The iconic Fellini film was cutting edge as a harbinger of the fading of Existentialism and the dawn of new philosophical age, the Age of Irony, later re-labeled Post-Modernism. Irony has become a central characteristic of the postmodern world. Where modernism (the existential response to Nietzsche's Nihilism) still believed (even in its despair) that meaning could be recovered or rebuilt, postmodernity surrendered to the wink, the shrug, the knowing smirk. Nothing is sacred, nothing is serious for long, and sincerity itself is treated as the ultimate naïveté.
In Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960), Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a jaded tabloid journalist, drifts through the hedonistic high society of Rome in the late 1950s. Over seven nights and dawns, Marcello chases fleeting pleasures—orgies, celebrity scandals, intellectual debates, and miraculous hoaxes—while searching for meaning, love, and artistic fulfillment. The film is ultimately a portrait of the moral emptiness and spiritual malaise beneath the glamour of “the sweet life.”
While watching, I couldn't help but think of the opening scene from a book I'd read about Johnny Carson. It begins with a party. The crème de la crème of Hollywood are gathered at some luxurious home, awkward and slightly uncomfortable until Johnny and his wife finally show up. The author, Carson's personal attorney, paints a cynical picture of a houseful of superficial people living shallow lives.
Some people have called La Dolce Vita one of the most influential and visually intoxicating films ever made. Like all major films, it is replete with memorable images, scenes and lines. I doubt that anyone watching today, however, can avoid thinking about Princess Di when celebrity star Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) is being pursued by a barrage of paparazzi.
The famous set pieces—the opening shot of a helicopter carrying a statue of Christ over modern Rome, Anita Ekberg’s midnight frolic in the Trevi Fountain, the haunting beach sequence with the dead sea creature and the unreachable girl watching from afar—have been heralded as staples of cinematic history.
Mastroianni’s performance steals every scene: weary, charming, self-loathing, and at times unexpectedly cruel, a lost soul in a sea of decadence. The supporting cast (Ekberg, Anouk Aimée, Yvonne Furneaux, Alain Cuny) inject vivid life to Fellini’s gallery of beautiful, broken souls.
"Marcello." Wine and pigment on
illustration board
The film is both a celebration and a brutal autopsy of excess, and its critique of celebrity culture, paparazzi frenzy, and spiritual bankruptcy.
This kind of moral bankruptcy is nothing new. We're more than familiar with the decadence of King Louis XIV, or the Emperors Nero and Caligula of Rome who spent fortunes on palaces, jewels and bizarre amusements including lavish public games to display dominance and curry political favor. The Gilded Age in America (1870s-1910s) featured palatial mansions and extravagant parties (with solid gold flatware and full orchestras while millions lived in overcrowded tenements.) The Belle Époque in Europe (1871–1914), the Roaring Twenties, and the Lolita Express are all reminders that there's nothing new under the sun. For evidence, check out Psalm 73 from 1,000 years B.C.
La Dolce Vita is currently rated 8 stars out of 10 at imdb.com, and its stature continues to climb. If it has any flaws, perhaps some might give a demerit to the film’s 174-minute runtime. Yet even its sprawl can also be interpreted as deliberate, mirroring Marcello’s endlessly aimless wandering.
