Film Difficulty Ranking: 3
One of Fellinis classics, La Dolce Vita takes you on a tour of Rome’s superficial upper class world. This one is full of parties, affairs, and paparazzi.
Why watch La Dolce Vita?
- Get a feel for that Italian culture without leaving your bed.
- For a taste of Italy’s most famous director.
- Get invited to a weird mix of parties with a crazy bunch of people.
- Feel like someone famous as paparazzi follow you everywhere.
Two helicopters enter flying over Rome’s suburbs, one carrying a statue of Jesus. Children abandon football to chase after the two helicopters captured by sweeping camera movements. There’s even a nice shot of the helicopter carrying Jesus from the other helicopter. A pretty modern shot for the time. The helicopters approach a roof-party where a number of girls are sunbathing on the roof. One of the helicopter passengers leans out of the helicopter to ask for one of the girl’s number. He says he is taking Jesus to the Pope.
Paparrazi are everywhere. Watch out for the camera movement. It often moves with the paparazzi, putting you in their position. The camera moves quickly towards a famous subject just as the paparazzi swarm around them. We are always where there are famous or rich people and we are always invading people’s privacy. Where there is paparazzi there is something going on even if it is of their or Fellini’s own creation.
A superficial world is also presented cleverly by Fellini. I counted two times where non-diegetic music is then stopped by one of the characters on a nearby juke box or record player. What we think is real is actually fake. This superficiality of the parties Marcello attends also seem like big crazy attempts to entertain themselves. The superficiality reminded me of Antonioni’s L’Avventura released in the same year, like The Great Beauty (an homage to Fellini from 2013) and even, to an extent, Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers (hah! Bet you didn’t expect that to be mentioned.).
Anyway, as a classic, I have to recommend watching this one, even if it is to please your inner film buff. As for Fellini, I did slightly prefer Nights of Cabiria. Enjoy.
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