Marcello Mastroianni

La Dolce Vita [The Good Life] (1960)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-09-192023-03-19 Movie Review

(On DVD, September 2019) At nearly three hours of a nearly plotless movie about a nearly unlikable protagonist, writer-director Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita can be a trying viewing experience. It’s a collage of scenes with minimal narrative connective tissue, a lot of supporting characters that come and go without resolution, a decidedly depressing outlook on the search for meaning and enough ambiguity and loose ends to frustrate anyone who thinks that cinema is a primarily story-driven art form. That used to describe me almost perfectly a few years ago, but I’ve grown far more relaxed in my outlook for a while, striving to find pleasure even in movies that would have exasperated me not too long ago. La Dolce Vita does manage to remain interesting despite having been made into cliché—much of what it did to shock audiences back in 1960 (it was banned in a few countries) has been remade, redone, and re-examined (often far more interestingly, sometimes even by Fellini himself). We’re not exactly shocked anymore by a protagonist going from woman to woman, adventure to adventure, excess after excess in search of existential fulfillment. We’re not so shocked by backless dresses, form-fitting bras or prudish stripteases filmed to avoid showing nudity. There are scores of meandering films chronicling a few days in the life of an erring protagonist. But La Dolce Vita remains the ur-example of the form for a reason—it’s at its best when it jumps the bounds of strict Italian neorealism to spend some time in Fellini’s expressionist imagination. It features an impressive number of striking women: Anita Ekberg certainly makes an impression as a movie star in the film’s most purely enjoyable moment. But above all, La Dolce Vita features Marcello Mastroianni, world-class-cool despite playing a borderline reprehensible character. We can coast a long time on Mastrantonio’s charm and the odd visuals that the film throws at us in the middle of the protagonist’s search for meaning. It doesn’t really lead anywhere but a melancholic sense of missed opportunities, but it’s an interesting trip. This being said: I’ve seen the film, all 174 minutes of it. I don’t need to do so again anytime soon.

Movie Review

La Notte [The Night] (1961)

ByChristian Sauvé 2018-11-182019-11-18 Movie Review

(Kanopy Streaming, November 2018) I’m not particularly receptive to the kind of downbeat intimate drama that is Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte, but two things in the film kept me from being completely uninterested: The depiction of Milan, resurging from the post-war years in that charming 1960s energy, and Marcello Mastroianni being always cool (as a writer!) even when playing Don Draper’s early inspiration. Jeanne Moreau is also wonderful, even if her character is in the midst of a full-fledged marital crisis with a fairly obvious destination. Otherwise, well, this is the portrait of a marriage in full disintegration, which isn’t the most cheerful of topics. The premise is made even worse by Antonioni’s typically contemplative style: there is only one exit for the characters (divorce) and the viewers (waiting until the end credits) as well. What must have been a breath of fresh air in 1961 compared to the Hollywood Golden Age has been made and remade endless times since then, so modern viewers may not find anything as fresh as then-contemporary audiences. Dull, slow-moving and depressing, La Notte is a very specific kind of film for a very specific kind of viewer.

Movie Review

8½ (1963)

ByChristian Sauvé 2018-09-092019-09-12 Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2018) Approaching Frederico Fellini’s 8½ comes with a heavy set of expectations: How can you watch something widely lauded as one of the best movies ever made without feeling at least a bit apprehensive? Do I have to turn in my film critic’s card if I don’t like it? Won’t the cool kids at the European arthouse table make fun of me? After all, I’m already not such a big fan of surrealist black-and-white auteur-driven European cinema. As it turns out, I shouldn’t have worried, because I ended up enjoying 8½ a lot more than I expected. Not to the level of an all-time favourite, but well enough to considering it reasonably entertaining. It helps that the film has a lot of hooks to be interesting. It was remade as a big-screen musical in 2010 as the disappointing Nine, giving me an idea of the (disconnected) plot ahead of time. It features a movie director having trouble with his latest science-fiction epic, hitting at least two of my soft spots in one premise. It does have the advantage of a gallery of attractive actresses fawning over the protagonist. (Leading to a hilarious dream sequence in which the protagonist imagines visiting all of his past relationships living under one roof.) It features Marcello Mastroianni, who embodies the coolest of what 1960s Italy had to offer. It partially takes place at a health retreat, the kind of dream resort that wealthy Europeans like to portray on-screen. 8½ does end up being remarkably funny at times, in-between Fellini looking so deep inward that the film ends up feeling like a Klein bottle. Much of the film’s deeper effect is lost on me due to incomplete knowledge: I partially resent how much of 8½ (including its very title) is incomprehensible if you’re not thoroughly up to speed on Fellini and the state of circa-1963 Italian cinema. Wikipedia does help, but movies should not require a reading list prior to viewing. Still, it works well enough even during surface viewing. Though it does feel too long and isn’t as tightly sewn as I would have preferred, 8½ is a remarkable piece of cinema that works on several levels and does offer a playful look at some resonant issues. I won’t put it near the top of my personal pantheon, but I liked it a lot more than I expected. In my mind, my 8½/Nine mashup has gorgeous colour cinematography, an out-of-control Sci-Fi spectacular, snappy musical numbers and Mastroianni dreaming that he’s Daniel Day-Lewis cavorting with Penélope Cruz and Claudia Cardinale.