La Dolce Vita (1960)

This review was written after seeing La Dolce Vita during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. My overall rating for the film was 4 stars out of a possible 4. It was the 212th film to receive my highest rating distinction.

The incredible part about La Dolce Vita is that the internal meaning that the epilogue concludes with (as I see and understand it) is what secures its place as not only a terrific film, but a terrific film about morals. Throughout the film, there are excellent moments and questionable moments and the final night, often referenced as the orgy scene, sets the film up to be a major letdown. But it is the encounter on the beach with the ray and then with the girl from the restaurant (Valeria Ciangottini) that seals the message and the fate of Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) in an envelope and allows any intelligent viewer to leave the film content – not content with what took place in the film, but rather, content with knowing the path of Marcello’s life following that morning on the beach, no matter how unsettling it is. But first, in order to explain the significance of the final five minutes, one (in this case me) must explain why the message rests solely on the ray and the girl.

Throughout the film, Marcello has encountered several people that are real people. To reference a more contemporary film, Marcello’s encounters are very similar (although not intentional) to the efforts of Russell Hammond in Almost Famous (2000) (which are intentional). Russell leaves with William to try and find some people that are real, people that are genuine, not snobbish, nor wearing a veil of false perfection.

These are the same type of people that Marcello has been entranced with during the film. The characters who are genuine that receive a significant amount of supporting time are Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), Marcello’s father (Annibale Ninchi), Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), the girl from the restaurant and the beach, and Steiner (Alain Cuny). With each character, they are given one sort of departure or another, a departure that symbolizes their inability to fit in with the life that Marcello surrounds himself with.

For Sylvia, her free spirit is what leads to her departure. She wears a disguise for the cameras; she loves the attention, but she is more about curiosity than fame. This becomes evident at the party, the appearance of Frankie (Alain Dijon), and the refusal of Robert (Lex Barker) which leads to Sylvia and Marcello leaving the party. Sylvia’s ultimate departure comes at the hands of her fiancé Robert, who assaults her for being herself.

Marcello’s father, although not who he used to be, is still a man who enjoys life and is thrilled to be with his son. The problem for Marcello’s father, a problem that Marcello tries to make his father overlook, is that his father is no longer fit for the life of glamour that Marcello encompasses himself in. More so, it’s not that Marcello’s father has lost touch with the glitzy world, it’s that the current glitzy world is different from the one that he enjoyed in 1922.

Emma’s the interesting one because she does not make a full departure from the societal lifestyle of Marcello, but only because of her love for him. Emma is also a real person, which becomes clear at Steiner’s party. She requests to hear the sounds of nature and she expresses joy and takes pleasure in meeting Steiner’s children. Later in the timeline, when she and Marcello fight in his car, the fight is, at its heart, a result of her love for him, a love that cannot be manifested in the fictional world that Marcello lives in. She does end up returning with Marcello, but their future together does not have a bright light on itself.

Steiner is perhaps the most real person in Marcello’s public life. Steiner is a real man in a world of established shine and false happiness. Steiner has been able to have a family and still coexist in this lifestyle, albeit a rather separated existence. As Marcello discusses with Maddalena (Anouk Aimée) in the very opening of the film, they may be the only two people in their world that are dissatisfied with their accomplishments and their wealth. As Marcello meets each of these real people, he becomes enamored with some form of their uniqueness and even tries to pursue them in hope of achieving this uniqueness and separation from his current life. But when Steiner, the real person that he feels closest to and used as the biggest influence and inspiration, murders his children and then commits suicide himself, Marcello begins to realize in full that it is not possible to coexist in the real world and the fabricated world, and that he must live in the fabricated world.

The orgy scene at the beach house is the ultimate testament to the fabricated world, a world that Marcello has become intoxicated with and succumbed to, not out of pleasure, but out of an imposed sense that this is the world that he must become one with since escape is not possible.

And yet, I have not mentioned the ray and the girl, the girl being the last real character seen in the film. This is because her full potential as a real character does not become realized until the final, fleeting seconds of the film. During their first encounter, their brief, shall we say, interview between Marcello and the girl, Marcello quickly notices that she is unlike anyone that he spends his time with. And although they may appear as flattery and flirtatious, his questions to her are out of mere curiosity for the genuine appearance of her. She is innocent, and that fascinates him. On the beach that last morning of the film, Marcello sees a ray caught by many men with the intention of fetching millions for it. The ray, as Marcello may or may not realize, but the audience certainly can realize, is innocent and pure, a creature that was living its natural life when humans came along and captured it with the intention of making a profit off of it. This is the last killing of innocence, purity, reality, and genuine, natural life that Marcello will be able to see, even if he cannot realize it. He then notices, just across a little down step in the sand slightly covered by water, the girl from the restaurant. She beckons him, but Marcello does not understand. She then tries to speak to him, but Marcello cannot hear. Finally, Marcello’s group are retreating to the house and they beckon him. Marcello stands still for a moment, until a woman comes to him with her arms out, ready to pull him back. He looks at the girl once more, she waves goodbye to him and he acknowledges, before accompanying the woman back to the woods and the automobiles.

This was Marcello’s final chance to have his own departure and embark on a life of (not so much purity as) reality, a life that did not follow the glitz and sleaze that sculpted his current life. This life would put him in the same company as the girl from the beach, the ray, his father, Sylvia, Emma and her true love for him, and Steiner before his downfall. But Marcello does not cross over to the other sand, instead he turns his back to it, and continues to pursue the life of falsification that he has known for as long as he can remember. La Dolce Vita is a film about morals, or moreover, a film about a life and time when morals did not matter to fake people, and they were perfectly fine with that.