Article3:La Dolce Vita (part2)

It not only did exceptional buisness in the period immediately after its release but it was still making money five years later. The film scandalized well-to-do conservative audiences but intrigued people in the provinces and South. An amusing example of this occurs in Pietro Germi's "Divorce Italian Style" (1961), a comedy of manners set in Sicily that also starred Mastroianni. In one scene a group of men is seen in church looking up at the priest who is delivering a tirade against the immorality of La Dolce Vita. In the following scene they are all seen gawking at a screen on which the film is being shown.

The film held up a mirror to the nation, offering a rare opportunity for a collective reflection on the state of society. But it was also a spectacle that appealed as entertainment, and employed a theme new to Italian cinema: eroticism. The film used many fewer well-known stars than Fellini had intended. Originally, Maurice Chevalier, Henry Fonda and Veteran Oscar winner Luise Rainer were given roles, but the difficulty in securing adequate finance delayed the start of shooting and made the particapation of the former two impossible. Dino De Laurentis, a prospective producer before the the role finally fell to the Milan publisher Angelo Rizzoli, wanted the lead role to be offered to Paul Newman but Fellini insisted on Mastroianni. Although the film turned him into an international sex symbol, Mastioanni was in fact chosen because he was familiar and reliable, a respectable and unexciting everyman with whom spectators could easily identify. His cordial and exceptional features were the ideal vehicle for transporting audiences on a journey through a world of temptation and corruption. He was supported by a varied female cast including the Swedish actress Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimee, Yvonne Furneaux and Nada Gray.

Much of the film is permeated with sexual tension but two scenes in particular came to symbolize its daring novelty. The first of these comes early in the film when the voluptuous Ekberg, who plays the part of a visiting Hollywood star, decides to take a night time dip in the Trevi fountain. Mastrianni, the press agent who is detailed to follow her, simply watches in amazement as he witnesses the statueque actress parade through the waters like a goddess. When he finally responds to an invitation to join her, he does not touch her but holds himself back, fearful that he will be lost if he succumbs fully to the fascination of a woman who symbolizes a new world of consumption, ease and uninhibited behaviour. With her child like curiousity, irresponsible spirit and extraordinary physical presence, Ekberg transfixed Italians and added an important fantasy element to film.
The film's second signature scene was less influential in the long term, but it contributed more than any other single factor to its "succes de scandale". This was the 'orgy scene' that occurs towards the end of Mastroianni's progressive absorption into a decadent and inauthentic way of living. In the company of a heterogeneous band of aristocrats, foreign exiles, entertainers and homosexuals looking for something new to awaken their jaded appetites at the conclusion of a night of revelry, he breaks into a villa where the party continues. The proceedings are enlivened by the impromptu striptease of an exhibitionist American, played by Nadia Gray. The scene is mild indeed by today's standards, but in 1960 it carried a powerful charge of transgression. It was also seen as central to the alleged denunciation by Fellini of the corrupt indolence of the rich and the powerful. In the films subsequent and final scene, the motley gathering, now transferred to the nearby beach, watch in amazement as a dead sea monster is hauled ashore. Many observers saw the rotting flesh of this creature as a metaphore for the putrefaction of a society that was on the point of collapse. At the end of the film, Mastroianni is seen dismissing with a carless wave the innocent girl from the seafront cafe. Despite a shouted invitation to join her, he cannot hear her words above the sound of the waves. Finally corrupted beyond redemption, he preferres the company of the debauched.

Both the Trevi fountain scene and the 'orgy' provide examples of the way Fellini and his collaborators wove reinterpretations of real events into the narrative of La Dolce Vita. Ekberg was required merely to act as herself. She had arrived in Rome in 1958 to make "War and Peace" and had immediately become a favorite of the illustrated weeklies. Her wedding to the British actor Anthony Steel in Florence almost as much coverage as the marrage of Tyrone Power and Linda Christian in 1949. Ekberg had also been photographed in the Trevi fountain. The orgy was modeled on the strip performed by the Turkish dancer Aiche Nana at Rome's Rugantino nightclub in November 1958. What had been a rather sedate party had suddenly taken a bohemian turn when the ubiquitous Ekberg had cast off her shoes to dance. Nana took things several steps further and, as the women present mostly withdrew, she contorted to the jazz rhythms of the band in front of an audience that included several well-known members of the aristocracy. Before the police intervened, Tazio Secchiaroli, the photographer on whom the the character Paparazzo was based, recorded the event in a series of images that appeared - complete with strategic black strips to obscure the identity of those present and partially conceal Nana's nudity - in the political weekly l'Espresso. The publication of these pictures caused an outcry and the magazine was impounded as an obscene publication.
Although both of these key episodes in the film actually occurred, they were in fact examples of what Boorstin called 'pseudo-events'. From his office on the Via Veneto, the press agent Enrico Lucherini devised a whole series of stunts that served to publicize new films. These included Ekberg's dip in the fountain and events that mimicked aspects of the Rugantino scandal. Between them, Lucherini and photographers like Secchiaroli created the sensational image of Roman life that formed the basis of Fellini's inspiration and fueled Rome's reputation as a center for style, sex and scandal to which the film greatly contributed.

