The source of the genre that should have been removed
When watching, I caught myself thinking that if in some parallel universe the film was released in exactly the same form not in 1960, but today, the vast majority (including myself) would have blown it away, as something completely unreal and impossible for those years, with the formulation like “nothing to put your agenda in the historical canvas, then the grass was greener, the trees are higher, and not this is your debauchery!”
It is amazing how colorful crowd inhabits the world of the picture and it is doubly surprising how this chaos harmoniously interacts within itself. Over time, none of the characters lost relevance. Yes, the objective world has changed somewhat in 60+ years, but the nature of people has not changed completely.
It is difficult to say how much fiction is here, and how much is “according to real events”. It is clear that this is a satire and that the images are collective and hypertrophied, but it is absolutely impossible to compose from the head.
Separately, I would like to note how the writers and the director managed to shoot everything within the framework of gray morality, without moral crutches, tilting the viewer in any direction.
Each of the novels carries a fairly simple message and individually it may seem that the authors are trying to classical drama with the protagonist, antagonist, etc. But put together these novels allow you to look at life from the outside. From this angle of view there are neither right nor wrong, neither white nor black, there is only a single canvas of being, which can not be like this in any other way.
Thank you to all involved for this masterpiece, which can be safely recommended for viewing to everyone, especially those who grumble that times and customs are not the right ones. They have always been “wrong”, just before there was much less opportunity to look beyond your garden.
10 out of 10
Watched Fellini's 'genius' Sweet Life. In fact, he has good films: Nights of Kabiria - about the past, present and future of the notorious Woman, the most touching film about whores you've ever seen, and City of Women - a psychedelic journey into the subconscious of a boy at the age of 60, as well as about the past, present and future of the Women's Movement.
But that's not what this movie is about. Sweet life is Instagram Rils, three hours long. It was just a man filming himself, his friends and what was happening to them for a couple of days. There is touching, there is terrible. But there's no plot, no point. What a Godard. This is so post-postmodernism that you understand: yes, the sweet life is when you have money to make newspaper stories with a sweep of peplum.
Ps I am sure the film will be very much in court in the current conditions. If not, this movie will soon be booming. Somewhere in Bali, look for Fellini-style parties.
Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) – a journalist who writes about the social life of Rome; a womanizer, a keen man who does not understand what he wants from life
Emma / Yvonne Fourno / - Marcello's girl, loves him to the point of unconsciousness, dreams of a traditional family with children and a cozy home
Maddalena / Anuk Eme / - a rich aristocrat, bored, drinking a lot of lovers of men
Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) is an American movie star, direct and open, possessing the body of a sexual goddess and the soul of a defenseless child.
I’ve never used any quotes in my reviews, but I can’t avoid it. Federico Fellini wrote about his creation: When I and my assistants attempted to create a story that would summarize and show the contradictions, uncertainty, fatigue, absurdity, unnaturalness of a certain way of life, then, as if hearing an otherworldly voice, began to repeat to myself: no, do not care about creating a narrative, this film should not be a plot story. Let’s do this: put together all the collected material, talk frankly, share our thoughts, remember what we read in the newspapers, in the comics. Let’s put all our notes, all our documents on the table in the most chaotic way.
In fact, this review would be worth finishing, in a sense, it would be quite possible. After all, these words reflect the whole essence of the picture. How long have I been with her and how disappointed I am! It’s like last year’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But even though I knew what it was, I just didn't really like the performance. I didn’t get what I expected to see here. And everything is to blame for my dislike of reading annotations for films, apparently.
Of course, I heard about this picture, I understood that it is legendary and must be seen by all film lovers. But I didn’t think it was going to be such a disparate narrative that I just didn’t like right now, at this very moment when I was watching the movie. Moreover, and it was very tight, I was only able to see it in three runs. Although, here's the paradox, I'm more than sure I'd like to see it at another time. Maybe I'll look at it again.
Now I was disgusted - from those terrible fun of the rich, shown in the picture. Really, very boring I live, it turns out, and to say that once really had fun at a party is not worth it. Disgusting characters are bored, depraved, aimless, empty... Again, maybe at the right time I would have thought about it all, but I didn’t want to.
In general, however, I do not regret watching. I’m sure there will come a time when I will review this film and even change my mind. It's just that he's out of place, out of mood, out of liking. Of course, I would advise everyone to watch. After all, a cult picture, as they say.
And here “Sweet Life” is Fellini’s longest film, a multi-level fresco about the deceptiveness of life, in which the director did everything possible for the images of this tape to beckon, mesmerize, attract both characters and viewers with irresistible force. However, the underside of this delicacy appears in all its unsightlyness only in the final twenty-minute scene, a striptease in which at one time made a furor among Soviet spectators, causing kilometer queues in cinemas. In order to correctly understand the Sweet Life, or at least a little closer to an adequate understanding of it, it is necessary to watch it at least twice, or even three times. Personally, I was lucky enough to watch it four times (twice on “Culture”, once on the purchased DVD and now), and I can say that despite significant time intervals between views, I remember the film very well.
The picture can be divided into four parts: a conditional prologue (the relationship of Marcello and Maddalena), episodes with the participation of Anita Ekberg, the completion of the Steiner line, coupled with Roubini’s personal problems and the final madness with a conditional orgy and striptease. The key to the plan of the picture is the figure of a Swedish celebrity performed by the divine Anita Ekberg, the dream of any man. It embodies the very attractiveness of life, its attractiveness, the pagan essence of sensual pleasures, everything that the flesh wants. For this reason, the hero Mastroianni is so fascinated by her: he is attracted to her by the very sensation of life. Freud believed that Eros was the driving force of life, because of which life continues. Fellini thinks in a similar way, however, the bacchanalia of sensual pleasures, to which he pays so much attention in his mature work (just starting with The Sweet Life), always ends in sadness, hangover and satiety.
“Sweet Life” contains the fundamental contradiction of all Fellini’s work: the attraction of man to the sensual life, the life of the flesh, and at the same time the understanding of the limitations of such life, its perishability. In the first scene, we see a helicopter carrying a statue of Christ flying over both the slums and the elite districts of Rome, blessing the rich and the poor, the evil and the good. In another scene, we see mass madness, a kind of exalted psychosis, ecstasy in anticipation of a miracle, fanned by the press to astronomical proportions. For Fellini, it is important to emphasize that religious ecstasy has the same sensual side as in carnal pleasures, and temperamental Italians are able to expect a miracle today and indulge in orgies tomorrow.
The dissonance between the pagan life of the body and the soul, which, according to Tertullian, is a Christian by nature, is the essence of the main life contradiction on which many characters, not only Fellini, but also all Italian cinema, stumbled. So Steiner – seemingly exemplary Catholic in the end does not tolerate the enmity of the soul and body, and Marcello Roubini, seemingly always so restrained, in the final acts like a pig. “Sweet life” with its so far quite realistic images without diving into the past, without dips into the imaginary (this is not “8 1/2” and not “Julietta and perfumes”) is fascinating now: the music of Nino Rota here is almost tangible in its delicacy, Othello Martelli’s camera moves along “incomprehensible”, as Tarkovsky put it, trajectories, and the frame, according to Pasolini, is “excessive, like Proust’s page.”
At the same time, “Sweet Life” is certainly a movie about the life collapse of not only the bohemian, but also any person who has tasted the taste of sensual pleasures and is unable to stop. The scene in which Roubini finds his father looking at the street after a stormy pastime is one of the central ones in the tape: the frame itself, the mise-en-scene itself signals spiritual distress, satiety, emptiness of a person living the life of the flesh, who completely replaced the spiritual life. Fellini, even in his early paintings, never suffered from moralizing and rigorism, and here, in fact, in bright episodes, he makes preparations for his much more pessimistic than “Sweet Life”, paintings – “Satiricon” and “Casanova”: life cannot but charm with its sensual, primarily sexual side, but it is empty when there is no spiritual dimension in it. The Mediterranean, Renaissance, pagan spirit that dominates Fellini’s mature work must not deceive us: the consciousness fascinated by the life of the flesh is always doomed in the films of this master, as Zampano was doomed in The Road, it is a dead end in existential terms. Fellini never had any illusions about this.
