Sonic Youth Gossip - View Single Post - Attn. film people: tell me about La Dolce Vita

demonrail666 · 06.25.2007, 05:05 AM

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.

06.25.2007, 05:05 AM	#2
demonrail666 invito al cielo Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 18,510	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.
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