and even if this story is largely off center, Fellini knows just where to stake his claim.
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