I mentioned the hourglass in the title. According to Andrey Plakhov, the time of the authors is long past, so it is worth recalling the “Sweet Life” – part of the great heritage of the European film renaissance. It is necessary to understand that Visconti and Fellini are artists who understood the post-war changes in Italian society in different ways, and therefore dissected its different layers. Visconti in Rocco and His Brothers told about the stormy changes in the family, who went to Milan in search of illusory happiness and faced a series of tragedies and downfalls. Fellini took up the analysis of the life of the bohemian, which, according to Elsa Martinelli, he did not know at all.
Two post-neorealistic masterpieces of the post-war economic miracle in different ways state the incommunicability and loneliness of people (in "Sweet Life" even the noisy surroundings and the atmosphere of general sloppiness is not able to drown it out). Fellini, as an artist from God, feels his time and looks to the future. Silvia's silence on the question of the death of neorealism is Fellini's self-removal from the answer, and Marcello's father's refusal to go to the movies with the wording that watches him at home is a forecast of our time. Roubini’s friends, dwarfs pretending to be something outstanding, speak of an ideal society and the inability to recreate life as a semblance of art.
Roubini himself is a dual character: he does not disdain to spend time with a chic movie star, and then visit the deserted temple. What did he feel listening to organ music, the melancholy of life, or the spirit of death? The director sees the bright side in the children’s and senile perception of life: it is children and old people who pray at the sacred tree. Marcello overtakes melancholy - nothing brings him peace. How do you get on with this fuss? Take the advice of a visionary woman and not be constant in love looking for something new? Or do you get stuck in the day like most people do? Marcello’s inconstancy leads him to a haunted house, where we see the deceptiveness of beautiful words, while the woman he sings babbling with another behind the wall.
Pasolini's Theorem is eight years old. Marcello, having come to devastation through a series of deaths (including a comrade-intellectual), cannot bare himself and go to the mountains, stating the dead end of bourgeois life, and there is not enough courage to shoot himself. He receives the illusion of salvation in the person of a young angelic creature. Fellini went from extremes to extremes throughout his career: he sang erotic fantasies about a woman and carnal pleasures, while not embarrassed to imagine her as an angel. In her book The Evolution of the Image of a Woman in Italian Cinema, Diana Belova writes about such an angelic woman testing men in their weaknesses. Fellini had Claudia Cardinale as a nurse in 8 & #189;, harmonious and caring (the director even required special processing of the film to emphasize the whiteness of this character’s smile). Here the cinematic trick lies in the inability to understand this angel, whose words are drowned out by the splash of water.
In a monumental study of Fellini’s work, Italian critic and screenwriter Tullio Kezich opens the chapter on The Sweet Life with the words of the master: “I told the writers that we should make a statue, break it up and reassemble it, or try a Picasso-like disassembly.” If you imagine the death of our civilization and the opportunity to send a capsule into space with masterpieces of cinema, then Sweet Life will definitely be there.
The legendary picture, considered by many filmmakers the highest achievement of the creative path of the famous Italian director Federico Fellini, illustrates the chronicle of the life of a carefree burner of his time performed by the brilliant Marcello Mastroianni.
Indeed, in the process of watching this great film, it seems that its individual plot parts are not related to each other in any way and only demonstrate a medley of fragments of the life of the main character. However, closer to the final chord of the film comes a clear understanding of the meaning of each of the shown elements of the story. Fellini sought to shed light on the meaninglessness of the idle pastime of the supposedly highest beau monde of society, who only wants to have fun, debauchery and aimlessly spend precious minutes of his existence.
Hero Marcello is in the eternal search & #39; Nothing & #39; immorally moving from one mistress to another, from one idle day to the next. And he cannot determine exactly who he is in this restless, sleepless world, and what is the purpose of his life path. To be a writer or a journalist? Choose a quiet family peace or eternal celebration and fun? Staying alone or disappearing into noisy faceless company? All these questions are piling up the young man’s mind. And yet he is in no hurry to give quick answers to them, pushing the vital analysis into a long box, almost locking it there for an indefinite long time.
Of course, this is very important for every person. Identify who you are and what you can and should do for yourself and the world. Probably few people manage to formulate this integral and true self-determination in the course of life, because most people do not even think about such things. Sure, why? We would rather be walking automatons carrying out someone’s errands in order to strengthen world capitalism. Or soulless beings who do not care about the feelings of others, as long as they satisfy mine, and then we will see. That is what life is like as it is. Mad following in the footsteps of idols, worship of fashion and unquestioning obedience to the highest of this world. To hell with self-development, spiritual prosperity and independence! We're better the way we do. . .
This is 'Sweet Life' surrounding us. Only insight, the first helper on the path of liberation from internal constraints, can help a person see himself from the outside. And if the first step is taken, then the second is already ' not far off'. Going your own way is a true choice that can lead a person to amazingly bright places of being, which will undoubtedly reveal his natural potential.
Fellini’s “Sweet Life”, watching an old movie with a modern look, and even with such a history of awards and victories is not easy. It’s the first time I’ve seen this film with an unprofessional look. The first comparison that comes to mind “Duhlèss” is a handsome, charming, successful man who also encounters emptiness. Abilities change for success, for its sake exist, fall into a funnel in which you need to run to be at the top, run for money, attention, then some satisfaction with life comes, but this run squeezes all the energy and the fall down is inevitable. That's the idea.
The main character of the journalist is his job to write about sensations, to attract the attention of readers.
He writes about social life, few accessible to anyone, about cars, houses and beauties. And for a change, you can create a sensation yourself, a version of the program “Let them talk.”
And people are ready to say that they saw a UFO, Madonna and conspiracy theories.
A lot of beautiful people. Especially the first shots, when the figure of Christ flies and everyone pays attention to it, He is for everyone, you just need to see him. And sunbathing ladies rise from sun loungers, turn their backs, in a modern picture there would be tanned models in a thong.
Of the drawbacks - timekeeping could be safely reduced by half an hour. More than half of the dialogues are trivial and intentionally made to be caricatured. Immediately it is worth noting: “The Sweet Life”, as a film with a serious plot and the preservation of interest in it is dead. He takes only art.
Now the rest:
Audiovisual superiority and epochality of this picture is fascinating, masterpiece camera strokes create an unsurpassed film sketch. Here you have ancient scenery, here a religious ceremony as an allusion to the spiritual crisis of the population, here Italian urbanism with velvet notes of noir, and for the harmony of man with nature a pinch of the Renaissance. Complex expositions are competently served under the sauce of trompley, naves, platforms, full of scenery. The film is unprecedentedly important for the art of cinema, answering frankly to the eternal dilemmas of philosophy, we learn the ontological fates of ambitious people lost without trace in the crumb of being, because of the sweet delusions of vices in contrast to the genius. Immersed with pomp and poverty, beautiful against a background of terrible, the director exhibits his "Byzantine" method of storytelling, which creeps towards us through contradictory images in merging with each other. One side is wealth and luxury, but this is only a mise-en-scene, and what is hidden behind the scenes for many hitherto unknown aristocratic society? A happy enclave is an exception in this environment, where everyone tries to find a stronghold with a point of support for bliss, but floats in the middle of a faded ocean of soullessness. The protagonist tries desperately to find his way, sacrifices his skills and talents for this, because he understands that they are not needed in the upper class, sacrificing them he does not get what he wants, but drives himself into a cycle of vices and carnal pleasures in which he suffers, because he was left with nothing. The creator of this film also shows us an outdated analogy of Marcello, his father. The son followed the same path and through the prism of the conjuncture of the father Federico shows the future of the victim. He still tries to hang out in nightclubs, chase the best stars, eat money on a huge scale, but it has become too callous, and health is not the same. The axiology of all the characters of this film lies only in the material, they blindly believe in the remarkable outcome of their waste of virtues and morals, moreover, such will not be an exception. People have disasters in their lives – there is no reaction to this, because they care about some base and superficial ideas. The total darkening of wealth, the masterful transmission of psychological and mental insensitivity perfectly masters the viewer. The aristocracy has become hostage to its own principles, quickly incarnating itself into empty spaces whose interests end in a second-rate party or parasitism on itself. Driven into the trap of secularization of high and pure, in exchange for pretended bliss, forces to remain in dysthymia. The judgments of these people are based on wandering in search of ephemeral emptiness. With melancholic sarcasticity, skillful installations soaring in thick clouds of falling health and intentional grotesque scenes, towards the end Fellini scavenges from her directorial skill the ruthless critique of 50s bohemian and existential doom of these heroes. The crown gives us a fairly simple allegory: on one bank there was eternal, what he sacrificed - art, family, love, skill, in the depths of his soul Marcello is aware of a titanic error, on him filigree played a human comedy, but it went away, went somewhere far, in a completely different direction. We have lost a creator, probably more terrible than anything in our world - it is impossible to imagine.
