Who can say why Fellini’s masterpiece, and one of the greatest movies of all time, is unavailable on any streaming platform? Only Capitalism can say. In the meantime, here it is for your enjoyment- Fellini’s wonderful, 3-hour-long dreamlike journey through high Italian society and celebrity culture, the one that gave us the word “Paparazzi,” the one that has often been copied but never surpassed.
It manages to cut up and criticize this empty, shallow celeb life even as it completely gets sucked into its superficial beauty. Fellini is a filmmaker who lives in the moment, improvises, throws everything including the kitchen sink into a scene, and somehow makes the chaos seem like a perfectly choreographed dance. While later films found him pushing this aesthetic much further (sometimes to the point of painful self-indulgence) La Dolce Vita shows off his younger, more focused self, teetering between a strong narrative and a whimsical fantasy.
As usual, his male muse, Marcello Mastroianni, plays Fellini’s ideal man- smart, sophisticated, but also a clown who, above all, can’t help himself when it comes to the ladies. I’m not sure how Fellini or Marcello would fare in today’s uptight world with zero tolerance for such indulgences, but that makes for an interesting viewing from today’s 21st Century vantage point. Let us watch him float around from one gathering to another, never really knowing what it is he truly wants.
But rest assured, Fellini does not romanticize the lifestyle of the rich and famous, though he doesn’t really judge it, either. It is what it is, and what it is is life: a fleeting whisp of a dream that is here one moment and gone forever the next. Fellini spent the entirety of his own life trying to imprint that dream onto celluloid, hoping to convince us that, like him, we should indulge a little before the party is over, because what else is there? Humans are funny animals, but we are humans- so let us drink some wine and laugh before we run out of time.
Movie Club 
https://ln5.sync.com/dl/1bd1bb630/9vs7zps5-dtyk5y3u-ytwnvshh-7zvih6ag
LikeLike
Hello. In the past I have downloaded a few movies from your fine website before but as of late I’m unable to for some reason. I’m on an old MacBook Pro & using the Safari browser which keeps saying ” Safari can’t open the page. The error is: “The operation couldn’t be completed. Protocol error” (NSPOSIXErrorDomain:100) ” which is Pig Latin to my feeble brain. If you can shed any light on this to help me it’d be greatly appreciated. Thanks
LikeLike
Hmm- we just tested this on different macs and it’s working fine. If you have an older browser, and you can’t upgrade, the first suggestion is to try different browsers, because it’s most likely Safari. Second suggestion is what I found googling your error:
go into Safari Preferences, under Privacy and list all Details. This provided a log of all sites where cookies, etc had been used. look for this website’s URL clear all content from it.
another person suggests a similar thing:
1). Go to Safari –> Preferences
2). Click “Privacy”
3). Click “Manage Website data”
4). Using the “Search” box, typed in the website you are having problem. E.g. somesite.com
5). In the search result, select the website and click on “Remove”.
The website should now work again. Unfortunately, the issue will pop-up here and there again and you’ll have to do the above.
LikeLike
A belated THANK YOU for the help. Downloaded it on a new iPad instead of my old MacBook Pro warhorse. All’s good. OVER&OUT!
LikeLike