Perhaps the most salient aspect of the film's triumph as image was the utter disjunction of this from any critical judgement, moral or otherwise. In the promotional materials prepared for distribution in the United States, exhibitors were encouraged to persuade local stores to use the idea of the 'sweet life' to sell chocolates, air-fresheners or Italian products. Any satirical element completely disappeared.
Long before the term 'Fellini-esque' entered the English language, La Dolce Vita became a seductive cliché. Among the foreign authors who set their work in a Rome reminiscent of Fellini's film was Tennessee Williams, whose 'The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone was made made into a film starring Warren Beatty in 1961. Irwin Shaw's 'Two Weeks in Another Town was also filmed (released in 1962), with Kirk Douglas as an American film star in decline, while Muriel Spark wrote of a British actress on the ascendant in "The Public Image", which for good measure included an orgy. Among the many original films which traded on Italy's appeal to film audiences after La Dolce Vita was John Schlesinger's "Darling (1965)", in which Julie Christie abandons a comfortable existence in London with Dirk Bogarde for an ultimately unhappy life in Italy that includes a brief marriage to an ageing aristocrat.
The success of La Dolce Vita at home and abroad heralded the end of the Via Veneto's popularity with movie stars, the aristocracy and the international rich. The celebrities fled as tourists flocked to to the road hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous and perhaps even receive an invitation to an orgy. But the city's reputation was perpetuated by occasional events such as the affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton during the filming of "Cleopatra" in 1962. As the 1960s began to 'swing' and youth emerged as a distinct cultural category, Rome was replaced as the leading center of fashion by London. Yet its appeal was never entirely eclipsed. Vespas, sharp suits and sunglasses all became a part of the British Mod look.
For two centuries, Italy had offered well-off foreign travelers a taste of excitement, mixing wonderment at the glory of its ancient civilization and artistic heritage with the ambiguous attractions of its more primitive passions. After La Dolce Vita the country was seen as a forerunner of the permissive society. In reality, Italian society continued to be closed and intolerant. Prior to the divorce referendum of 1974, which signaled a historic defeat for clerical conservatism, films were frequently censored and magazines seized. Artists and journalist were regularly sent for trial on charges of outraging public decency. But the country had acquired a sexy new image that refurbished its old glamour in the eyes of outsiders, and definitively replaced both the residual memories of Fascism, and the social and political concerns of the postwar years.


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		La Dolce Vita (part2)



