Movie #151: La Dolce Vita

Movie #: 151
Movie Title: La Dolce Vita
Year Released: 1960

Director: Federico Fellini
Notable Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée, Yvonne Furneaux, Magali Noël, Alain Cuny, Nadia Gray, Walter Santesso

Short Description: A series of stories following a week in the life of a philandering paparazzo journalist living in Rome. (IMDB.com)


Rank on the Top 100 Lists (as of 1/7/2013)

AFI.com: N/A
IMDB.com: N/A
Ranker.com: N/A
Lifed.com: N/A
Empire.com: #55
FilmCrave.com: N/A
FlickChart.com: #96



Date Watched: 3/20/2016

Grade: 2 out of 5 (Fair)

Rationale: La Dolce Vita didn’t receive the grade it did because it’s bad; rather, I found large chunks of the movie to be dull and the triple threat curse of being 1) old 2) black and white and 3) foreign didn’t help keep me interested at times either. There were three short scenes that stand out as pretty good though, all of which having to deal with Marcello coming to grips with aspects of his life that make him a tortured soul (regrets about not having family as the father he barely knows leaves against his wishes him to return home, regrets about not being able to love as he breaks it off with his girlfriend because he can’t stand her, and regrets about not having friends as the closest person he has to a friend commits suicide and he’s unable to help police with basic questions a friend should know). The potential was definitely there but the execution was blah.