If you like cinema, watch - I guarantee you will be surprised how many familiar scenes, shots, replicas come from the Sweet Life.
The film reminds me of Bruegel with the variety of scenes and characters, the greatness of nature and the insignificance of people.
In fact, the film does not have a coherent script, end-to-end storylines, but it is so competently solved directorially that it creates an absolutely integral impression. The film is a set of scenes united by a superidea. This genre was started by Homer Odyssey, today they shoot the best series.
It is often said that Fellini identifies with the main character. Nope. More like Steiner. Disappointed, playing now jazz, then Bach, ready to erase himself, his offspring because there is no need to throw beads, there is no one before, there is no goal and somewhere waiting for a phone call.
It's a very Chekhov movie. A bunch of annoying characters and a lost hero between them. Yellow journalism is contrasted with writing, Marcello burys the creator, the girl waiter of the metaphor of the muse. The sea does not go to her in the final scene. It can only be thrown ashore under the scorching sun, into a humming crowd, poking straight into defenseless eyes.
You have to watch movies with subtitles, that’s important. So the scene of bathing in the fountain is presented with a metaphor for the truth of life. This is explained by the phrase hero. But he pronounces it with irony lost in dubbing. Saying “Oh God, how boring I live” is presented as a revelation.
Religious allusions have been disassembled by criticism many times. The phrase “God is love” is written literally. But not mockingly, but as a deep statement that is not perceived in the forehead, deductively. The greatness of the film in the director’s method of expression. It matters how. Important feeling, aftertaste from watching. Fellini plays with scenes, angles, heroes, events, choosing their tone and order, as if pressing the keys of the organ.
That is why the sweet life is the pinnacle of cinema. You have to watch! On the big screen. Subtitled.
Federico Fellini's 1960 film La Dolce Vita shows us the life of Rome's bohemian society in the late 50s. The film reveals the whole background of the "High Society" of Italy.
The main character of the film, Marcello, is a journalist who turns in the circles of this sweet life and is a part of it. More specifically, he wants to be a part of it. He drinks, he walks, he sleeps with everyone, afraid of losing THIS life, which does not indicate a high level of intelligence. He rejects the woman who loves him, who wants to start a family with him because he is afraid. He is afraid to leave the life of celebrity.
The protagonist doesn’t want to be a journalist, no, he wants to be the person he writes about. And a writer. And a poet. Anything but a journalist. But he cannot escape this profession, for then he will lose this life.
Of course, the journalists in this film are not shown from the best side. For the most part, except for Marcello, the rest of the journalists are paparazzi, whose goal is to shoot a sensational shot. They don’t care about people’s feelings, people are objects. Of course, Bohemia likes it, no doubt. But ordinary people? Marcello, on the other hand, refers to the society he is supposed to write about. In the film, he's on their side. He is more human than the others.
Essentially, the whole film is a prelude to the climax – the death of Steiner, who committed suicide, realizing the meaninglessness of life. After this death, Marcello himself begins to realize that everything he did was stupid. He realizes that all this sweetness is too bitter. You can’t live your life like this.
The film certainly deserves everyone’s attention. This film is about the eternal search for yourself, about the real cycle of life in which we are every day. This movie is about the eternal. It's not just about the "elite of society" or the "damned pesky journalists," no, it's about everything and everyone. It shows, in principle, all segments of society whose lives have not changed much. I think this film is eternal.
Andrei Tarkovsky is not a simple director. His paintings can not be understood by everyone. And the film “Stalker”, which Tarkovsky shot together with Larisa Tarkovsky based on the novel by A. and B. Strugatsky “Picnic on the curb” refers to those films that can be called paintings beyond ordinary vision.
After the meteorite falls, a mysterious zone is formed. There are rumors that somewhere in the Zone there is a place called the Room, which fulfills the most cherished desires. Professor (Nikolai Grinko) and Writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) decided to try their luck and find this room. Help them in this Stalker (Alexander Kaidanovsky). Their path is saturated with mysticism and incomprehensible dangers known only to Stalker.
It is noteworthy that the heroes have no names, only nicknames, Stalker’s daughter and that one is called Montyshka. I don't think it makes any serious deep sense. It is possible that these are collective images.
Something unusual and somewhat frightening haunts the viewer throughout the film. Heroes do not reveal themselves to the end, do not allow to lay down a certain opinion about themselves.
In 1980, at the Cannes Film Festival, the film received the prize of the ecumenical jury.
In fact, I want to ask the obvious question: why did the Writer and the Professor suddenly believe in the existence of this room? Why did you trust Stalker? And they were driven by simple human despair. And to what extent will this trio reach in the difficult way to fulfill the cherished desires? And how will they bring themselves when only a step remains to the cherished Room?
The film is complex and ambiguous. Seeing something significant in him is very difficult. Moreover, many moments are delayed, which causes boredom. But you can not be distracted from the film if you want to pass it through yourself and understand something. It's not for everyone.
The film should be seen by everyone who is interested in the history of cinema, because the director’s work, as well as the play of actors, is presented at the highest level. I certainly confirm Federico Fellini’s talent, but I haven’t succeeded in making friends yet. Alas.
The film didn’t touch me because I didn’t feel the atmosphere of the Italian elite at the time. A kind of Italian Hollywood with passionate scenes of Emma's jealousy of her husband, a collector of ladies' hearts, Marcello. Of course, the film is not just about the sweet life of celebrities, it traces other motives on a deeper level, such as the question of the meaning of life: what is more important - family comfort or career and public recognition, the theme of masks that people wear in society, hiding their true feelings, etc. However, the film did not catch me. Sometimes I just wanted to fast-forward, but in general I do not regret watching.
6 out of 10
What is a sweet life? This is a life in which there is no place for suffering, pain and disappointment, which is stuffed from head to toe with entertainment and an endless stream of emotions that give a person the highest pleasure. I think a lot of people don't understand Fellini's movie these days, and a lot of people don't. Understand only one thing, this picture is recognized as a classic for a reason, such films were shot to later become a kind of benchmark, to create full-fledged films for their time. In other words, Fellini’s picture is a kind of tracing for a modern director. Why are Tolstoy and Dostoevsky great? Yes, because in their works they raised those questions, which subsequently came to be classified as eternal. They used a style of writing that later became the standard. Fellini, as well as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, was an innovator of his time, who brought to the viewer the story of splashes, if it concerns the “Sweet Life”, the story of unhappy, crippled fates. People who live their lives without fear, who see nothing. How often does Madeleine say how much she suffers? But despite her suffering, she is not going to change her lifestyle. These people, this society, are lost to humanity because it does not want to bring anything new and useful to the world. It can only consume, create intrigue, entertain itself with scandals created by themselves.
At the heart of their entertainment is drinking, which gives rise to animal instincts in them with even greater force. Depravity, vulgarity, sex is the only way to have fun and even more escape from the real world, to escape from yourself. Does this whole thing have an end? And where do these kinds of human beings come from in old age? Fellini raises these questions and partially answers them, showing us clippings from the usual days of the main character of the picture. I also want to draw your attention to the father of the main character, to his relationship with his son. This is to the question of generations, to the question that everyone who is in this “secular society” has a certain reason to be there, not just because they are disappointed in mortal life, not just because they are afraid to live, to feel. Marcello no longer wants to be disappointed in love, it is easier not to love and not to be attached than to suffer from the fact that you are not needed, let others suffer.
"Life is pain." There are more than enough films on this subject. The whole arthouse stands on it, and its figures with varying degrees of talent seal us to the ground with this captain-evident statement. But few people manage to show how sweet this pain is, how illusory sweetness is, how invincible illusions are, how tenaciously through illusions life keeps us to itself.
Because of my hopeless incompetence, I can talk about this movie for hours. And the genius will say briefly and piercingly: "Life is a deception with enchanting longing." And other geniuses will convey that feeling through visual images. This topic is inexhaustible, and I will not even argue with those opponents who scold the film for the lack of a plot, say, what an incoherent set of scenes. The fact that for others a minus, for me a plus, because this topic, the topic of “dolce vita” can be embodied countless times, would be talented. Therefore, not only this film, but all its reincarnations like “Great Beauty” and our “In Motion” will be reviewed with the same ecstasy with which only one can (and should!) revel in life itself. No, no, I do not notice in the film “criticism of meaningless burning of life”, just see it not as a criticism, but as a sad and kind irony of a wise, living man.
