Cheap La Dolce Vita (2-Disc Collector's Edition) (DVD) (Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg) (Federico Fellini) Price

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Customer Reviews of La Dolce Vita (2-Disc Collector's Edition)

One Of Fellini's Masterpieces!
The English translation for "La Dolce Vita" as many know by now is "the sweet life". And, that's what Marcello Mastroianni seeks throughout this entire film. He plays a thrid-rate newspaper man who writes a gossip column. He thinks life would be so much better if he was wealthy, as does everyone else I know! He wants to be a respected reporter. This movie as with other Fellini movies contains things besides the story-line that keep your interrested. Movies like "Amarcord" can charm you with it's style and the wonderful music by Nino Rota. Or, "8 1\2" with it's brooding story-line as once again Mastroinni's mind drifts into the past. "La Dolce Vita" offers great location shots of Rome. There are many priceless visual shots in this movie, and I don't want to spoil them for those who've never seen this movie. But, there is one I feel I should tell you about. It deals with a hugh statue of Virgin Mary. That scene is shot beautifully. Those who have seen this movie know exactly what scene I'm talking about. The acting in this movie is enjoyable. Marcello as usual steals the show. Our hearts go with his character because sometimes we have wished for the same things. Maybe sometimes you yourself have thought, "There has to be something better out there"? This movie was nominated for 4 Oscars, in won one for "Best Costume Design". But, Fellini was up for an award as well. Here's some trival for everyone. Did you know that Paul Newman was the original choice for the lead? Can you imagine how that would of turned out?

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Get this onto DVD!
My favorite Fellini film, combining the brilliant kaleidescopic parading of faces that characterize his later films with the humanistic neorealism of his earlier work. Told in a series of all-night parties that each end with the recognition of dawn, the movie tells the story of a tabloid writer who has risen to the top of his profession only to be dragged down because he can't find any sustaining meaning in the glitz and glamour.

But the story line, although more important here than in later Fellini films, is really just a device to put actors on the screen, and nobody does this better. The cast is real reason to see this; Mastroianni in the role of his life, Anouk Aimee as a bored rich woman, and Anita Ekberg spilling out of her dress as an American actress are merely the most famous - every single performance, even by the most trivial of parts, is astounding and some of the best ever captured on film. My personal favorite is the clown trumpet player with the balloons at the Cha-Cha Club - in the middle of his performance he flashes one quick look at Mastroianni that speaks volumes.

Unfortunately, the only version I have ever seen is in a standard screen ratio that is obviously badly panned - in a film this full of images there is almost more panning than actual camera movement going on, and still too much is happening off-screen. This movie needs badly to be letterboxed and given a new subtitle translation - but in the meantime, even if you have to settle for the poor VHS version, just enjoy what we have, from the awesome set pieces like the chasing of the Madonna and the final party, to the amazing Nino Rota score and the haunting organ melody of "Patricia".

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An Existential Masterpiece
Although "8 1/2" is often touted as Fellini's greatest work, this other, equal masterpiece from roughly the same period grows more and more profound over time. An amazingly photographed and energetic survey of ennui and despair, "La Dolce Vita" is Fellini's rumination on the intellectual and moral death of an aspiring artist, who is equally a Fellini surrogate and a stand-in for the director's perception of modern man.

Though it began life as a sequel to "Il Bidone," "La Dolce Vita" ended up an autobiographical precursor to "8 1/2" by fictionalizing Fellini's earlier life as a journalist and newspaper caricaturist rather than his career as one of the great filmmakers of the 50s and 60s. As the celebrity journalist in crisis, Marcello is fantastic -- as graceful and intelligent and sexy a performance as the screen has ever seen -- and his romp with the unbelievably pneumatic Anita Ekberg in the Trevi fountain is one of the great iconic moments of world cinema. There's a haunted, despairing quality to Mastroianni's acting here that is so subtle and cumulative that by the end of the film his predicament of quiet despair overwhelms the viewer.

Bottom line: no thinking person's film collection should be without this movie, which is as beautiful and moving as any piece of art ever created, in any medium. Fellini and his fantastic cast are all at their peak as artists, and few films have ever approached their achievement.