Attn. film people: tell me about La Dolce Vita
 

Look, this is my favorite movie ever, and I've seen it over 10 times, but I have to write a review that's past-due and I'd appreciate some of your perspectives-- demonrail, i'm lookin at you :p

a little emphasis on the semi-recent criterion dvd release would kick ass.

grazie, paparazzo.

I've not seen the Criterion version, but know and love the film.

A good way of looking at La Dolce Vita, if I were writing about it, would be to look at it as a continuation of a trend started by a film like Voyage to Italy. post WWII Italian art cinema up to that point was really dominated by the war (eg, the Neo-Realist films, such as Rome Open City and Paisa) but by the late 50s this had shifted towards a more psychologically complex style (see also Antonioni's L'avventura). The Neo-Realist films tended to focus on w/class hardship (Bicycle Thieves is a key example) but the shift with L'avventura and La dolce vita came with their emphasis on a more subtle kind of m/class angst.

Hope that helps a bit. Anyway, you could always just repeat the word 'Fantastic' a few hundred times. You'd at least be telling the truth.

Don't forget to rate it "8 1/2" , HA HA!

Paparazzi.....hanging around in cafes...the Trevi Fountain bit...Fellini's breast fetish....print at the National Film Theatre jammed twice, but no-one cared...Anita Ekberg's striking presence (how did she end in in such schlock epics like "The Killer Nun?")....apotheosis of Italian New Wave whatnots...'8 1/2' was to follow...cafe culture...what happened to Italian film-makers?....

just write that its amazing. that you froth at the mouth when you think about it...

that is absolutely true. i will crib that phrase, "froth at the mouth".

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ha ha ha thanks to all for the ideas. im considering to actually do a bit of a synopsis of the plot, since it's composed of "loose" episodes in 3 acts marked by steiner's presence/absence, the struggle etc etc. and at the end he can't listen to his muse who "looks like an angel".

btw that dead fish, the stingray, reminds me of the big sign on "the great gatsby", the empty eyes.

no im not high, i jsut havent slept. hmm...

and nico! don't forget nico.

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and yes there is a different kind of "class struggle" (or lack of it) here. it kraks me up, oh anouk aimee in the whore's dump. maddalena was her name? i think so. anyway. the... what's his name--aspiring-- holy ass, how he ends up, at that divorce party, completely sold out, completely fucked up, more jaded than courtney whore. damn! "i can't hear you". sad fucker.

oh and the family of aristocrats is quite hilarious as well.

and the "apparition" of the virgin.

god damn i love that movie i do i do i do.

k....i actually originally typed 'froth at the moth' by mistake, and then edited it...feel free to use either one.