Of course, such a subtle craftsman as Fellini cannot be inhumane and shoot cannons at sparrows, not even sparrows - at harmless, colorful moths. Yes, he shows us how the chthonic deity, the incarnation of life itself, full of primitive power and beauty, turns into a miserable, dependent woman in the morning. Yes, he leads the main character through the loss of all meanings, all anchors. By the way, the “set of scenes” is far from accidental, it clearly demonstrates the movement of the protagonist along the path of entropy to complete collapse. But what doesn’t lead us to collapse? The path of entropy is the natural course of life. Someone said, "In old age, we all have broken troughs." And after old age, there is something more terrible, from which neither frivolous nor deep-spirited will leave. “Let’s have fun while we’re young!”
10 out of 10
This is my first Fellini film. I am not a rude and uneducated person without a perception of art. But, my God, after these movies, I want to take the camera! If such a loose storyless storytelling is so thrilling, why don't I get a bunch of pretty girls and one actor? Because that's all that's in this movie. Yes, I don’t dispute that some moments are even delightful (but pointless). But on the whole, it seems oppressive. And although this is considered satire, there is no moral at all. If only you could cut it three times and leave only the right moments!
It is foolish and naive to think that the film should be enjoyable. But what exactly should not be - nausea while watching (except for five minutes half an hour before the end of the film).
I bet 4 out of 10 because 10 is for the amazing Anouk Eme and 1 for the movie.
4 out of 10
The action takes place in Rome in the 1950s. Popular writer and journalist Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) moves in secular circles, he is popular, fondled by the aristocracy and bohemian, he is a welcome guest at all parties, but something worries him. Women, like shadows, replace each other without hurting his feelings. However, then there is an event that makes our hero think about the meaninglessness of such a life.
I have not seen such a beautiful film about loneliness in a long time. About the all-powerful impotence of human souls that follow their vices. Paolo Sorrentino’s last such film was even 2: Great Beauty (2013) and Youth (2015). The feeling of a certain, even if pleasant, hopelessness absorbs all the heroes with twilight and lets go, it would seem, ashamed, at dawn. Bohemia sobers up, excitement evaporates and only scandalous headlines on the front pages of newspapers can shed light on who and how brightly spent last night or night.
Fellini here gathered all the allusions of bourgeois society, and also sarcastically walked and “poked his nose” into the degeneration of Catholic religiosity, making a scene with the appearance of the children of St. Madonna. Along the way, denouncing journalists, radio presenters and paparazzi, ready to do anything for a great shot, rating. Watch and wonder how they managed to chase and slip to the right places in pursuit of “hot material”. It is not surprising that after this, the picture was banned for display in Italy, which served as the best advertising and as a result became one of the highest-grossing in the work of Federico. Every frame, costumes, hairstyles, music - all at the highest level, which just pleases the eye and caresses the ear.
The finale of this three-hour satirical, black-and-white drama shows us all the powerlessness and emptiness within each character. Behind every tuxedo there is a lonely need, behind every dress there is a lonely soul. The puzzle alas, doesn't add up ... And the authors exquisitely show us that behind each “Sweet Life”, there is a bitter experience. If he teaches something, everyone will decide for himself.
10 out of 10.
I've watched Sweet Life twice. The first time was when he was not strong in mind, did not have the subtlety of verbal dialects and treated his own life more like a toy, like a carousel, on which to ride only if you control it yourself. Having seen it on the big screen, I came to a double chain of conclusions: not everything that is admired is majestic, and not all conclusions are true.
Otherwise, after leaving the cinema, I stayed in a contiguous position. I was thrilled with the film, and still believed with conviction everything that spoke about the emptiness of action and the meaninglessness of phrases, which turned into meaningless episodes. And with such indicators, the result remained the same - no matter what the tape was contradictory in terms of semantics, in the plans of comedy and art, it deserves all its privileges.
For example, the opening scene of the ascension of the statue of Jesus in a helicopter is worth all the strained attempts of modern Hollywood to be cheerful and laid-back, standing alongside the metaphorical English comedy. True, Italy is here, and the era is earlier, but the view of the world is just as fresh, extremely satirical.
Fellini is equally brave. Until now, I am surprised by the possibility of a person of creativity to bring to the world a work created by allegories and comparisons, where the basic apparatus is not conceptual, not dramatic, but extremely artistic and extremely expressive. “Sweet life” is a diary of pleasure and disappointment, the closing and opening of the eyes, where every new moment of life asks questions, which, however, there is no answer.
A very strong sense that the presence of many scenes is here the embodiment of the breadth of scope and additional nonlinearity of the narrative. Every scene here is timeless. It is not tied to the life of the hero, from which the very mosaic, compiled by Fellini and expressed in the quenching of the desires of postwar golden youth, emerges. The only thing that has a stroke of the stretch here is meetings with a simple girl, at the same time showing the impossibility of yelling at representatives of the Marcello family and symbolizing the finding of sources of truth not in releaseable superheroes, but in a randomly met person whose vision raises questions deeper than they are posed by a crazy crowd who want to heal. What is characteristic is that the heavenly women running after ghosts are as empty as the crowd of entertaining and self-forgetting, who have only managed to live the era of their formation.
Even belonging to the golden decade of female images, established largely by Fellini himself in his previous poetic dreams, is eroded together with the era - lethargic feminine grace bends under the collapsed freedom of choice, and self-designation as "whores" like a fish, washed ashore from its despair.
Here the main question arises - how does the film feel after the final scenes, after plucking pillows, running to the sea? Is the abomination caused to the hero justified, is there a solution to the question of self-determination and self-destruction in it? After all, how important is it to treat the Italian creative elite as such? And wasn’t the director’s last wave a sincere desire to drive and create a new, endless uncertainty and emptiness?
The Glavger of this epic work descends to the viewer in a helicopter, aki god. Of course, there's a real thing flying ahead, but it's actually a fake, like everything in this movie. Fake gods get out of cars, their exits are rehearsed. They can’t really save their worlds, or give love to each other, but they say beautiful words – who is about morality, who is about how bad they are, how bored they are, how they want something, I don’t know what.
Therefore, one kills his whole world, cherished so carefully and sublimely, the other unfolds to the full extent of his immense soul. And fornicates beautifully, because here is the father before his eyes - one day there will come a time when you can not do anything, and you will have to faint.
It's Fellini, so it's something great to admire. He loves life, he loves the City, he's all that. He has his own language, his own style, they are supposed to admire, it is supposed to twist the raisins from this bleating sweet cake. He put his dreams and experiences in a jar, made it all black and white, so that the hero and the nurse walked beautifully in front of each other, and the drunk woman in black looked good with the white cat, which she would throw away in a minute. The same thing is done with the viewer - as if he is involved in this drunken orgy, rejoice and love life. The aftertaste is nasty. And the bigger the director, the worse the aftertaste.
Feed this delicate sweetness to a painful heart. A huge city, its wind with an aftertaste of faith and disappointment. Someone's smile - and you understand that there is nothing but death ahead, and you need to swallow this audacity from other people's false eyes. When you yourself are sensitive and bitter, when you appear, become a magnet, you penetrate the poison of cikuta. The folds of the dress in drops, and now you are already the moisture of the air promises you immortality, unrealizable, desirable.
He's coming down from the sky, from a helicopter. Marcello, a celestial, whose companion is like Amur with an arrow, a cheerful impudent Paparazzo with a camera. Other new Roman gods and heroes will also descend from heaven or get out of cars. The appearance of the actress will be awaited in the same way - and simulated - as the appearance of the Madonna, except that the first appears, fills the temple. And the sign of that God who, if indeed he has already died, has not carried away his children with him, blesses those who are mad from their inheritance. And those who every second turn the present into the past, not the eternal, are followed by the cameras of those in whose heads Marcello’s life was born, those thanks to whom we have in our pockets the right accreditation for all his events. And on the beautiful face of the hero there is anxiety, a feeling of eternal demanding glance, if not from above, but from somewhere else. He is a creator; he writes a book, but he will never finish it, the creator does not rush to complete the creation, fearing his own apocalypse.
