La Dolce Vita

DVD Features:

Audio:

• Dolby Digital Mono - Italian
• Dolby Digital Stereo - Italian
• Dolby Digital 5.1 - Italian
• Dolby Surround - Italian

Additional Release Material:

• Audio Commentary - 1. Richard Schikel - Film Critic/Historian
• Production Interviews - 1. REMEMBERING THE SWEET LIFE - Interviews with Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg
                                          2. FELLINI, ROMA AND CINECITTA - Interview with Fellini
• Bonus Features - 1. FELLINI TV - A Collection of Never-Before-Seen Fellini Shorts
                                2. CINECITTA: THE HOUSE OF FELLINI - Musical Montage

Interactive Features:

• Scene Access
• Interactive Menus

Text/Photo Galleries:

• Stills/Photos
• Biographies
• Filmographies

Major Awards:

Cannes - Palme d'Or (1960)

Description by OLDIES.com:

Winner of an Academy Award and the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Federico Fellini's masterpiece gave the world the term "paparazzi," and catapulted Fellini to the pantheon of visionary directors. Marcello Mastroianni stars as tabloid reporter Marcello, the role that made him an international sensation. Marcello's beat is Rome's international jet-set, an exotic world indelibly brought to life by Fellini's iconic images and composer Nino Rota's classic score.

In pursuit of the next big scandal, Marcello is continually seduced and repulsed by the hedonistic lifestyle of the rich, amoral and bored to whom nothing is sacred. Marcello's unforgettable encounters with an American sexpot (Anita Ekberg), his wealthy lover (Anouk Aimee), his suicidal girlfriend, his cultured mother, and his estranged father lay bare the emptiness behind the glitz of "the sweet life." The most talked about film of its day, La Dolce Vita is a towering achievement in world cinema, and one of the most popular and influential films of all time.

Product Description:

In Federico Fellini's seminal film LA DOLCE VITA, a three-hour masterpiece that shows one man's descent into "the sweet life" of debauchery, Marcello Mastroianni stars as eccentric journalist Marcello Rubini. On assignment to chronicle the lives of the rich and famous Italian aristocracy in a gossip column for a Roman newspaper, Marcello floats from one fabulous party to the next, meeting all varieties of beautiful, extravagant people. While he would never protest this seemingly ideal job, it makes him feel lonely and empty, and he stays up drinking and dancing night after night only to wake up each morning unbalanced and unfocused. The film follows Marcello's ups and downs in an episodic pattern in which each evening is a new story, a new adventure, a new dare, a new woman with whom to fall helplessly in love--but only for that night. Each morning the slate is wiped clean, and Fellini resets Marcello's score to zero. Sprinkled with religious images and gestures at salvation, LA DOLCE VITA is supreme in the beauty of its all-encompassing symbolism that is expressed through lavish sets, an alluring script, overemphasized physical movements, roller-coaster jazz music, and helpless emotions.

Plot Synopsis:

Director Federico Fellini's portrait of a hedonistic 20th century Rome centers on a handsome journalist (Marcello Mastroianni) in constant pursuit of the extravagant, the sensational, and the absurd, who works for a scandal sheet and becomes intimately involved with the decadent high-society individuals his publication so often maligns. The immoral lifestyles he witnesses nearly paralyze him with shock and outrage, yet he struggles with his complicity.

Plot Keywords:

1960s | Classic | Comedy | Drama | Drama (General) | Essential Cinema | Italy | Recommended | Reporters | Satire | Self-Discovery | Sixties | Surreal | Theatrical Release

Production Notes:

• Theatrical release: 1960. The film is set in Rome on the Via Veneto, which is the street in Rome that houses the city's most popular nightclubs and restaurants. In fact, the Via Veneto that appears in the film is a constructed set, not the real thing. Fellini originally wanted to title the film 2000 YEARS AFTER CHRIST, to reflect Rome as a representation of Western culture that no longer valued Christianity and spirituality but was instead built on gossip, publicity, and hype. Academy Awards: Best (Black-and-White) Costume Design. Winner of the 1961 New York Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Academy Award Nominations: 4, including Best Director, Best (Original) Story and Screenplay. The Republic Pictures Home Video version is mastered from the original film negative.

Cast and Crew: