Offical TL:DVD club selection and procedures

[kitaristi0]

I just today found out that my university has quite a large collection of videos and DVDs and I just booked La Dolce Vita for Monday, so yes I'm late and all that but at least I'm gonna watch this and try to find something interesting to say about it.

[diebitter]

The great thing about the Lounge is that stuff moves slow enough to be able to come late to topics and it still be reasonably active and around.

[mrbaseball]

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MY first thoughts were that it was essentially a set of disconnected episodes illustrating the empty lives of the individuals, and intended to build so that at first it seemed like a fun lifestyle, and gradually becomes clearly vacuous and empty. However, maybe because I'm relatively old (41), it seemed vacuous and empty right from the outset to me, so I don't think I felt the same impact possibly younger watchers might get?

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I agree completely with these comments. I really didn't like or completely dislike this movie. It did have some great scenes and images. I really liked seeing 1960 Rome. And having personally taken that trip up to the top of St. Peters I found some personal nostalgia. The narrowness of that staircase as it winds around the dome is hard to imagine and had to be difficult to film. But overall? If I never saw it I don't think I'd be lacking anything and I can't think that I'll ever be drawn to watch it again. It was way too long and as prevously mentioned seemed very disjointed. Plus the need to concentrate on subtitles always makes my personal enjoyment a little bit less as I can't pay as close attention as I'd like to the visuals. I'm a movie watcher and not a film viewer. I found a lot of this movie to be long and drawn out and unentertaining however there were parts that were beautiful and fascinating. As it began to drag on (for me) I was eagerly awaiting a big payoff ending which never really materialized. I would be hard pressed to ever recommend anyone to watch it other than for Anita Ekbergs massive rack.

[katyseagull]

Wow! I Love the fashions! This is the kind of movie that gets me excited because of the ladies’ dresses. Pretty damn awesome if you’re into that kind of thing.


My review –

Man this is a long film! I agree a lot with what SL_72 wrote. I didn’t understand the ghost hunt sequence and was getting sort of sick of the film by that point. Was anyone else disappointed that there wasn’t a good sex scene in this movie? I mean what’s the point of sitting through a 3 hour foreign film with subtitles if there isn’t going to be a good sex scene?


A lot of this has already been touched on already but here’s what I got:

Marcello is searching for happiness and meaning in his life, convinced it is right there in front of him if only he could just figure it out. He yearns for a lot of things: talent, fame, his father’s love, the ideal woman...but they are all out of his grasp. It’s most obvious when he chases the "gifted" Sylvia up the steps of the tower and she is running on ahead, just out of reach. For some stupid reason he is so carried away with emotion for her that he even refers to her as “Home”. This is pretty ridiculous as she seems paper thin and ignores him completely while the one who loves him most, Emma, is actually waiting at home, wanting to cook for him. Yet he is not content with Emma. He rejects her.

This movie was very sad to me. Marcello never gets what he wants. He is a sweet guy who turns into a miserable jerk and also a sell out.

I interpret this film as saying that Man will never find what he is looking for because he is always chasing the wrong things, worshipping the wrong idols. Seriously, what on earth did he see in Sylvia? She was always looking right past him. She was self-absorbed and hollow. Is physical beauty so enticing that it wipes out all common sense in men?! Likewise, what was Emma thinking? She had placed all her hopes and dreams in Marcello, a false idol for her, a man who would never make her happy. How pathetic. She clung to a hopeless dream.


Was Fellini trying to say that Christianity is a hollow, man-made construct? Or, was he trying to say (as I prefer) that Christianity and God are real, they are just beyond man’s grasp because man is too stupid and self-absorbed to pursue them correctly? I think Fellini was trying to say that happiness truly does exist somewhere, it just eludes the characters in the film because they are chasing false ideals just like those people were chasing the false vision in the field.

I’m pretty confused at how the vision of Madonna in the field fits into all of this actually. This is too deep for me I think [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] My mind is a mush right now trying to make sense of it all.


Anyway, when Steiner dies, Marcello just becomes a complete lost soul because he had invested so much idealism in Steiner and his lifestyle. To me, he was like a walking dead man after that. So, a rather depressing ending and I totally didn’t get the dead fish on the beach either. I hate to think that the dead fish was Fellini’s way of saying that Christ and God don’t exist at all. Hm. I prefer diebitter's interpretation of this ending.


