Masterpiece Theater
Gucci and Martin Scorsese Screen a Restored La Dolce Vita
Is there a better depiction of the shimmer and sparkle of the fabulous life, and the ache that swells beneath it, than La Dolce Vita? Martin Scorsese doesn't seem to think so. Last night, the director unveiled a print of Federico Fellini's 1960 masterpiece that Scorsese's Film Foundation (with help from Gucci) recently restored to near-pristine condition.
The film follows a newspaper reporter (Marcello Mastroianni) whose beat is bacchanalian Roman nights—aristocrats, American movie stars, Champagne that flows like the water in the film's famous Trevi fountain scene. But despite its supposedly festive subject matter, La Dolce Vita isn't necessarily the sort of movie that launches a wild night out. It's subtitled, plotless, shot in black-and-white, and runs three hours. It also takes a tragic turn near the end, as those who stayed through the entirety of last night's Cinema Society screening discovered.
Part of the takeaway, as Scorsese put it in his introduction, is "the absurdity and the magic" of celebrity and religious spectacle. For Fellini, he added, "style and a moral confrontation always take the forefront." He didn't mention that La Dolce Vita is also generally credited with introducing the word paparazzo; naturally, there were a few of those on hand outside the Tribeca Grand, jostling for shots of Scorsese and his co-hosts, Emily Mortimer and Vera Farmiga.
Also serving as photographer bait were Josh Hartnett and Sir Ben Kingsley, who'd never seen La Dolce Vita before and claimed that throughout his career, he's mostly managed to avoid the celebrity sideshow it depicts. "I find straying a terrible waste of time and energy," he said. True to his word, Sir Ben wasn't part of the swirl of Champagne and designer frocks at the after-party at the Standard.
Anouck Lepère, Karen Elson, and Tabitha Simmons, on the other hand, were. "I thought the movie was incredible, beautiful. I think it's inspired a lot of people," Simmons offered. And the moral confrontation? "I saw it from a purely visual point of view," she maintained. "I'm in fashion!"
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