Federico Fellini’s film La Dolce Vita showcases the diverse and glittery world of postwar Rome, rebuilt on ruins and poverty yet filled with the feminine beauty, glamour, sex, and extravagance of that era.
 |
| Federico Fellini, La Dolce Vita, 1960 |
At the SFMOMA Artists Gallery, we’ve made visual connections to some of these themes, such as a love of beauty, city life, shimmery lights, and the portrayal of women, which can be seen in select works by Adrienne Defendi, Leo Bersamina, Kim Frohsin and Sheldon Greenberg.
 |
| Sheldon Greenberg, Dissolve Painting #10 (Spring in your Step), 2009 |
 |
| Adrienne Defendi, Floating Frond, 2009 |
We also catch a glimpse of the moral wasteland of this society, embodied metaphorically in the movie by characters descending staircases as downward spirals. This dark mood is apparent in Amanda Boe’s photograph
Late in the Day, as well as the black-and-white photography by Marilynne Morshead.
 |
| Amanda Boe, Late in the Day, 2010 |
Fellini introduces the profane and morally wasted lifestyle of the new Rome by utilizing the symbolism of Christ, his arms outstretched as if blessing Rome while he flies overhead. This way of life, originated in the economic miracle of the late ’50s and influenced by the emerging mass-consumer lifestyle, also appears in the artwork of Carol Aust, Kirk Crippens, and Stephen Courtney.
 |
| Kirk Crippens, Unmade, 2010 |
 |
| Carol Aust, Spotlight #2, 2010 |
Although critics have often commented on the extravagant costumes used throughout Fellini's films, the inspiration behind
La Dolce Vita was Balenciaga’s sack dress, introduced in 1957. The sack dress, as Fellini's co-screenwriter Brunello Rondi said, “possessed that sense of luxurious fluttering around a body that might be physically beautiful but not morally so; these sack dresses struck Fellini because they rendered a woman very gorgeous who could, instead, be a skeleton of squalor and solitude inside." We find these lavish and sumptuous shapes in Marilynne Morshead’s photographs of blossoming flowers.
 |
Sack Dress from La Dolce Vita, 1960
|
 |
| Marilynne Morshead, Serenity, 2009 |
In
La Dolce Vita, Fellini changes the tone according to the subject, ranging from
Expressionist to pure
neorealism. Through his camera, Fellini creates a sort of diaphragm around each object, thus making the object’s relationship to the world somewhat abstract, irrational, and magical, much like the work of Margaret Chavigny and Pauletta Chanco.
 |
| Margaret Chavigny, Under the Skin, 2009 |
 |
Pauletta Chanco, Into the Deepness of Dark Emotions, 2008
|
In conclusion, we can see how the “sweet life” defined by Fellini as image and style, his portrayal of women, and his neorealist interpretation of culture is still very present in the Bay Area arts scene.
by Gaia Toscano
