2011 Tarkovsky Prize 3rd Place: Midori Chen
EPISODES IN LA DOLCE VITA
by Midori Chen
While Marcello’s many episodes with different people at different places may not seem to be in order of particular importance, each story arc seems to have the plot sequence of 1.) The Encounter, 2.) The High, and finally 3.) The Tragedy. Each Encounter offers the hope of a new life for Marcello, each High convinces him that the life is perfect for him, and each Tragedy sends Marcello’s hopes crumbling down, until, at last, he hits rock bottom at the ending party, with the eye of nature looking up at him, and Marcello being too blind to recognize the girl, and most importantly, his writing, which might have saved him.
The first principal episode is Marcello’s meeting with Maddalena at the nightclub. He sees her by chance, which would be The Encounter. The High would be when they went to the house of a prostitute and proceeds to make love. When Marcello returns home and finds Emma on the ground, having overdosed, his panicked professions of eternal love is The Tragedy.
The arrival of American actress Sylvia marks the beginning of the “second episode,” and his talk with Sylvia on the top of St. Peter’s dome would be the first time they’ve “met.” There are ups and downs in the events following, but mainly, The High would be the party Sylvia dances at, and the overarching Tragedy would be when the sun rises, and the water in the Trevi Fountain gets turned off; it effectively broke the movie-esque spell of love and romance Marcello and Sylvia were in, prompting them to leave.
The third episode is scattered throughout the film, but mainly centers around Marcello’s relationship with the wealthy intellectual Steiner. The Encounter is at a church, where Steiner plays the organ for Marcello. He later invites Marcello to the gathering at his house, where they listen to sounds of nature recorded on tape—a homage to the fact that this is all being portrayed in a movie—natural scenes put into manmade recorders and distributed. While it wasn’t the most “high,” the party would count as the second step. The Tragedy is, obviously, the suicide of Steiner after he killed his two children, because he didn’t wish for them to experience the ugly side of the world. Marcello was deeply disturbed at his best friend’s suicide, but goes to pick up Steiner’s wife while paparazzi swarm around them.
Between the parts of the Steiner episode, the Madonna-sighting would be the fourth. Marcello never actually “meets” the children, but the audience does, and The High swiftly follows The Encounter in the rain, as the children run around, pointing at empty places, claiming they see the Madonna, and the crowd follows them in an uproar, wanting the blessings of the Virgin Mary to themselves, regardless of their religious teachings, ultimately representing human selfishness. They even stripped the tree that was said to have sheltered the Madonna with its branches. Emma, Marcello’s lover, did so as well, and prayed that she be given Marcello’s sole affection, because she felt him drawing away from him. The Tragedy of the immigrant child being trampled to death after being brought all this way for a blessing from the Madonna ends this episode, with the funeral held at dawn.
The fifth episode is centered around Marcello’s father. They quickly Encounter at the nightclub where the audience first saw Marcello, and The High takes place at the Cha-Cha-Cha Club, as a request of Marcello’s dad. There they encounter Fanny, the father’s female companion of the night, then return to Fanny’s house. Marcello’s father gets sick, however, and requests to be taken to the train station, where he could take the earliest train and be home by ten. The Tragedy occurs when Marcello tries to get him to stay, because they never spent any time together, but his father leaves anyway, in a drunken stupor.
The party at the castle of the aristocrats (the sixth episode) and later the party at the beach house (the seventh episode) do not have particularly clear Encounters, Highs, and Tragedies, though the Encounter could be counted as the audience’s first meetings with the different characters. The Highs, however, are hard to decide, for separate reasons. The sixth episode because while the party was a high itself, it’s hard to say whether the wedding proposal from Maddalena is the High (and her silence subsequently the Tragedy), or the ghost-hunt at the abandoned mansion, along with Marcello’s night with the other woman the High (and their cold parting the Tragedy).
The seventh episode was basically a High entirely in itself, but it’s hard to determined whether it’s the High from the audience’s point of view, or Marcello’s point of view. The audience would say the entire party and the strip tease was the High of that episode, but for Marcello, it would probably be when he was encouraging the drunken orgy from the partygoers. The Tragedy that ends the movie overall, though, is the death of the fish-beast on the beach, and how it stared even in its death. This scene mirrors the opening sequence of the statue of Jesus moving over the city, something manmade watching from above, and the fish from nature at its finest—the ocean—ending everything by watching from below. It gives the movie sequences a sense of symmetry, and ultimately combines the idea of being watched over.
One thing that definitely stood out is the girl Marcello met at the cafe on the beach. He said she was beautiful, and asked why she smiled in response. Later, she appears at the end, and her smiling face closes the movie. While each episode demonstrates an alternative life that is presented to Marcello, the Tragedy in each also marks the darker side of each life, such as the perfect life of Steiner that ended with the death of almost his entire family. The girl—the odd one out of the sequence—represents the ability Marcello possesses to free himself from this fruitless search for a better life—his writing—and her last smile, something pitying and understanding, marks Marcello’s lost into the dark world.
