Hi. I'm Tony. First time poster.

So, I got around seeing this flick called La Dolce Vita, and judging from the words on the bottom of the screen, I think it might be a foreign film. Like most foreign films, I need help understanding it. Thus, I have been led here.

While it was a little long, I enjoyed the flick. It was shot very nice, the acting was good, and since I've been to Rome it was cool to see a few places that I had been to... like that fountain thingy. I thought some it was more current and relevant to today than I expected... like the celeb obssessed paparazzi.

I was surprised to see the movie done in different seemingly unrelated chunks, but that did help with the length as it never seemed to stay in one spot too long. I enjoyed some of the parts more than others, like the weird ghost hunting party with that girl from Ziggy Stardust (my wife caught that... I'm not that good). There were a lot of memorable scenes and moments... like the guy who shot himself and the fish on the beach.

However, I'm completely lost as to what the movie was trying to say. I felt like it was trying to tell me something, but I could never grasp it. In the end, I felt a little lost, like I really needed a fancy film expert to be sitting there explaining it to me.

Can anybody help guide me as to what the movie was getting at, if anything? Or, am I reading too much into it?

I think the main point is the cross-reference to ziggy stardust, actually.

You see... I knew I was reading too much into it! I thought it was saying something about the paparrazi, the weird fish, the odd blonde girl at the end, the pillow feathers, this guy's loveless life, etc... but, it was all just a big movie to get the girl from Ziggy Stardust in it.

Tony! I am so happy you enjoyed it, and no it didn't go over your head; it was exactly as you felt. Fellini is kind of known for his 'false endings' which make even his shorter movies feel long. These climactic scenes where you keep thinking "this is surely the end." Its one of the ways he makes you emotionally synch with his protagonists I feel. They keep expecting their lives to suddenly change, too. Never do.

Tony, this movie actually coined the world paparazzi, that has to be one of the best known trivia facts about it. Mastroianni lives vicariously through the excitement of these celebs because he's having a bit of a crisis in his own.

A lot of Fellini really is the scenes and staging. He always dreamed of having 100% control over a set, but the funny thing for me is that I think his films where he is forced to work with street scenes and unexpecteds work much better than when he doesn't leave the lot at Cine Citta. Those movies get...dry? These early ones are just beautiful to wonder through, and I kind of emotionally relate to Mastroianni (not as much as Masina in Cabiria, but close!). He's kind of snarky and aloof but doesn't want tobe. He wishes he could take it seriously and actually live vicariously through other people's actions and emotions. He's bored. This kind of mid-life crisis takes a funny turn in 8 1/2.

I am glad you liked it (at least that's the feeling I get)! The fish scene at the end was always interesting to me. The girl, though he saw her when he was writing in the restaurant, seems so angelic, and he can't hear what she is saying. She invites him to cross to her (I think, you can't hear) and he leaves. I think its about contemplating suicide but then deciding to live. That makes sense, since he finished cabiria with a scene about her continuing to 'hope' despite how many times she's fallen for the same abuses.

Beautiful, huh. What did you think of all the Anita scenes? *points to avatar* When she's running up the steps of the Vatican and when she first arrives off the plane. i knew you'd like the Trevi Fountain scene. When I lived there I desperately tried to wear a gown and jump in and have a friend photograph it. Didn't happen, the cops were stationed there ALL NIGHT!

Thanks, Dolce... some interesting insights there. I liked your interpretation of the ending with the girl across the water. That definitely makes sense. Also, very interesting tidbit about it being the first to coin the phrase paparazzi. I just assumed that was an Italian word that had been around for a long time.

I watched 8 1/2 tonight, and I think I liked that one just a hair more than La Dolce Vita. It was a little more conventional in the storytelling department (not as much to dissect afterwards as LDV), but I really liked the imagery, and it seemed a hair lighter in tone. He had a couple funny dream/flashback sequences... like the fat cavegirl dancing for him as a kid, and then his harem of every girl he has ever liked.

I noticed he has a lot of similar themes in his movies, such as religion, lots of pretty ladies surrounding the protaginist, and that they revolve around celebrity/movie making... at least those were similar themes between these two movies. Do most of his movies have these themes?

It's funny you mentioned the control of the scene, as I had commented when I was watching it that every scene looked so staged, but in a good way. It almost looks like he approached every frame as though it were a work of art.

