La Dolce Vita and The Great Beauty

La Dolce Vita was released in 1960. The movie was directed by the legendary Federico Fellini and would become his biggest hit, arguably his most famous work, which is ironic considering that the movie is a critique of the culture of fame and the concomitant decadence and luxury. The film is surreal, sensual, and ultimately, incredibly sad. More than 50 years later, La Grande Bellezza or The Great Beauty, directed by Paolo Sorrentino, would be released (in 2013; it would win the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film). The movie is also centred around decadence, however, the way the protagonists tackle it is different. In La Dolce Vita (LDV), our protagonist is Marcello Rubini, a celebrity journalist, is not necessarily in that cesspool of ostentation and indulgence, but after a tragic incident, he cannot help but sink to the bottom of it. On the other hand, we have Jep Gambardella, who is also a famed journalist and made his place in Roman high society with the publication of his first and hitherto last book - ‘The Human Apparatus’ - who actively seeks to evade that morass and find some salvation beyond, in pure realms of truth and genuine love. Even with this laconic introduction, it is already clear that there are significant similarities of character and theme, but there are differences as well, some subtle but nonetheless impactful, and it is these features that will be compared and contrasted in this analysis.

Before proceeding, please do note that there will be major spoilers to the plot of both films, so please do see the movies if you have not to have a better understanding of the remarks made here as well. These movies are outstanding and are worth watching.

To begin: the protagonists. Marcello Rubini is more profoundly melancholic in his characterisation. One reason is that Marcello wants more out life, desperately so. The relationship he has with Sylvia, the Swedish actress, is symbolic of this. Sylvia is a stunning woman, is extremely famous and when she comes to Italy is heavily lionised, and she has a personality of innocence and naivety; she has the boundless curiosity of a child, and hence, the puerile tenacity to explore. Marcello wants her, he wants to be with her. But that is a forbidden fate, as long as he is who he is. A reporter, of no special parsonage, with no special relation. Her social status, her milieu is supercilious to that of Marcello’s, and thus, they can never be together.

Marcello is in an unhealthy relationship. His girlfriend indulges in drugs and in the beginning of the film, overdoses. Her desires are abstruse to fully understand. She constantly wants Marcello to be with her and is always suspicious of him, a suspicion which is justified to some extent, since Marcello does fornicate with a wealthy heiress - another elusive inamorata. But her tenacity for Marcello’s touch, for his love, is like an obsession. Now is that bad? Well, it’s not bad to want to be with one’s lover, but that does not mean they become prisoner and forsake their freedom and independence for the company of another, just so one can satisfy their carnal carvings or insecurities. Towards the end of the movie the two get into an acrimonious fight, but due to some strange magnetism, they are attracted back, finding each other in bed.

Marcello is also an aspiring novelist. He was writing a book, but for some reason, never finished it. A coincidental meeting with a mentor that leads to a dinner party at said mentor’s abode, results in Marcello being fuelled with creative energy. He tries writing in a cafe, run by a girl and partly so by her younger brother. As the movie unfolds, the mentor commits suicide, killing his two children as well. A tragedy. Marcello is deeply afflicted by this. Marcello then is entrained into a maelstrom of debauchery, and it only spirals down. Following a party - a debauch - Marcello, who is evidently morose and helpless, hopeless, find himself on a beach and sees a girl. It is the same girl of the cafe, now grown up. She waves to him, but he does not recognise her, he simply stares. The girl would seem to be a symbol of Marcello’s wish to write a back, but more than that, a symbol of his aspirations, of the ambitious person he once was, before he was steeped into the terrible world of fame and its concomitant vices. Decadence and luxury are putrescent, according to Marcello’s fate, according to Fellini’s eye.

Jep Gambardella (who shall be referred to as ‘Jep’ for brevity), shares many traits with Marcello but also has some differences. Jep is a celebrity journalist. Jep is most certainly acquainted with high society. He is charismatic. He is also a novelist. He seeks more out of life. Love has played an intricate course through his life. He has been struck by tragedy. But in the end, his fate is different. It is more epiphanic, than Marcello’s damnation.

Unlike Marcello, Jep is a part of high society, while Marcello is a spectator. Thus, with Jep he has been at the very centre of pompous festivities and ostentation, while Marcello too some extent wishes to be a part of it, or escape his role of being bound to it. At the beginning of the movie, there is a scene showing wide shots of the cityscape of Rome accompanied by a haunting chorus laden with dirgeful melodies. Then there is a massive party. It is Jep’s sixty fifth birthday and the celebrations are the very epitome of excess. The contrast is stark and establishes one of the main aspects of the movie - that there is more to life than materialistic pleasure, which is a very epicurean. Following the debacle, Jep realises that he does not want to spend what precious time he has doing things he does not want to do. Does jep wish for something spiritual, does he want to be self-actualised, to transcend temporal worlds? Likely. But then what does Marcello want? Their situations are nearly identical, but the differences are there and they are intricate. Jep wants a to be transfigured, he wants purpose; Marcello wants the same but according to people’s standards.

These two characters seem to go hand in hand, they fit each other. /La Dolce VIta/ seems to pose a problem, or at least how bad things can get in a world of debauchery. But, /lLa Grande Belleza/ seems to propose a solution. It seems to show that there is a way beyond, that one can escape such miserableness symbolised by the revelatory ending of the movie: Jep is inside a memory, standing on a moon-blanched cliff, opposing his first true love and there as a lighthouse continually shines upon him, and there is realises that life is ‘just a trick’.

Image Credit: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jan/03/la-dolce-vita-review-federico-fellini-marcello-mastroianni

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/02/the-great-beauty-fashion