Subject
The excerpts catalogued are from “La Dolce Vita” of Federico Fellini, 1960, considered a masterpiece of the director and one of the world’s greatest films. Initially contested by critics, the film became a watershed in the history of Italian cinema, leading to a permanent break from the Neorealist current to instead describe the advance of the “New Italy”, opening up to the hopes, dreams and illusions of a “Dolce Vita”. The film begins with the flight of two helicopters transporting a statue of Christ to the Vatican; from above we perceive the booming city of Rome and see some of the city’s imposing archaeological resources, notably the monumental arches of the aqueduct planned in 38 AD during the reign of Emperor Caligula and inaugurated in 52 AD by his successor Claudius. Subsequently, Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a journalist in the yellow press, follows the arrival of American actress Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) in Rome. Welcomed at Ciampino airport by photographers and journalists, they form a procession taking her to the Hotel Excelsior in Via Veneto. Their vehicles advance along the Appia Antica, at that time paved as an ordinary road, passing near the great Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella, built in the fourth decade of the third century BC. Near the entrance to the Villa of Emperor Maxentius, the shiny new cars pass a shepherd with his flock, still a daily scene on the Appia Antica. Marcello and Sylvia, taking a night-time drive in a very impressive Triumph TR3 convertible, return to the Appia Antica. Near the fifth mile they stop in what is now Via Pompeo Licinio, beside an ancient wall made of stacked courses of squared tufa blocks: probably the remains of a Roman ustrinum, a structure once used for cremation funerals.
Director
Federico Fellini
Year
1960