I have enjoyed both of them, and have been surprised by how much both seemed very ahead of their time... except for a few moments, like whenever a clown shows up or somebody decides to sing.

Tony watching foreign films while there are so many WWF/Spring Break Madness DVDs available? You feeling well, Tony?

Just to let you know, but there is no XBOX360 game of the film.

Either Tony is sick or it's his wife that's doing all this posts.

Fellini is obsessed with clowns and circus performers. They show up in almost every film he makes, but especially in Variety Lights, La Strada, The Clowns, Ginger and Fred, which take as their jumping off point travelling performers.

You watched 8 1/2 too! Its much more sarcastic. Its really the filmic peak of his work according to most people with the way Fellini keeps skipping between first and third person points of view with the lese and not telling you. Again, making you emotionally synch with the protagonist, who in this case also serves as a sort of autobiographical figure. It was Fellini's 8 1/2 movie (he'd done seven a short I think the story goes). So its technically a movie about a director (Mastroianni) who can't make a movie based on the fact that the director of that movie (Fellini) couldn't figure out what movie to make next! You can't tell half the time who you think you're supposed to be picking up the perspective of. Actually, I'm doing a paper now on Romance of the Rose and I intend as a bit of a curve-ball to use Fellini as a "modern" example of playing with narrator's perspective. I wonder if it'll go over well. I'm picking the bordello scene too, what a classic in a weird twisted way.

Tony, not all his movies are about celebs and movie directing. He does have a girl fall in love with her film star in The White Sheik, and of course there are all the circus shows, but these are the primary two. Maybe Ginger and Fred since they made their reputation being covers of the dancers and meet up for a reunion. Also, his mock-(auto)biography has to do with making movies, of course. Its fantastic, Intervista.

How cool you've already seen two Fellinis. Now you can watch Nights of Cabiria to get a feel for the work he does with his other 'alter ego', Masina. I she was his wife, too.

The blame belongs shared between Netflix, my wife, and a little bit dolcevita. It's very complex, which means I will proceed to tell you in great detail, teaching you to never ask me again.

Netflix (something I am fairly new to) has this feature that says something like "if you liked Space Chimps and Disaster Movie, then you'll love Larry the Cable Guy". The wife went through and marked all the good movies like Citizen Kane, Annie Hall, and Good, Bad, and the Ugly, while I just verbally told it that I wanted anything with Kate Beckinsale in it.

So, I was looking through "if you liked, then you'll like", and discovered verbal directions don't work, so I was stuck with all the classy movies. It said "if you liked really long movies that you have to read, then you'll love La Dolce Vita" (actually I think it said Citizen Kane and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly).

It, of course, caught my eye because I know that girl from the internets. Plus, after a month long of using my picks to get MST3K shows, I decided to get that to shock the wife into thinking I'm more educated than I am. Next thing I know I'm watching a 3 hour movie that I have to read.

8 1/2 was all my wife's doing... I liked LDV, but would have preferred to space the reading out a little more. I went back to MST3K and Space Chimps for my next picks. I like monkeys!

Nights of Cabiria... I'll check that one out too.

I didn't catch the shifts in narrator's perspective in 8 1/2. So you're saying the film shifts between Mastroianni's (as star's) perspective and Fellini's (as director), but that the Fellini really is Mastoianni? If so, that make the movie more intriguing that Fellini made it about himself and his own inability to make or complete a movie.

Wonder if he had the same romantical issues/problems - sleeping around on his wife, and/or issues with him being gone and far away all the time?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091498/

Let's see what Dolce thinks of this one. It's from the director of In the Realm of the Senses and Empire of Passion.

Monkey! Judging from the cover, it could be my favorite movie. Does the monkey do funny things - does he play baseball, go into space, drive a car, or drink beer? If so, I am there.

Hmmmm..he goes to bed with the wife of the protagonist. That's better than baseball or beer... or so they tell me.

A girl having sex with a monkey? That sounds like a stoner comedy if I ever heard one.

I guess it depends on how it's handled... if it's a tasteful scene with plenty of goofy faces from the monkey, then it could be good. If it's done like a porno - complete with a monkey pizza delivery man, porno music, and a group of sexy ladies that orders a pizza - then it would be spectacular.

I guess I don't see how it could go wrong.

http://www.mydolce-vita.com/index.html

just opened last week across the street from me

Fine Mediteranean food