La Dolce Vita Analysis

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Directed by: Federico Fellini
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni
Won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival, 1960.

Fun fact: The word "paparazzi" (an intrusive journalist) is coined after the name of a character in the film - Paparazzo.

The film is a character study of Marcello, a journalist in Roma, exploring different facets in his life - through his relationships with different people like romantic partners, friends, fiance, father, colleagues, etc. Lifestories are never a compilation of some short stories, one story doesn't begin after another ends - a lot of stories keep happening for a larger period of time, than our estimate. Likewise in this film, whatever happens with Emma - the subplot stays till the end of the film, sure some characters go away sooner, like in real life too but a lot of times, change in the dynamics of a relationship happen over time. Fellini said that he doesn't want his films to be restricted by any forms of narrative, and that a film should flow like a poem.

The film explores the contrast between materialistic and a meaningful life, although the "intellectual" character ends up committing suicide and Marcello has fun throughout the film, so the worldview is clearly just to do whatever you feel like doing, even if that or rather, especially it means being hedonistic (referring to the orgy scene). The B/W cinematography is really good, we see Marcello wearing a black suit most of the times, his car and glasses are black too, and his shirt is white and his face is lit with fill lighting, so there is high contrast and yet clean imagery all over - we don't see shadows or a film-noir kind of lighting. I've only seen Fellini's Eight and Half apart from this and yet I could see a lot of similar visual choices, the quirky imagery of the opening scenes, and a very unconventional narrative. I read that a lot of critics found this narrative to have a prologue, seven episodes and an epilogue - this is an interesting interpretation of the material.