Not that Sebastian Bach’s finger of the organ deliberately does not touch the echo, but to procrastinate, either hoping for immortality, or fearing to enter into their rights. The car is started, and now you have to fly on the expressway, and the point of no return is passed, and you can't drop a sticky companion. He is bored, he is a demon, but this is the limit for him (he did not enjoy it, he enjoyed it). He can only, like those crafty children, cunningly run in one direction or the other, leading a stream of bewildered simpletons and calculating egoists. Run and play until the rain stops and the corpse of a miracle is found. This “mediator” tries to mediate in the worlds not of mind and labor, as in Lang’s Metropolis, but of mind and flesh; this “substitute of God” (as, in fact, Mastroianni playing him is partly a “substitute” of Fellini), past whom the Champagne bowl of his father, for which Magdalene did not stop fornicating, a god who could not resurrect innocent children and console a widower, whose apostles caught an unprecedented but dead catch, passed forever. Neither the church in which an exalted diva jumps instead of a pastor in the likeness of his robes, nor a tavern with a sad clown, a descendant of Charlie, is anything sacred, and yes, everything is not so, but to scold, and then with drunken laughter, he can only the circus of freaks to which he will return - God does not abandon his sheep and sheep.
It is difficult to be a god and at the same time a Faust willing to trample on the old laws in search of elusive moments. Invisible Mephistopheles rules the ball in Fellini’s painting, constantly tempting eternal youth. But the trouble is that now all the moments can be stopped indefinitely - and thereby kill their sweetness, forcing to increase the dose of this drug. A shining stranger, if necessary, will make a second take of the first meeting; Madonna's appearance is already under camera control. Sincerity, naturalness, children’s spontaneity are rehearsed. The half-death of the companion of life, moved by the chamber of the soul somewhere further, into the depths of the eternally unfinished night, the death of a friend and the grief of a woman, and then they try to make a fleeting exhibit - that which could belong to your memory, your eyes as a jewel, becomes the property of all. Thanks to the camera, everyone becomes a part of this dream-life, the forerunner of the virtual game; is it hard to believe that in mixed worlds, where roles and dimensions are confused, the audible is not visible and the visible is not audible? The game everywhere is a game in the scenery of what has already been created, in costumes of what has been created, so the angel only came down from some picture, here are the accessible impregnable ladies - with the faces of sleeping beauties; and what to do with this crumbling, ramshackling castle is unknown - except to continue playing with a mixture of fear and delight. The viewer is carefully warned that all the characters are fiction, but the actor gave the name to the hero, and he is not alone; the viewer, who has already been invited to the Steiner house, is almost sure that now someone will call him as joyously as the real Nico. We are allowed to taste this sweetness, this honey: eat, who ate bitterness, he died.
Black and white reportage of the author-reporter, a collage, a dream where his second self wanders, where his subconscious plays, where the game takes place, chess with strange moves. Here is a black Roubini in the hospital lobby walking so beautifully past a white sister of mercy; here, playing on a hidden camera, the queen in a black dress raises a dazzling white cat with a regal gesture. A black and white square that you can look at endlessly. Good and evil exist, but, as in some psychological-optical illusion, depend on the present and personal angle of view. Now in the shadow, then in the light fall for the beholder Steiner high morality, devoid of vitality, and (semi) secular sparkling love of life, devoid of high morality. White can be on an angel and a prostitute, black on a pastor and a socialite, and that’s okay because it’s a life that confuses and gives pleasure to endless unraveling. The film would be terrible if it were soulless - without the soul of the author, where everything is echoes of his moments, seven days of his personal creation.
Who knows, maybe God is alive – and He, not us, arranges for us delightful games of hide-and-seek, blindfolds, riddles, and grieves our anhedonia. We can compose novels, or leave them in design: ecstasy is not in victory; we can reach out to an angel who has come down from a long canvas, or leave a precious, subtle, like the ray of the sun, vision behind us. We can, even hand and foot bound by our own apathy, dream of the far East, listen to poems, admire the marvelous that remains in a spoiled breed of women, look for golden grains of love in capricious attachments, we can love dilapidated castles, the ruins of cities, the former strength of bygone youth. Fellini, who stopped moments, who lost children, knew the value of this miracle, the blessed unrequited love of life.
It is better to have an exaggerated opinion than to have none.
William Shakespeare
On the eve of the film, which was destined to split Italian society into equal and equally irreconcilable halves, only a dreamy researcher could recognize Fellini as a calculating strategist. By no means, the son of a salesman, extremely far from the amusing traditions of the Roman patricians, had to suffer in creating a panel of disparate thoughts, closed on the figure of a journalist. In fact, don Federico had only his opinion, to which, given the authority gained by The Road and Nights of Cabiria, the public could no longer but listen. To put it in current language, the director decided to go all-in, rightly believing that active speculation is definitely better than the perplexed silence that could have been caused by the fake essence of Sweet Life. There was a satirical, multi-act performance, the actors in which now could easily be replaced by modern analogues – the difference will be minimal. And it would be dictated by the slightly changed over the past decades fashion for the types of pleasures of those in power.
“Dolce Vita”, which has gone into the international lexicon, is the most eloquent detail of the director’s legacy, but it is far from the only one. Fellini with Italian expression shrugged when he was exposed as a subversive of public morality, and indeed - in the picture it is easier to notice the ironic apologetics of luxury than their fierce rejection. The tone of the film is directly related to the words, actions and actions of the main character, who absorbed the features of an unaccountable wanderer, unable to correctly dispose of his talent. Journalist Marcello is practically not shown at work, and in the only scene, when he is sitting at the typewriter, a blonde maiden face appears next to him, in whose words notes of angelic sympathy. Somewhere in the boundless depth of his consciousness, the secular chronicler understands all the viciousness and meaninglessness of the life sucking him in, but for various reasons he cannot abandon the usual routine. It’s not about vocation or, worse, cowardice. Particles of human attitude can be found in the most senseless orgy, when in the morning along with a hangover comes the thought that the next night was worth spending in a more calm way.
If Fellini had set a goal, his tape could have been the best advertisement for champagne-drenched leisure, but more important was the desire to be a spectator. The structure of “Dolce Vita” is such that there is no one to be compassionate, if the most seemingly reasonable representative of the elite turns into an executioner and a suicide. The retribution for unrighteousness comes unnoticed, it is akin to a drunken buzzer in the head, and is especially terrible. It is amazing how easily in a witty and sarcastic film the joys of bohemian life are replaced by tragedies full of moral half-life. It is impossible not to notice religious participation in this, after all, Don Federico was and remained a true Catholic. In minor episodes, he could afford to carry a statue of Christ through the air to astonished maiden cries. However, the timidity of the people before the real or imaginary appearance of the Madonna is much more eloquent. There is little difference between the young pranksters, who, they say, witnessed her convergence and the aristocracy. They are all infants who simply cannot live tomorrow and therefore prefer to use the benefits of today. Such a position, from a moral point of view, deserves condemnation, censure, and even ostracism, but it is more logical from all sides to highlight this phenomenon as something ineradicable not only for Rome and Italy, but for civilization as a whole.
After the capture of the fortress, Izmail Suvorov admitted that such an attack can only be decided once in a lifetime. Federico Fellini was not a commander, but from the first draft of the script, he understood the singular fate of such a picture. Three hours of timekeeping was enough to raise vices from the bottom of the Tiber and transform them into a natural part of human characters, a priori weak in front of money and great opportunities. The aristocratic top performed by Mastroianni is in every sense a tragic personality. The elk inevitably comes down, the wrinkles are added, and at the most necessary moment a person cannot hear the affectionate voice desperately asking to stop. “Do not continue and do not write” – as Woland asked Ivan the Homeless – in fact, such creativity is similar to playing the devil’s harp. But life itself, no matter how suddenly it sometimes ends, consists of happy moments, the price of which each person determines for himself. They hold with enviable tenacity, which, putting his hand on his heart, do not want to resist.
Fellini gave his hero a truly royal choice of companions, next to whom he could learn to take care of life. Marcello took the nearest road. The unrelenting importance of the picture over the years is the merit of knowledge and worldly wisdom, which was revealed in the abundance of the director. For birth in the cinematic womb, “Dolce Vita” could not be a suitable era, after all, people do not change too much over the years. Realizing this, Don Federico decided on the most difficult assault in his career. Winning a niche, filling a vacuum - close, but not quite. Created an independent era - much more precisely. For the salvation of the lost director's soul, some even managed to pray after the premiere, but to overshadow yourself with the banner of the cross is for the unfortunate really. To all the chosen ones who are sweet in sinful bushes, and to whom, washing their feet, for a long, long time to wander in the sand for a new sensation.