I think that Paola looks into the camera at the end because Fellini is asking us how we will decide our destinies. Will we recognize the “Paolas” in our lives and move towards goodness and innocence? Or will we choose to move towards corruption and indulgence like Marcello?

Cool film. I liked it overall, but man does it drag towards the end.

[Barcalounger]

This was my first Fellini, and I must say, he blew my friggin mind. I hadn't read much about the movie beforehand, all I knew was that it was supposed to be good and that Fellini is considered one of the best. Well now I know that this Fellini guy is for real, and this film is better than good. Every scene seemed to be working on several different levels at once, and I didn't find the length or lack of traditional narative to be negatives for this film at all. Here's some of my quick observations:

Christianity - This I was tipped off to by this thread, and I'm glad I was. I beleive religion works in two different ways in the film. One of the major themes of the film is people searching for deeper personal relationships in love, life, and career. Our main characters however are always ignoring the deeper personal relationship with god, even though most of the situations are hinting at one (flying statue, church hospital, playing organ in church, ghost hunting in a decaying ex-residence of a pope). So it's a constant reminder of a more spiritual goal that is always just out of reach for everybody.

Another major theme is people destroying the very ideals you're searching by following the false idols. In love, Marcello follows the many, many false idols of love when he has one true one waiting at home. In religion, you're presented with statues, fish, and madonna trees which are symbols of religion, but not actually any understanding of god. I thought the film was trying to represent how organized religion was actually keeping people distracted away from an understanding of god by focusing them on symbols, rules, and traditions of the religion. In that way the false idols of organized religion are actually destroying the ideals of god. I think this is most obvious in the Madonna scene where the people who are desperate to believe actually start ripping apart the tree to get a peice of it for themselves. Nothing like beleiving so much in the miracle of the tree that you help destroy it.

I didn't quite understand the motives behind Steiner killing his kids, them himself. Someone in this thread said it was something about being afraid of the outside world, but I think I might need another viewing to fully understand his thinking. The effects of this event on Marcello (seeing this idealized version of himself succumb to the world) are obvious, and it's the point of no return for him in the movie. I will say that it is a very powerful moment, especially the extremely chilling paparrazi circle around the unknowing newly widowed and childless woman.

Did anybody else think that Paolo (the young girl from the restaurant, and on the beach at the end) was Marcello's personal Madonna siting? She represented innocence, beauty, and everything good that Marcello was desperately needing in his life. And he was on his knees on the beach looking over at her looking very much like he was one of the beleivers praying around the tree. At the false Madonna siting, the priest said that it had to be a fake because real miracles didn't happen for profits and they changed the people involved (from memory, not exact quotes). Paolo was there trying to change Marcello's life for the better (at least she represented that betterment), but at the end he was far too gone to even hear her words. In that way I thought she might be like a real "madonna siting" that went unnoticed, and therefore left everyone unchanged. Feel free to tell me that I'm reading way too much into a relatively minor character.

I also enjoyed the day/night dynamic. All of the action and the "fun" for the characters happened at night, and everytime the sun was up something bad was happening. Fountain turning off at dawn then the fight, sick guy wanting miracle from tree dead the next day, his dad leaving in a taxi when the sun came up, being at the crime scene in his dead buddy's apartment, etc. I know this was fairly obvious, but I love those little cinematic clues as to what the mood of the scenes were going to be.

I often bust on my wife for reading her US Weekly. These people are rich and famous, so their lives must be so much more important that we MUST find out the divorce details of these C list pop singers with silicone chests. In essence, Fellini is making the same argument about the vacuos nature of these paparazzi targets' lives, but in a much more artistic way than I could. Also, I don't think even Fellini could get my wife to stop reading these trash magazines.

Anyway, I just say this a couple hours ago for the first time, so I'm sure in the next couple days I'll have some other thoughts and scenes that stick with me and fester and become a new thought or insight. All in all, I absolutely loved this film. I didn't even get to mention how great I thought the acting and direction was, because I was too busy trying to read all the different levels that it was working on. Great film, and I hope to find somebody who wants to watch it again with me!

[KOTLP]

Barcalounger, awesome post.

I also didn't really get the reason behind Steiner's murder/suicide. Doesn't Marcello say something about being afraid of himself, not the world?

