The only man, un autore, who speaks of love in the film shoots those he loves most at close range, his children behind white billowing diaphanous curtains, then, seated in his black leather armchair, in his black suit, himself.
We should learn to love each other so much we live outside time ... detached.
He said (Steiner). La Dolce Vita (1960).
Who can love in a world where money must be made? The film is from a man's perspective. It is the women who talk of love; if love is spoken of. Especially Marcello's fierce, suicidal and beautiful girlfriend for whom love is possessive.
Those whose lives overflow with money don't know what to do with love either. Fellini knows this. Love wants to hold, to keep forever in its embrace, but it's all feathers. The clouds of pillows become unstuffed. We are tarred with our desires. What we are searching for are endings.
(Or so Fellini implies, not I.)
(from a mss-in-progress)
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Woman with Flowers 7.1
(7th sketch in series, first iteration of this one) Woman with Flowers Flowers, props upholding the woman. The flowers, fragrant, imaginar...
-
The Buddha says: “ You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself .” The path is uncertain. Uncertainty is the guiding for...
-
What if relationships are the primary ordering principle? What if the way relationships are ordered clarify, explain, and instruct us on th...
-
direct link: Tones of Noir music: Alex Bailey, ' Piano Improvisation No 7 .' Do poems wait to be born? A poem whittled out of t...
He always thought we were in search of endings... 8-1/2, La Strada, Satyricon, Roma... all films I could watch over and over, though I think Roma is my favorite, because it is he, un autore, most in search of how things will be when they are over...
ReplyDeleteWhat does Encolpio say? "Ascilto... what does the poet say? Each moment presented may be your last, so fill it up until you vomit... or something such?"
Suze, ooee a beer commercial... that'd be most interesting, how to crystalize La Dolce Vita into a 2 minute slot. The movie was a visual delight, Marcello, his women, his zappy convertible, whether to be a gossip columnist or un autore, adorable.
ReplyDeleteNarrator, a Fellini fan! I saw Satyricon as a teenager... some others over the years, like twoberry, it's time to hit Blockbuster (who didn't have this movie, I had to go further afield). And it wasn't in good condition, it stopped 3 times, at crucial scenes, which simply wouldn't play and required ejecting the DVD and restarting at the next scene, who knows what I missed.
One of the places it froze was in the 500 year old haunted mansion when Marcello was distraught, looking for the disappeared self-proclaimed whore, Maddalena, whom he had just proposed to via an interesting 'sound system,' at the scene at the four poster bed, what a bed, it actually slanted, anyway, the scene froze at that moment, and then some moments later showed light illumining the bed, and I knew something significant was to happen, a seduction, what could it be but a seduction, but that was it, I was not to see anymore.
The next playable scene was of Emma, his girlfriend, in one of those 50s scarfs over a beehive of dark hair, yelling at him, asking who loved him, on the empty night road by the pylons, and of course he abandons her to find a ride with a truck driver, but comes tooting back and they reconcile in bed.
What happened at the dusty old bed in the haunted mansion, do you remember?
Twoberry, I know you would enjoy this Fellini flick. It's an early one, and delightful. You might even forgive him for his later films... :)
Fellini is the patron saint of starving artists, but i doubt he ever had to eat from a dumpster!
ReplyDeletei KNOW for a fact that my book would be embraced by the Fellini crowd IF they were exposed to it...but one of the setbacks of being an independent artist without the networks of "chic" critics to propel your works into the spotlight is that you're pinned with the meglomaniacal monicker!!!
Sour grapes?
Nah, jsut the reality that the internet is NOT a virtual showcase for talent, just a cyber collection of cliques. If i didn't know you from xanga, chances of our paths crossing would almost be less than zero.
EminemsRevenge, I wrote a long comment and lost it when I went to Xanga to see if I could find a link to Jew Girl and the site kept trying to load and my system froze.
ReplyDeleteSweetie, perhaps the best solution for what ails you is to write another book. Publishers apparently prefer to hear that an author has 3 unpublished manscripts, or so I heard at a writing site of professional writers once. Then when you get famous, you can roll out all these other books - :)
Don't forget it took Blake 400 years to get recognition, and he & Mrs Blake didn't live too well either. Yet he still produced book after book and illustrated and hand-coloured them all, one has to admire his tenacity if nothing else. It wasn't until he was re-discovered in a used bookstore in somewhere like London that things began to pick up for him. Of course, he was long dead by then...
I had some stuff on Fellini too, & Wertmuller, but it's gone, vanished into cyberspace. Or into the Great Dumpster. :)
.. i've never seen the film. you've made me want to, Brenda.
ReplyDeleteMary, despite the gloomy bits that I focussed on, sorry about that, La Dolce Vita really is a wonderful party. If the copy I have wasn't scratched, I'd watch it again. It's a grand romp, oh to go swmming in a fountain in Rome at dawn in our ballroom gowns!
ReplyDeleteQuote: "Who can love in a world where money must be made?"
ReplyDeleteI sometimes feel this with Art, the full flourishing of it. Then again, when time is limited, one makes the most of it, as in life, I should suppose.
I have not seen this film, either, but as Mary said, I should now like to.
Many Blessings~
You say a lot here, Brenda. I'd like to see where you're heading with this. Hope you'll post more.
ReplyDelete