Talk:La Dolce Vita

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WikiProject Italy (Rated C-class, Mid-importance)


Warisill cleaned up the description, particularly the "characteristic Fellini style" line, which is simply nonexistent. There are two distinct periods for Fellini and La Dolce Vita rests in the middle of them. I also added the description of the opening scene and touched up the facts about Rome in 1959.

The description here of the opening helicopter scene isn't actually accurate. Marcello says they're taking the statue "to the Pope" and the women understand him by lip reading; then he asks for their telephone number, one of the women below says "he wants our telephone number," and they wave "no" to him. It's a famous scene, but not for conveying anything about the futility of communication. If anything, it's the famous last scene that's more germane, where M. can't hear what the girl from the cafe is saying. --Bombyx 03:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

In the trivia section, there is mention that the word "paparazzo" means "sparrow," and that Fellini used this name because photographers could be viewed as "hungry birds". In another article titled "Paparazzo", it is mentioned that this word actually means "buzzing mosquito" and that as a child he knew a classmate with that nickname, and chose the name based on this. There is obviously a discrepency, and I don't know which statement is correct.

The actual word for sparrow in Italian is passero. So, if Fellini did say that paparazzo means sparrow it is either slang or he was deliberately misleading for some reason--he would certainly know the formal word. The buzzing Mosquito story sounds equally doubtful like either a rumor or an after-thought by Fellini later after paparazzi became a term since the photgrapher in the movie does not sound as if annoying photography was central to his character role. It is possible Fellini came up with that explanation after the term apaprazzi was coined. --[digginestdogg, 09:28 UTC, 10 June 2007]

conforming to Wikipedia guidelines to remove trivia - moved to production section of article —Preceding unsigned comment added by (talk) 17:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a discussion on about "paparazzo" and there doesn't seem to be any sort of mention of the sparrow meaning. Rather, what seems to be the true origin of paparazzi/o is the bastardization of the Italian word "“pappatacio”" which refers to mosquitoes. I'm providing the link below for anyone to verify and am going to remove the sparrow-trivia. Angel of Mons 14:05, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Apocalypse Now[edit]

There is a scene in AN in which a cow is hoisted by helicopter with a rather long puzzling shot, and the film climaxes with a cow being slaughtered. As a reference to the opening sequence of La Dolce Vita is almost makes sense... implausible though? -- (talk) 06:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:LaDolceVita.jpg[edit]

Nuvola apps important.svg




BetacommandBot (talk) 22:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


This page should be "La dolce vita", not "La Dolce Vita", as per Italian capitalization rules. --Gika (talk) 19:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but in English-speaking countries the title is rendered in all capitals, rather than translated as "The Sweet Life". Take for example, the page for Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, which uses the American title, rather than the Japanese title Kumonosu-jō (蜘蛛巣城) which means "Spider Web Castle." English Wikipedia conforms to the choice of the American/British distributors.IceKeyHunter (talk) 03:33, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

This article sucks[edit]

I got referred to this article to learn about this film, and instead I stumbled upon one of the worst articles I’ve ever read in Wikipedia. The intro is a joke; the tedious plot section reads like Cliff’s Notes; and the sections between the plot section and the critical reception section read like a hodgepodge of random facts and useless trivia slapped together and arbitrarily broken into paragraphs. But by far the worst section is the critical reception section. After giving up on the Wikipedia article, I read up on the film on the Web, and according to the criticism out there, La Dolce Vita seems to be a cinematically and artistically very siginificant film. I get the impression that the film occupies a central status as one of the most important, most significant films in history, but reading the critical reception and awards recognition sections, which read like a random smattering of review clips strung together like amateur Rotten Tomatoes reviews, there is just absolutely no way to get any appreciation for the significance of the film, its contributions to cinematic history, any perspective of where the film stands in relation to other great films, or any idea to what extent it influenced other films or contributed to the evolution of film. This entire article is in need of a major rewrite; better yet it should honestly be deleted entirely by an administrator and left to be rewritten from scratch by someone knowledgable in the subject who has the initiative. And no, I didn’t come here just to bitch; from what I’ve read recently it seems like this is a really important, significant film that deserves infinitely better than the travesty of an article it currently has, and it makes Wikipedia look like an utter joke. I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t genuinely care. Btw I wish I could help but am unqualified to contribute to this subject. MAJOR FAIL. —Technion (talk) 14:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Glaring error in Episode 1 description, the 1958 Cadillac is *NOT WHITE* folks[edit]

Come on folks, did the author *see* the movie? —Preceding unsigned comment added by (talk) 04:49, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

La Grande Belleza[edit]

There are not many direct visual quotes from La dolce vita in La grande belleza, just the one striking line "Today we are going to see a sea monster", which refers to the final scene of La dolce vita. The two films have to be compared and La grande belleza should be mentioned in the article. Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 21:28, 24 April 2014 (UTC)