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Did anybody else think that Paolo (the young girl from the restaurant, and on the beach at the end) was Marcello's personal Madonna siting? She represented innocence, beauty, and everything good that Marcello was desperately needing in his life. And he was on his knees on the beach looking over at her looking very much like he was one of the beleivers praying around the tree. At the false Madonna siting, the priest said that it had to be a fake because real miracles didn't happen for profits and they changed the people involved (from memory, not exact quotes). Paolo was there trying to change Marcello's life for the better (at least she represented that betterment), but at the end he was far too gone to even hear her words. In that way I thought she might be like a real "madonna siting" that went unnoticed, and therefore left everyone unchanged. Feel free to tell me that I'm reading way too much into a relatively minor character.

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Great insight. I just thought of her as a symbol of innocence and sweetness, but the idea of a potential miracle is interesting. I'm pretty sure Fellini bought into miracles (from what little I've read he rejected the church but remained a sort of Catholic and was into psychics and astrology and all kinds of weird stuff), so this could be intentional. I prefer to think of Paolo not as part of a miracle in the sense of divine intervention, but just as a real person, an everyday, secular miracle, the real kind.

It seems weird now how controversial this film was, btw. How could anyone actually see it as an endorsement of hedonism? What was all the fuss about really?

[diebitter]

The girl as a visitation of the Madonna is an interesting take that hadn't occurred to me. It does make sense, and insights like this show what a deep work of art this film actually is, I think. I'm still thinking on it, it is very striking.

She makes a striking contrast to the kids leading the photographers on a merry dance in replicating their visitation of the Madonna. In effect, the paperazzi and Marcello chase their false idols, but ignore those right in front of them. In Marcello's case, both the young girl and Emma. And thw ghost hunt is an obv metaphor for the chasing of empty goals (a little too obv maybe?)


It's quite a haunting film, isn't it. I keep thinking about bits of it in quiet moments. But still, I don't love it. I appreciate it, but I don't love it, like I love say 'Plan 9 from Outer Space'. lol.


In many respects, this film and my reaction to it is the same as that to the critically acclaimed but more obscure French movie 'The Rules of the Game'. But that's for another time.

[mrbaseball]

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It's quite a haunting film, isn't it. I keep thinking about bits of it in quiet moments. But still, I don't love it. I appreciate it, but I don't love it

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This is pretty much how I feel. Since I watched it I have been thinking about it a lot. Still it isn't something I loved as much as you say appreciated.

I pulled a couple of interesting tidbits off the the little booklet that came with it. The initial producer demanded that the Marcello role go to Paul Newman but Fellini wouldn't budge saying the role had to be an unfamiliar face. I need to rewatch that party scene where Paul Newman is mentioned as the subtitles where fast an furious at that point. Also Fellini wanted Henry Fonda for the role of Steiner. Just wondering what this would have been like with Newman and Fonda? Probably at least in english [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[SL__72]

I think I was the one who said something about Steiner being afraid of the world. I was basing that mostly on his monologue earlier in the film:

"I fear what will know
my children.

One says that the world
will be marvelous.

How?

Whereas the tooting of a telephone
can announce the end of all..?

It is necessary to live outside
of the passions, of the feelings...

in the harmony of a work
of succeeded art.

A magic order.

It would be necessary to like itself/themselves so much...

and to live thus outside
of the time, detached,

detached... "

Another theory I have read, which makes a lot of sense, is that Steiner was a self-loathing homosexual and that his interest in Marcello really didn't have anything to do with his writing. If true, that would mean Steiner, who acts as sort of a father figure to Marcello, had the same problem as everyone else in the film. For him though, the false idol was the kind of life society said was right, or good. If this is true, it adds another level of complexity to Fellini's message.

It means that while he is showing us how empty all these people's lives are, he is being careful to say that he isn't necessarily telling everyone that a beautiful wife, 2 kids, a good job and a nice home is the path to happiness. Everyone needs to find their own path, not just try to live up to the things society values.

[kitaristi0]

Well, I can't really think of anything intelligent to say that hasn't already been mentioned in this thread, so I'll just say wow that was long. To be honest I didn't really like it a whole lot, but then again it's not like I disliked it. I agree with diebitter's comment "I appreciate it, but I don't love it."

It's only been about 20 minutes since I finished watching it so maybe I have to give a bit more time to sink in but I highly doubt I'll ever watch this again.

re:

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Another theory I have read, which makes a lot of sense, is that Steiner was a self-loathing homosexual and that his interest in Marcello really didn't have anything to do with his writing.

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I agree this could be interesting but at least I didn't notice anything in the movie to back up this theory.