La Dolce Vita Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

La Dolce Vita Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov February 9, 2022

Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" (1960) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Paramount Home Media Distribution. The only bonus feature on the disc is an exclusive new video introduction by Marty Scorsese. In Italian or English, with optional English, English SDH, and Italian subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The film is set in the Eternal City and chronicles a series of seemingly random events as seen and experienced by a successful but jaded reporter named Marcello (the great Marcello Mastroianni, 8½, Divorce Italian Style). It begins and ends abruptly, like a documentary feature.

The camera follows Marcello as he moves from one location to another and talks to aging movie stars, wealthy businessmen, playboys, dignitaries and their lackeys. These are his people -- the men and women with the juicy stories the masses want to read about. They know Marcello and he knows them. Some are cautious when they talk to him, but others are careless and eager to impress him.

Like his colorful friends, Marcello has learned to wear different masks and utter half-truths. He tells his suicidal fiancee (Yvonne Furneaux, Le Amiche, Repulsion) that he cares for her, but secretly sees a wealthy socialite (Anouk Aimee, Lola, A Man and a Woman) who wants to marry him. When his father visits him he tells him that he has settled down, but deep inside he still feels like a tree without roots.

The arrival of a sexy movie star (Anita Ekberg, Boccaccio '70, Killer Nun) has a profound impact on the way Marcello sees the world he lives in. Initially her beauty overwhelms him and driven by sexual desire he does his best to seduce her, but when she rejects his advances he suddenly realizes how shallow and empty she is. Then gradually he begins to question his admiration for the sweet life.

Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita is about a country in transition and its people trying to fit in a strangely chaotic reality. It takes place over the course of only a few days and nights, but it manages to capture the spirit of a transformation that lasted more than a decade.

The film is built upon a series of symbolic sequences which carefully satirize traditional Italian values and beliefs. Additionally, the upper class, the media, and even the Catholic Church all become targets whose roles and credibility are essentially reevaluated as Mastroianni’s journalist wanders the Eternal City’s busiest streets, visits the most popular restaurants and clubs and mingles with their guests.

At times it may seem like there is too much noise and chatter that amount to nothing, but the attitudes behind them are very important. They reveal a massive class division, point to the acceptance of new media standards (see the easiness with which the paparazzi behavior is tolerated), and even the erosion of the traditional trust between the two sexes (see Marcello’s polarizing relationships with the promiscuous socialite and his fiancee).

The film’s framing is as unique as the structure of its narrative. For example, space and character/object placement constantly evolve, making various sequences look either under or overpopulated. There are a number of atypical tracking and traveling shots as well.

Fellini shot La Dolce Vita with cinematographer Otello Martelli (La Strada, Il Bidone) on location in Rome and Cinecitta Studios. It was a long, very expensive and closely monitored and covered by the Italian media production.

The soundtrack for the film was created by legendary composer Nino Rota (The Godfather, Rocco And His Brothers).

La Dolce Vita Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, La Dolce Vita arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Paramount Home Media Distribution.

La Dolce Vita was restored in 4K at L'immagine Ritrovata in 2010. This Blu-ray release is sourced from the same 4K master that was previously accessed and used by the Criterion Collection for this Blu-ray release from 2014. I don't have any new comments to add about the makeover and the way the film looks in 1080p. I like the technical presentation a lot. I still have a couple of DVD releases of La Dolce Vita in my library, including the huge Deluxe Collector's DVD Edition Koch Entertainment produced way back in 2004, and the Blu-ray release gives you the best option to experience the film at home. I think that the quality of the work that was done at the lab is good, though there are some very minor traces of noise reduction that I would have preferred to see avoided. The grading and the type of grayscale it has produced is, in my opinion, excellent. So, I would have preferred to see a 4K Blu-ray release because I am quite certain that in native 4K the aforementioned minor traces of noise reduction will be completely undetectable, but don't worry about them because the film looks really, really good in 1080p as well.

La Dolce Vita Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: Italian Dolby TrueHD 2.0 and English Dolby Digital 2.0. Optional English, English SDH, and Italian subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image.

I viewed the film with the Italian track and did not encounter any issues to report. However, if I turn the English subtitles off, the few English exchanges throughout the film automatically get subtitled in Italian. An example can be seen around the 32.30 mark where Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni visit the tower. In other words, if you choose to view the film in Italian but do not need Italian subtitles for the exchanges in English, you are stuck with mandatory Italian subtitles. At least on my player, I could not turn them off.

La Dolce Vita Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction - presented here is an exclusive new video introduction to La Dolce Vita by Marty Scorsese. The introduction was filmed in 2021. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

La Dolce Vita Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The folks that are currently running the home video department at Paramount Pictures deserve a ton of credit because last year they greenlighted and gave us some of the very best Blu-ray releases on the market. The Paramount Presents line has been absolutely incredible. Well, I think that La Dolce Vita should have been part of the Paramount Presents line and made available on 4K Blu-ray. The film is a timeless classic, I love it, and I think that if it was released on 4K Blu-ray there would not have been a serious film collector capable of turning it down. It is nice to have a budget Blu-ray release for folks that need one, but a 4K Blu-ray release of La Dolce Vita would have been an astonishing treat. RECOMMENDED.