La dolce vita (sweet life)

An Italian-French co-production film made in 1960. A masterpiece by director Federico Fellini, it won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. The film depicts, with a strong sense of plasticity, the process by which aspiring writer Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) becomes addicted to a decadent lifestyle while reporting on the glamorous world of showbiz and high society as a gossip writer. Although it was strongly criticized by the Church, the theme of soul salvation that is highlighted throughout the film cannot be thought of in isolation from Catholicism. The film is particularly famous for the provocative scene in which Anita Ekberg (1931-2015), who plays a Hollywood star, bathes in the Trevi Fountain, and the film drew attention along with the presence of photographers known as paparazzi. Among Fellini's works, which are said to have strong autobiographical elements, this film also has elements of a sequel to "A Portrait of a Youth" (1953), in which the protagonist, also an aspiring writer, runs away from his hometown, and Mastroianni appears for the first time as a character who is like a doppelganger of the director.

[Yasuhiro Nishimura]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

1960年製作のイタリア・フランス合作映画。フェデリコ・フェリーニ監督の代表作で、カンヌ国際映画祭グランプリに輝いた。作家志望のマルチェロ（マルチェロ・マストロヤンニ）が、ゴシップ・ライターとして華やかな芸能界や社交界を取材しながら、退廃的な暮らしに耽溺(たんでき)していく過程を造形的な魅力たっぷりに描いたため、教会からは強く批判された反面、全編を通して浮き彫りになる魂の救済のテーマは、カソリシズムと切り離して考えることはできない。ハリウッド・スター役のアニタ・エクバーグAnita Ekberg（1931―2015）がトレビの泉で水浴びをする扇情的な場面がとくに有名で、パパラッチとよばれるカメラマンの存在とともに脚光を浴びた。自伝的要素が高いと評されるフェリーニの作品中にあって、同じく作家志望の主人公が故郷を出奔する『青春群像』（1953）の後日談的な要素を備えつつ、マストロヤンニが監督の分身的な人物として初めて登場した。

［西村安弘］

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