La Dolce vita

We've watched a few films with subtitles this semester, and the viewing process always feels a little disjointed. For one, when reading the dialog my eyes are taken away from important visual elements. It's also near impossible to take notes without missing something. While these are just a few problems that arise when watching a foreign language film, I'd say it's definitely worth the sacrafices. And of course, it beats becoming multi-lingual. But of all the foreign films we've viewed so far, La Dolce vita was by far the most conflicting on my eyes. There were just so many moments of visual euphoria that I did not wish to avert my attention from, but I had to to know what was going on. And for what? For the most part, there wasn't anything going on, in the sense of a plot or structure (at least within my own comprehension). For this blog post I decided to devote my attention to the parts of La Dolce vita that conflicted my eyes and left me wondering...well, just wondering.

Frankie
The only thing I was certain about when it came to Frankie was that he looked a lot like Will Ferrell's character in Zoolander, Mugatu. I did like how Sylvia's description of him as"an actor" was good enough justification for his insanity. The reading helped me understand the role of Frankie more than I did upon first viewing. He definitely serves as a "charicature" within the film's "almost documentary realism, making us see the "unusual in a familiar context."

Sylvia's voice
Did anyone else notice how hers was often the only discernible voice? It would be normal for her voice to standout among the mashup of background noises in an effort to let her be heard, but in the dance scene, for instance, the background noises were incredibly muffled, and no one even responded to what she was saying. She was the focal point to an extreme, with no legible responses from anyone.

EYES
Eyes were a prominent symbol in this film, but of what? When the one celebrity gets off the plane, the paparazzi beg to see her eyes but she refuses to take off her sunglasses. She has no problem accomodating the photographers in other ways, but her eyes are off limits. Then there are the portraits of the women in the one family. They all have the same eyes, Marcello says. To me they all shared similar intensity to the Mona Lisa's. And of there's that mysterious fish that washes up onto the coast in the closing scene. I couldn't tell what it was, but I could see two very large eyes, the only real proof that it was a once-living creature at all. And finally, we are left with the image of the girl, with the focus on her thoughtful eyes. I have one proposal about this symbol: perhaps Fellini meant to question the way we view people. With eyes such a focus of the film, he seems to stress the importance of how we use our eyes, how we perceive the world from our own perspectives, and how others perceive us.

Marcello rides the girl like a horse
This was clearly meant to shock. Not only in what Marcello was doing to the "chubby country girl," but the way she put up with it. He rode her like a horse, feathered her to look like a chicken, and what did she have to say for herself? "SQUAWK!" It was disturbing. If anything, the extremes Marcello used in depicting women as defenseless had me siding with the women. But they did not seem like real depictions at all and in some cases I honestly wasn't sure what to feel other than perturbed. When Marcello left his wife stranded after verbally abusing her, however, because she had put up somewhat of a fight I naturally felt far more sympathy for her -- she seemed more real.