La Dolce Vita Review

 La Dolce Vita

Year:  1960

Director:  Federico Fellini

Main Actors:  Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Eckberg, and Anouk Aimee

La Dolce Vita is a 1960s Italian Film.  The film depicts seven episodes in the life of Marcello Rubini as he struggles to find his place in the world and figure out what he really wants to be.   This film shows a culture of excess.  One of the main females who Marcello sleeps with is famous and has a lot of money.   It is a culture that is partying and gallivanting all around, without any constraints it seems.  However, despite the good times life intervenes.  Marcello is sleeping with a rich celebrity at a prostitute’s house and his girlfriend tries to commit suicide.  His rich mistress offers a life with social functions and constant partying, while his girlfriend offers a domestic, calm life.  Marcello is stuck somewhere in the middle.  He is trying to decide between women and he is trying to figure himself out.  He wants to be a serious writer, but he is living in a constantly moving life.

The opening scene contrasts the old with the new.  A statue of Christ is shown flying over the ruins and the new buildings, essentially blessing it all.  It shows how the new, modern life is overtaking the old, more meaningful life.  Yet, the old and the new are so close to one another, but to the characters the old can be so far away.

In one of the scenes Marcello is sent to cover a story about children who claimed to have seen the Madonna. The children lead the crowd in circles saying they see her over here and then over there, thus showing that they are faking the miracle.  However, there were so many people there who truly believed. A woman brought her ill child, when havoc broke out they were killed in a stampede.  At the end of this scene, the people tore apart the tree that supposedly covered the Madonna without regard.  They just ripped it limb from limb because everyone wanted a piece of the holy object, but no one thought to leave it whole.  Thus showing the culture of “I want a piece of it now”, excess, everyone wanted a piece.  It also shows how people believed in the old; they believed in religion, but they also lived in the modern world and wanted a piece of everything.

Throughout the film there are many ideas going on that all accumulate and lead to Marcello thinking about his life.  With one of his friends, Steiner, he discusses the world they live in and what type of world Steiner’s children would grow up in.  Steiner decides to kill himself and his two children, thus leading the viewer to believe that he was not at all content with the world for his children and death seemed like the only way to avoid the modern world.  The press bombarded the mourning wife before she even knew about the deaths.  

The last scene shows Marcello walking away from the beach, but he appeared to be unsatisfied.  He could not hear or understand a young woman on the beach and he just walked away.  It is unknown if he ever made a decision about his life.  After he fought with his girlfriend about their life together and threw her out of the car he went back to pick her up and they slept together.  Yet, in another scene he is still partying with the elite.