Happy Birthday La Dolce Vita

[Mashinka]

The BBC celebrates the 50th birthday of Fellini's masterpiece La Dolce Vita. Surely Anita Ekberg links up with the current threads on glamour and vamps; she has to be the most voluptuous actress of all time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7925032.stm

This film has always had a lot of admirers; some 20 odd years ago I was on holiday on the island of Malta when I discovered the most wonderful restaurant at St Julian's. Calling it La Dolce was actually rather apt for an Italian eatery, but this place was owned by someone with an absolute obsession with the films as this huge restaurant of several floors built right over the waves of the Mediterranean was crammed with posters, stills and memorabilia from the film: it was wonderful and the food was pretty good too.

[papeetepatrick]

Pretty good article, thanks for posting it. I probably think so because I agree that it's the apotheosis of Fellini's work. 8 1/2 has that same spaciousness, but La Dolce Vita is the most singular. And I don't think they thought to mention Anouk Aimee. Anouk Aimee should always be mentioned!

No, I looked back, Anouk is still there, one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the screen.

[dirac]

Thanks for the article, Mashinka. I tend to remember Ekberg best for a movie in which she did not appear, “From Russia with Love,” in which an assassin tries unsuccessfully to escape pursuit by crawling through her open mouth in an oversized poster for “Call Me Bwana.”

[Farrell Fan]

Just want to add my thanks for the article. I like "8 1/2" better than "La Dolce Vita," but the fact is I admire all of Maestro Fellini's films, even those that aren't so memorable.

[papeetepatrick]

I should hereby add that I do agree that Anita Ekberg is magnificent beyond all imagining in 'La Dolce Vita'. She would go on to gain enormous weight, but I remember the exact moment when I first saw the ad with the 'iconic image'. It is simply unforgettable, and she is everything the Marcello character imagines her to be (because such things can only be temporary.)

[dirac]

Ekberg also appeared in two Martin and Lewis features directed by Frank Tashlin, Hollywood or Bust and Artists and Models.

[bart]

Ekberg also appeared in two Martin and Lewis features directed by Frank Tashlin, Hollywood or Bust and Artists and Models.

And let's not forget Fellini's pseudo-documentary film, Intervista. We see Ekberg and Mastroianni watching, in the mid 1980s) their own young and glorious selves as they were, in the Fontana di Trevi sequence, a quarter of a century or more earlier. It's a strange and heart-breaking moment.

[EricMontreal22]

Thanks so much for the link! This is far and away my fave Fellini film.

When I was 19 a friend dragged me to a screening of it--I really wasn't in the mood for such a long film but was absolutely entranced. A few months later I ended up spending a couple of weeks in Rome. The film had made such an impression on me that I decided to pay the extra to go up St Peter's Dome--just because Anna Ekberg ran up there in the movie! The problem is I'm petrified of heights--so getting to walk around the top of the dome *inside* on a grated floor, and then climbing up an endless tight spiral staircase was one of the hardest things I've ever made myself do--when I reached the top all sweaty and got to setp outside I felt like I had climbed Everest. But it was worth it just to relive that movie moment. (I have a feeling that even in Italy, due to legal issues, soon they won't let people make that climb--nothing about it felt safe!)