I refuse to agree with the fact that the film should be
A clown. Nonsense. A long farce. That’s pretty much all I could say about this movie. History begins with nothing and ends with nothing. And between the beginning and the end, there's three hours of garbage for consciousness. What was I supposed to take away from this movie? What happened in this film only caused me disgust, the desire to press the stop button, to throw to hell the idea of watching this movie. A young and talented writer who wastes his life? A decaying society that has lost its ideals? This? Was it all in the movie? Now get in the middle and dance like a fool. Now you take a pillow and scatter it on a drunk whore. Next, the plot will be followed by a scene where some idiot puts on a knightly helmet and starts talking nonsense! Dialogues are stretched and made into farce, and emotions are overplayed and sickening. In life people don't talk like that, in life people don't dance like idiots in the middle of the day! In life, people do not utter supposedly philosophical thoughts into the void, sitting over the ears of a stranger!!! Why are there so many stupid and stupid scenes? Why in the end show the waitress on the other side and the main character, if they still did not say anything to each other, if they still did not hear each other, if still nothing happened, as throughout the story??? Many people scold modern cinema: movies used to be more soulful, deeper, but what now? ... now the film industry is business and popcorn. What's wrong with that, what's worse than a complete nonsense like this? The movie may sometimes be primitive, but it can be a spectacle, a positive emotion. What is it? A message to think? Because I can go out and see this most decaying society and low values, after sixty years, nothing new! You don't have to make a movie for that! It is not necessary to stuff the plot with stupid snares and idiotic emotions, devoid of idea dialogues and the stupidest scenes!
The story...there's no fucking plot here!!! There's no fucking plot! The main character is transferred from one drink to another, faces change and come back again, or maybe they do not change, I am entangled in this series of never-ending new heroes! I am so sorry that I saw this movie! Turning a blind eye to big names, I declare that Federico Fellini’s Sweet Life is one of the worst films I’ve seen in my life. Where and where do I have to sign, what document that says I don't know a damn thing about movies? I agree! Only a movie shouldn't be like that! Cinema has to bring something – joy, laughter, fear, thought, spectacle, pleasure... or to turn off the brain and just relax! Choose what! But something! But in the same movie... nothing! Clownade, idiocy, lust, meaningless sets of words! And the desire that this film was something material, for example, a piece of paper ... that could be crumpled and thrown away.
Brilliant... because it's brilliant... a drunk whore is lying on the floor in his own drool, and some idiot under the universal hum and animal laughter saddled her like a donkey and throws down a pillow. And now we smoothly end the scene ... come out and dance like a fool. What a wonderful thing!
One of the most significant achievements of the art of cinema, an absolute aesthetic masterpiece and a philosophical parable covering the course of world history is Federico Fellini’s Sweet Life. This film can be compared with the literary masterpieces of the beginning of the century – “Ulysses” by James Joyce and “Petersburg” by Andrei Bely. Fellini doesn't just record the movement of tectonic plates separating epochs. He finds a figurative embodiment for these processes, creating a mythologem of modern times. Grand in its scale artistic gestures, he directs matter in a constructive, creative channel.
This Fellini always differed from his no less eminent compatriot Antonioni - he always tried to fill the void, to endow the world with a life that saturates the greatness of the spirit even ethereal abstraction. So in “The Sweet Life”, as in the mentioned literary masterpieces, the main action takes place outside of human words and deeds.
This three-hour fresco forms as if by itself, flowing from stage to scene at the level of visual and semantic associations. At first, the emerging picture of the world can leave a painful impression. Fellini clearly sensed the vectors of the main tendencies of mass consciousness, so already in the first scene the primacy of the new religion over the old one is affirmed.
The old one is incarnated by a classical god, actually a statue hanging in the air. The new featureless even more, and it was by her will that the statue was where it is. It is an uncontrollable desire for emotion, formed by the needs and weaknesses of any healthy person. Information packed into thousands of simulacra, creating a separate space that floods the collective mind. Ruthlessly and even in something dispassionate, Fellini demonstrates how the new world absorbs the old, desacralizing its values, bringing them to the phantasmagoria of the absurd. The inner world of people becomes a Procrustean bed, a space of confrontation between old and new, spirit and needs, religion and information. The manner of demonstration of technical devices is characteristic – the mechanisms, whether it is a camera or an airplane, are removed so that their powerful power over a person, an advantage in scale and significance, is felt. Inheriting the urban industrial symphonies of the beginning of the century (Ruttman’s Berlin, Vertov’s Man with the Movie Apparatus), Fellini combines their traditions with his own transcendental apperception, a vision of the forms that embody these deep layers. Dozens of images in which the city and its inhabitants are formed work for the viewer’s feeling of a grandiose battle between the unreal and the hyperreal.
And the characters of the film, meanwhile, one by one, suffer the collapse of hopes, turning into bitter disappointment, a sense of powerlessness and the nearness of death, as the culmination of contrasts of the emotional background. From the impending emptiness can not be saved even in a dry detachment from life - this possibility for a person, the director strikes out especially cruelly.
In Marcello, the main character, these contrasts gradually reach their climax. He dreams of being a writer, but works in the yellow press, although he shows no respect for his craft. By the way, journalists in the “Sweet Life” are real apologists of emptiness, servants of the information space, like flies spreading the deadly virus Nothing. They're nothing human, they're just phalanxes of fingers on a mechanical hand pressing the camera buttons.
At the beginning of the film, Marcello is not yet like this, but Fellini leads him on a path of complete spiritual collapse. This character embodies the features of the hero of the new time, a feminine man, in fact, an absolute infant, gradually losing the modest rudiments of identity. Essentially, Marcello is a dummy from the beginning. One might think that he has the flexibility to see how easily the wounds of yesterday are healed. But in fact, he, like any child, is only superficial and is not able to reflect and even more accept the collisions of his life experience. This becomes clear in scenes where the hero is taken out of a conditional comfort zone fabricated by short-term, post-effect, primitive pleasures. And then a terrible despair bursts out, occupying a void in the space in which character was to develop. It becomes clear why the hero is absorbed in his work. He voluntarily agrees to be enslaved by information that leaves room in the inner world of a person only for the manifestation of superficial emotions. It saves him from the terrible pain. While he resists her, the remnants of life, something real, are glowing in him - and this is not a writing talent at all, this is banal kindness, a talent for empathy, the imprint of which is Marcello's harmless and full of naive charm. And this face becomes a human mask, embodying the total deconstruction of ideas about the world.
But its role is the role of sacrifice, without which no cult, no tradition, whether artistic or historical, can do. The whole personal panorama of Marcello fits in a sense of constant pressure. In the end, he is completely broken. The last blow becomes fatal, and in the scene of the last bacchanalia we no longer recognize the hero. Not only did he merge with the herd, he found himself in the thick of it. In the terrible sea catch, the corpse of some sea monster, the image of the simulacrum and the inner portrait of each of the participants of the orgy, who passed the initiation, identified with Nothing are embodied.
And if it were Antonioni's film, it would be the final chord and sum of the gamut of experiences. But the viewer has been watching “Sweet Life” for half a century fascinated, with a feeling of cathartic pleasure, crowned with a refrain of the legendary “Smile of Kabiria”. Yes, Fellini shows the fall of her heroes. But at the same time, we feel their personal problems dissolve without a trace in the sensation of the processes of matter. In the clash of the surreal and the hyperreal, after all, it is the crash of the heroes that affirms the confidence in the triumph of beauty. The characters of the film are weak and disoriented, they try to reveal something more in themselves, but immediately ruin the first shoots, if this does not happen by itself. Marcello does not have time to listen to the silence, as he is immediately pulled out of it. The enlightening moment in the fountain is almost immediately marred by mud for both Marcello and Sylvia. Towards the end, we are told that the Steiner Poet, one of the few truly spectacular characters in The Sweet Life, is only invited as an object of ridicule. And Fellini painfully admits that these people are hopeless. But by placing them on a reservation on the dark side of the moon, he indicates the place and force that broke them. Around the world opens a space containing an indestructible legacy of the beautiful and majestic, transcending all the derivatives of the individual, including pain and despair.
