La Dolce Vita (#733) (Criterion Collection) [USA]

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• Italy
• 1960
• 174 minutes
• Black and White
• 2.35:1
• Italian
• Spine #733

The biggest hit from the most popular Italian filmmaker of all time, La dolce vita rocketed Federico Fellini to international mainstream success—ironically, by offering a damning critique of the culture of stardom. A look at the darkness beneath the seductive lifestyles of Rome’s rich and glamorous, the film follows a notorious celebrity journalist—played by a sublimely cool Marcello Mastroianni—during a hectic week spent on the peripheries of the spotlight. This mordant picture was an incisive commentary on the deepening decadence of the European 1960s, and it provided a prescient glimpse of just how gossip- and fame-obsessed our society would become.

Disc Features

• New 4K digital restoration by the Film Foundation, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New visual essay by : : kogonada
• New interview with filmmaker Lina Wertmüller, who worked as assistant director on the film
• Scholar David Forgacs discusses the period in Italy’s history when the film was made
• New interview with Italian film journalist Antonello Sarno about the outlandish fashions seen in the film
• Audio interview with actor Marcello Mastroianni from the early 1960s, conducted by film historian Gideon Bachmann
• Felliniana, a presentation of ephemera related to La dolce vita from the collection of Don Young
• PLUS: An essay by critic Gary Giddins
  
  New cover by Eric Skillman