		The controversy raged for weeks (during its initial release) in the press and turned La Dolce Vita into a social and cultural event. Although uncommonly high ticket prices were charged to see the nearly three-hour-long film, it proved a huge success. It broke all box-office records. easily outclassing its main rival, Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot" (1959). It not only did exceptional buisness in the period immediately after its release but it was still making money five years later. The film scandalized well-to-do conservative audiences but intrigued people in the provinces and South. An amusing example of this occurs in Pietro Germi's "Divorce Italian Style" (1961), a comedy of manners set in Sicily that also starred Mastroianni. In one scene a group of men is seen in church looking up at the priest who is delivering a tirade against the immorality of La Dolce Vita. In the following scene they are all seen gawking at a screen on which the film is being shown. The film held up a mirror to the nation, offering a rare opportunity for a collective reflection on the state of society. But it was also a spectacle that appealed as entertainment, and employed a theme new to Italian cinema: eroticism. The film used many fewer well-known stars than Fellini had intended. Originally, Maurice Chevalier, Henry Fonda and Veteran Oscar winner Luise Rainer were given roles, but the difficulty in securing adequate finance delayed the start of shooting and made the particapation of the former two impossible. Dino De Laurentis, a prospective producer before the the role finally fell to the Milan publisher Angelo Rizzoli, wanted the lead role to be offered to Paul Newman but Fellini insisted on Mastroianni. Although the film turned him into an international sex symbol, Mastioanni was in fact chosen because he was familiar and reliable, a respectable and unexciting everyman with whom spectators could easily identify. His cordial and exceptional features were the ideal vehicle for transporting audiences on a journey through a world of temptation and corruption. He was supported by a varied female cast including the Swedish actress Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimee, Yvonne Furneaux and Nada Gray. Much of the film is permeated with sexual tension but two scenes in particular came to symbolize its daring novelty. The first of these comes early in the film when the voluptuous Ekberg, who plays the part of a visiting Hollywood star, decides to take a night time dip in the Trevi fountain. Mastrianni, the press agent who is detailed to follow her, simply watches in amazement as he witnesses the statueque actress parade through the waters like a goddess. When he finally responds to an invitation to join her, he does not touch her but holds himself back, fearful that he will be lost if he succumbs fully to the fascination of a woman who symbolizes a new world of consumption, ease and uninhibited behaviour. With her child like curiousity, irresponsible spirit and extraordinary physical presence, Ekberg transfixed Italians and added an important fantasy element to film. The film's second signature scene was less influential in the long term, but it contributed more than any other single factor to its "succes de scandale". This was the 'orgy scene' that occurs towards the end of Mastroianni's progressive absorption into a decadent and inauthentic way of living. In the company of a heterogeneous band of aristocrats, foreign exiles, entertainers and homosexuals looking for something new to awaken their jaded appetites at the conclusion of a night of revelry, he breaks into a villa where the party continues. The proceedings are enlivened by the impromptu striptease of an exhibitionist American, played by Nadia Gray. The scene is mild indeed by today's standards, but in 1960 it carried a powerful charge of transgression. It was also seen as central to the alleged denunciation by Fellini of the corrupt indolence of the rich and the powerful. In the films subsequent and final scene, the motley gathering, now transferred to the nearby beach, watch in amazement as a dead sea monster is hauled ashore. Many observers saw the rotting flesh of this creature as a metaphore for the putrefaction of a society that was on the point of collapse. At the end of the film, Mastroianni is seen dismissing with a carless wave the innocent girl from the seafront cafe. Despite a shouted invitation to join her, he cannot hear her words above the sound of the waves. Finally corrupted beyond redemption, he preferres the company of the debauched. Both the Trevi fountain scene and the 'orgy' provide examples of the way Fellini and his collaborators wove reinterpretations of real events into the narrative of La Dolce Vita. Ekberg was required merely to act as herself. She had arrived in Rome in 1958 to make "War and Peace" and had immediately become a favorite of the illustrated weeklies. Her wedding to the British actor Anthony Steel in Florence almost as much coverage as the marrage of Tyrone Power and Linda Christian in 1949. Ekberg had also been photographed in the Trevi fountain. The orgy was modeled on the strip performed by the Turkish dancer Aiche Nana at Rome's Rugantino nightclub in November 1958. What had been a rather sedate party had suddenly taken a bohemian turn when the ubiquitous Ekberg had cast off her shoes to dance. Nana took things several steps further and, as the women present mostly withdrew, she contorted to the jazz rhythms of the band in front of an audience that included several well-known members of the aristocracy. Before the police intervened, Tazio Secchiaroli, the photographer on whom the the character Paparazzo was based, recorded the event in a series of images that appeared - complete with strategic black strips to obscure the identity of those present and partially conceal Nana's nudity - in the political weekly l'Espresso. The publication of these pictures caused an outcry and the magazine was impounded as an obscene publication. Although both of these key episodes in the film actually occurred, they were in fact examples of what Boorstin called 'pseudo-events'. From his office on the Via Veneto, the press agent Enrico Lucherini devised a whole series of stunts that served to publicize new films. These included Ekberg's dip in the fountain and events that mimicked aspects of the Rugantino scandal. Between them, Lucherini and photographers like Secchiaroli created the sensational image of Roman life that formed the basis of Fellini's inspiration and fueled Rome's reputation as a center for style, sex and scandal to which the film greatly contributed. Perhaps the most salient aspect of the film's triumph as image was the utter disjunction of this from any critical judgement, moral or otherwise. In the promotional materials prepared for distribution in the United States, exhibitors were encouraged to persuade local stores to use the idea of the 'sweet life' to sell chocolates, air-fresheners or Italian products. Any satirical element completely disappeared. Long before the term 'Fellini-esque' entered the English language, La Dolce Vita became a seductive cliché. Among the foreign authors who set their work in a Rome reminiscent of Fellini's film was Tennessee Williams, whose 'The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone was made made into a film starring Warren Beatty in 1961. Irwin Shaw's 'Two Weeks in Another Town was also filmed (released in 1962), with Kirk Douglas as an American film star in decline, while Muriel Spark wrote of a British actress on the ascendant in "The Public Image", which for good measure included an orgy. Among the many original films which traded on Italy's appeal to film audiences after La Dolce Vita was John Schlesinger's "Darling (1965)", in which Julie Christie abandons a comfortable existence in London with Dirk Bogarde for an ultimately unhappy life in Italy that includes a brief marriage to an ageing aristocrat. The success of La Dolce Vita at home and abroad heralded the end of the Via Veneto's popularity with movie stars, the aristocracy and the international rich. The celebrities fled as tourists flocked to to the road hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous and perhaps even receive an invitation to an orgy. But the city's reputation was perpetuated by occasional events such as the affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton during the filming of "Cleopatra" in 1962. As the 1960s began to 'swing' and youth emerged as a distinct cultural category, Rome was replaced as the leading center of fashion by London. Yet its appeal was never entirely eclipsed. Vespas, sharp suits and sunglasses all became a part of the British Mod look. For two centuries, Italy had offered well-off foreign travelers a taste of excitement, mixing wonderment at the glory of its ancient civilization and artistic heritage with the ambiguous attractions of its more primitive passions. After La Dolce Vita the country was seen as a forerunner of the permissive society. In reality, Italian society continued to be closed and intolerant. Prior to the divorce referendum of 1974, which signaled a historic defeat for clerical conservatism, films were frequently censored and magazines seized. Artists and journalist were regularly sent for trial on charges of outraging public decency. But the country had acquired a sexy new image that refurbished its old glamour in the eyes of outsiders, and definitively replaced both the residual memories of Fascism, and the social and political concerns of the postwar years. creative film...