“Eternal City” in Fellini’s vision is not a banal epithet, it is the only possible way to describe the true creation of mankind, its legacy to infinity, the victim of which will be thousands and thousands. But only a few that multiply this heritage are really important, because beauty gives birth to life and vice versa, and this cycle, existing on the pairs of inspiration, forever fixes it in its process and in its works for those who are ready to open to a new beginning selflessly, recklessly, with a smile on their face.
10 out of 10
Federico Fellini is perhaps the most brilliant director of Italian neorealism. "Sweet Life," perhaps his magnum opus.
The main character is writer and journalist Marcello performed by Marcello Mastroianni. He's a confused man. Or rather, he lost his soul. This is a hero who is in search, and this search comes from the fact that in modern Italy he lost his soul. That's why he's looking for a woman. A woman metaphorically often represents the soul of the main character of a man. Yes, his search turns into a chaotic movement from one woman to another, but the point is that all these women are variations of his soul. He is looking for his soul.
The image of an American actress arriving in Rome is very important. Sylvia performed by Swedish actress Anita Ekberg. To a certain extent, Silvia is a catalyst for action. It symbolizes life, life force. She is full of life and strength, which contrasts significantly with the main character Marcello. She doesn't care. The moment in a church is a banter on priests because it is dressed exactly as Catholic priests dress. She is a pagan, a true pagan. This is also true of dancing with a male actor. It's a wild, obviously non-Christian dance. And they dance rock 'n' roll - something that is still unfamiliar to Italy. Everyone admires her not only because she is famous and beautiful, but also because she has as much energy as in all post-war Europe.
An even more important character in the film is Steiner. Steiner is the personification of Europe. As already mentioned, a post-war Europe in which there are absolutely no forces. It is not for nothing that Steiner is compared several times with a Gothic cathedral. And in the end, Steiner does not stand up, suicide occurs. Steiner's death is the death of Europe. The death of his children and his angels. Classical, academic Europe is dying, leaving no offspring, and there is nothing left to replace it. More precisely, paganism, American culture, animal power comes in place. Where the accents are different. This is a prophecy from the great director Fellini. What we see now, in our reality, clearly confirms this. American culture has completely undeservedly reigned all over the world, the idea of the American dream is increasingly penetrating in Russia and other countries. And Europe? Europe is fading and more and more every year. Fellini predicted, or rather, even then saw the decline of Europe and tried to say it.
No religion, no miracle. Everything dies. There are no more traditional values. It's just plain. The miracle - the appearance of the Virgin Mary - is fanned by television. Even children are involved in this. It's unimaginable.
Marcello's meeting with his father is very important. Marcello wants his father to help him, stay with him and tell him how to live. Marcello realizes he needs his father, but he leaves without saying anything. Marcello is trying to find some way in his life, he is attracted to Steiner, who seems to replace his father. After what happened to Steiner, Marcello crashes. All his hopes, all his dreams and at least some dreams of a bright future are shattered. He can no longer seek or resist this world. Therefore, he, as they say, goes into all serious - vulgarity, alcohol, drugs, orgies, all sorts of debauchery.
It is also worth mentioning a girl who looks like an angel. This is the soul of the protagonist. She tells him that his way is to type, write a book, in this he will find salvation. But Marcello can no longer understand her, his life has turned into a complete debauchery. And in the image of Marcello Fellini shows not one, some special person. This is the reality of Italy and indeed of Europe. People have lost their values.
Interestingly, Fellini did a lot in the film intuitively. Steiner’s image was created intuitively, not in the original script. So are the angel girls. This once again proves his genius. And the film is absolutely believable. Fellini ridiculed the way of life where everything is empty and there is nothing real, but look what is happening now. Even more depravity, about which no one says anything.
Fellini, through Marcello, shows that he is somewhat envious of an American. The war did not affect them as much as it did Italy and Europe. Americans are up in everything. They have a lot of power. The total impotence of Europe and the colossal energy of America are shown.
10 out of 10
As it turns out, this is my first Fillini film, and since I don’t think it’s a shame, I’m sorry.
For viewing I marinated a decent amount of time and I was already aware of two actually historical moments reflected in the film – swimming in the fountain di Trevi and the surname Paparazzi, which became a household name.
In general, Italian films, especially the 60s, are quite strange, they seem to be about nothing, but about everything, about life, so to speak. The main character lives his day: smokes, drinks, eats, communicates, well, some kind of routine. And you think, what would that mean? Aren't they suggesting something to me? Well, I think that hint, because the storyline in the film is not present. Well, understandably, it is told about the futility of desires and the pettiness of being, in such films always about it.
I will not appreciate this film and I will not say Dolce Vita with a breath, because the film disappointed: the effect of the bomb did not work out, something less obvious was expected from the semantic load, or from the implementation, then the spectacle is quite long, moreover, and with a shorter timekeeping it would be clear that everything is perishable, well, the women in this picture absolutely lost their roof, someone from jealousy and love, someone from idleness.
And of course, Mastroiani as Mastroiani. But that's why I love him.
Enough has been said here about the criticism of bourgeois society and the degeneration of Catholic religiosity. So I will try to say a few words about something positive, not about a film that is a brilliant work of art in itself, but about the only positive idea that I have been able to capture in Professor Steiner’s words. He said the only way out of our shitty life is to build a perfect organization of society. Otherwise, we are waiting (as follows from the subsequent development of the plot) for either physical suicide due to the inability to further tolerate social insanity and fear of one’s own powerlessness to change anything for the better, or moral self-destruction due to reconciliation and complicity in the spiritual decay of society. Professor Steiner chose the former, and journalist Marcello chose the latter. And Fellini’s unforgivable mistake was not to emphasize thoughts on the third way – to present us, the audience, his author’s view not only from the point of view of criticism of social mores, but also on the way out of the situation. And then he only vaguely mentioned something creative and then continued to lead everything to decline, piling the mission of the guardian of the pure, moral and beautiful on the weak shoulders of a young girl who has not yet had time to get dirty in the life dirt - that is, transferred all the arrows to the coming generation. And so all his followers, alternately, all translated and translated, and then, after 65 years since the release of the film, continue to translate, instead of beginning to present through the cinema not only criticism and pathos of conciliatory compassion for human society, but also their author's vision of building a new, perfect human civilization.
In my opinion, Fellini, after the “Sweet Life”, being too serious to be an amateur, did not become a true professional in the field of ideological, creative, transformative cinema; and although deftly veiled, he still resembled (in a creative sense) his main character – journalist Marcello, becoming one of the main painters of cinematic “sweet” life.
If we abstract from all the above, the film strikes to the depths of the soul with its extreme exposure of the mores and vices of the Italian elite of the turn of the 1950s-60s, leaving behind an abundant space for reflection.
We will love to live outside of time, to escape from his captivity.
Federico Fellini’s films are considered cult. They are representatives of classical Italian cinema, occupying a special place among all others. "Sweet life" is a vivid example of this.
It is beautiful, good-natured, well-made, has its own zest, its meaning, its charm and, it would seem, it has every reason to become an immortal masterpiece, but it is not. It is a masterpiece, but a masterpiece of its own time.
On the modern viewer, it rather gives the impression of a good film, which is worth watching once in order to get acquainted with the past standard. In some places, he is very long, sometimes causes boredom, and sometimes even depresses with scenes of the spiritual emptiness of the main character and the bohemian, among which he so idlely, so mercilessly wastes the talent given to him by nature. Their society, a society of exchangeable cynics, is certainly worthy of our attention, because it is the main theme of the unfolding picture, but, oddly enough, it affected me the least. That is why it will not be discussed in this review.
We will talk about a man-thinker, about an expert in his field, a highly cultured intellectual who does not find a place for himself among the pseudo-intellectuals, about a master of the humanities who plays them, like a skilled musician, about Professor Steiner. Together with his remarkable mind, he discovered a remarkable weakness, taking the lives of himself and the children whom he loved so tenderly, so passionately and selflessly. There was something unhealthy, painful, alarming about this love, but he so skillfully concealed the thoughts that haunted him and eventually led him to a mental disorder that unobservant “friends” like Marcello could not see them.
However, in my opinion, the whole palette of his “torments and joys”, sufferings and desires, all his life results were summed up during a farewell meeting with colleagues, in one extremely capacious but memorable monologue, in the last philosophical reflection on the theme of being and the place of man in the universe. It is essentially a turning point, decisive, it determines the future fate of its author and the society depicted in the film, so I consider it necessary to bring it here:
Sometimes the night becomes unbearable for me. I am tormented by this peace: I am most afraid of peace. It seems to me that this is just an appearance that hell is hiding behind it. I am thinking about what will happen to my children tomorrow. They say that the world will be beautiful, but on the other hand, one call is enough to announce the end. We must try to live without feelings, without passions, in the harmony that exists only in the best works of art, and that it is fascinating. We will love to live outside of time, to escape from his captivity. Break out. . .
Get out! This is the advice he left for the next generations. A remark, thrown as if in between cases, but holding a will. A speech that fully reveals him as a leading character... Here lies the whole climax of the film, here is its denouement.
7 out of 10 film.
10 out of 10 for Alain Kuney for a superbly performed role.
Interest in Bohemian life does not leave modern cinema. Here you and “Pretty Woman”, and “The Devil Wears Prada”, and even the domestic “Spiritless” and very fresh “Star”. Few people remember, but the discoverer of this topic was Federico Fellini and his scandalous (which did not prevent the triumph in Cannes) tape “Sweet Life”. The film was criticized by the government and the Catholic Church, and banned in Italy and other countries. At the same time, “The Sweet Life” became the culmination of the great director’s career and his highest grossing film. After the release of the film, the phrase “dolce vita” firmly entered the colloquial speech, as well as the word “paparazzi”, which was called annoying photo reporters chasing the stars.
The film was released in the 60s, time for the whole world is turbulent. Here and the Vietnam War, and the youth cultural revolution, and an extraordinary number of bohemians and extraordinary personalities in society broke out “feast during the plague”. An economic miracle occurred in Italian society at this time when, for the first time since World War II, the economy stabilized and society gradually turned into a consumer society. After the victory over fascism, trying to overcome the damage caused by the war, people accustomed to living in hunger and poverty began to lead a full life, which very soon turned into a saturated one. While society tried not to repeat the mistakes of the recent past, an entire generation formed an idle attitude. The main thing was the life, which Fellini made in the title of the film. Life literally overwhelms all the characters of the film, because until recently it seemed that it was forever defeated by the war. The Achilles heel of that time – the existential crisis and oppressive loneliness, the all-encompassing boredom and spiritual inability to adapt not only to another person, but also to find peace within oneself – was best felt and understood by Michelangelo Antonioni, Fellini only noted the main milestones along the way.
The main character is the writer and secular journalist Marcello Roubini, disappointed in his work. Fellini plays on the contradiction - Marcello strives for a deep search for truth, denunciation of vice, finding meaning and seriousness, everything that the profession of a secular reporter does not imply in principle. The viewer will not see the hero at work, he does not write anything, but only attends social events, where he does not manifest himself. Marcello is not a hero, but an observer. Fellini finds a type of cultural hero of modern times who does not act, but contemplates and invites the viewer not to worry about him, but simply to join with him in this process. Life is fleeting and all that remains for a person is to have time to enjoy its beauty, luxury and joys, while there is still time for this, which is better spent with benefit for yourself, and not for others. This philosophy is close to the worldview concept of Baroque culture, and it is no coincidence that Fellini is very often written as the creator of Baroque cinema.
Marcello's Ideal is Professor Steiner, who speaks wisely and deeply about the problems of being. The main character admires him, and Steiner turns out to be a truly tragic person, aware of his insignificance and uselessness, the meaninglessness and hopelessness of the new era, clearly realizing that next it will only get worse. And he does not want such a present and future for himself and for his children, which explains his desperate act.
For Marcello, life is a woman, hence his tireless search for the one thing that will carry him with him forever. He wants everything to unite in one image: beauty, purity, naivety, originality, mystery, temptation, depth and authenticity of experiences, in short, everything that will allow each moment spent next to her to feel alive. Marcello is surrounded by women, but none of them suit him. His fiancée, Emma, despite his sincere devotion, irritates Marcello with his bigotry and naivety, and he misses her, even though he realizes he needs her. Glamorous party girl Maddalena is mysterious, but the relationship with her is more like a game than real life. She is like a reflection of her in female form. Sylvia, an American movie star, charms Marcello, but with the onset of the morning and her charms dissipate, and the hero is disappointed to realize that he was looking for something in her that was never there at all. Pure and immaculate waitress Paola calls him to free himself from the circle of vice, idleness, but the noise of the waves is too strong, and Marcello is no longer able to hear her. It is so corrupt that there is no turning back for it.
The “sweet life” is permeated by a decline that takes on an all-encompassing character. The fall of morality entails the fall of culture as a whole. Fellini does not answer the main question – how to survive this decline – he simply states it. "Decadence is necessary for rebirth," says the great director. Only how soon the decadence will stop, and how soon the revival will begin – these questions must be answered by us.
Decorative Jesus the Redeemer hovers over the eternal city, tied to a helicopter, and the squad of flirting signorin in swimsuits perceives this as another paparazzi fun. Fellini, of course, was cunning when he said that he did not put irony in the title “Sweet Life” and meant “The Sweetness of Life”. And even more cunning when he wrote that he wanted only to fix reality on film and did not expect a scandal. In the first scenes, he stuck such a knife to Italian society in the late 50s, and all this had such serious consequences that our modern passions for Leviathan seem like childish babble.
There is a dichotomy in Sweet Life. This is an attempt to film the post-war euphoria floating in the air, the pleasures born of the economic breakthrough, and the reflection of new problems, complexes, coupled with the accumulated claims of a mature provincial to the capital. In these claims, including anticlerical, the maestro does not always admit himself. But one can still find a place where Federico calls the Romans that variety of Italians, which is doomed to chronic infantilism. The only culprit is the church.
Love and contempt, tenderness and irritation - the unity and struggle of feelings for the city on film can be traced exactly as much as on paper. Fellini writes that “to live in Rome is happiness,” and at the same time calls its inhabitants “the last from whom he expects anything useful.” However, the immersion in the new aristocracy, with its typical features of golden youth, who have “too much dad’s money” and too little real feelings, raging, albeit in its infancy, but consumerism and the fourth, rudest, shameless and unjust power, seem to tip the scales towards fierce criticism.
It is even symbolic that the name of the photo reporter Paparazzi later became a household name, and the phrase dolce vita firmly entered the world lexicon. As for the main character, provincial secular journalist Marcello, it is said that Mastroiani, working on the role, did not even read the script in advance - so strong was their understanding with Fellini. And the latter is again cunning when he declares that the images embodied by Mastroiani are not his alter ego.
The character of Marcello exchanged literary freedom for a career as a greyhound painter, and by the age of forty he faces a predictable existential crisis when most people realize that they are not living their lives, working not their work, loving an unloved woman, and it is too late to change something. And at the same time, Federico, especially with the intoxicated Rome Anita Ekberg, who is here and Athena and Marilyn in one person, makes it clear why the temptation was so great. Not to succumb to the chic, brilliance and beauty of high-society parties is not for everyone. But the further, the more it looks like overeating, and as a result, poisoning. At the end, Fellini is already openly mocked by a series of tiresome and drawn-out episodes, especially when he makes a “real lady” perform striptease.
What's next? The pebble in our shoe is the hero of a well-to-do Professor Steiner, who seems to suffer from similar problems, but finds such a way out that confuses and shocks any viewer. Surrounded by the routine of a pseudo-noble life, he decides to kill children and commit suicide. What interpretations does not have the episode – from banal mental illness to the desire to save children from the impending madness that we already feel. And that in half a century will reflect in his allusion “the Great beauty” Sorrentino. Fellini himself did not justify Steiner and called him the worst of his villains. But even after reading the transcript of the author, you are not satisfied with the answer and try to find the mystery. What is an essential feature of any great movie.
A classic film, such films are especially interesting to watch to try to understand for yourself: what is genius there?
Frankly, I had a hard time watching this movie, and the closer to the end, the harder it is. That’s because it’s hard for me to accept this lifestyle. Sweet but empty and idle life. In the film, nobody creates anything, nobody strives for anything. Everyone indulges in pleasure, entertainment, everyone who falls into this vicious circle. So Father Marcello, succumbing to temptations, after being devastated, rushes to escape. But Marcello himself can't get out. Even if the angel calls.
It turns out that all this beauty is worth nothing. That under this halo of success and self-confidence lies the bitterness, the pain of emptiness and meaninglessness. And love is always perverted, it does not create, but torments.
9 out of 10