| Overall Grade: |
A |
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| Story: |
A- |
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| Acting: |
A |
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| Direction: |
A- |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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Frivolity and Emptiness
by R. Scott (movies profile)
Jun 30, 2007
This film is a hollow tragedy that leaves the viewer, together with several of the characters, looking with pity on Marcello. We watch as his frivolity and complete lack of integrity degrade and debase him, until, at the end of the film, he is little more than a shell of a man.
Marcello is an apparently gifted writer that has chosen to wastefully dedicate his talents to the tabloids. He claims that he is writing a novel, but his time and life are lost in a pointless and relentless pursuit for sex. All things in his life are sacrificed to his empty romantic pursuits, which ultimately destroy him. His flattery, which might have once had a sort of youthful wistfulness or charm, wrecks his ambition, his morality, and ultimately leaves him drifting through a nihilistic life dedicated to little more than the superficialities and shenanigans of the wasting upper classes.
In certain brief moments we can see the depth of the character, but the moments of honesty and reflection are only chimerical, always overshadowed by his lust. An interesting revelation strikes Marcello in his time at the home of the Steiners. He looks upon their home as a “sanctuary,” and he listens enraptured to Mr. Steiner’s thoughts about the world facing his children. He is amazed by Mr. Steiner’s thoughts and the depth of his love and concern for his children. Yet, it is apparent that Marcello sees only the thin veneer of safety in the family’s home, not comprehending Mr. Steiner’s obvious torment when Mr. Steiner describes his feelings of belittlement and oblivion to the guests at the party. Furthermore, this is an interesting dichotomy at the party: while most of the guests are obsessed with the flatteries of meaningless poetry, art, and hedonism, Mr. Steiner records the sounds of nature, revealing a passion for reality that is only shared by Emma. However, Emma proves the stronger, attempting to love (albeit fruitlessly) the decaying Marcello, his Mr. Steiner takes the lives of his children and himself in despair. Both, it seems, feel true love and compassion, but while Emma manifests her love in single-minded, even obsessive devotion to a man that refuses to love and respect her, Mr. Steiner becomes lost and sees death as the only escape from a painful and senseless existence.
After the party we see Marcello vanishing off to a beach to sit before his typewriter and attempt to put his thoughts and talents to work. However, after a brief interruption he gives up and begins to flatter an innocent young girl from the countryside. There is a sense that this is one of million small moments in which he caves in to his environment and relinquishes his efforts to create, and the sum of each small concession to the world is the loss of his soul.
Marcello’s interactions with his father reveal a deep source of his confusion. His father is a festive, free-spirited man that is a greater flatterer than Marcello. He leaves his wife at home to spend the night in Rome pursuing a dancer at a cabaret, then, near dawn, breaks down, both physically and emotionally, closes off to the world, and demands to return home to the safety of the countryside, his home and his wife. Marcello reveals the degree of distance that separates his family from himself, telling that his father was often gone for long periods during Marcello’s childhood, leaving the boy with his crying mother at home while he undoubtedly tramped around the cities of Italy. In speaking of home, the old man reveals what drives himself (and his son): at home he feels old and lifeless, and he mistakes lust and drink for life and vivacity. Marcello is clearly terrified of the simplicity of “home,” and his fear of the calm and peaceful life that Emma fervently longs for drives his reckless pursuit of sexual gratification.
By the end of the film we see Marcello as a broken man. He degrades himself by degrading the drunken fools around him, and even they see the depth of his demise. The party itself, a celebration of the Mrs. Steiner’s annulment by the Church, is a disgusting celebration of the “freedom” Mrs. Steiner has gained by the loss of her husband and children. Marcello looks dishevelled and worn, and upon seeing the innocent girl that spoke to him on the beach as he sat before his typewriter, he fails to recognize her, revealing that he has lost all recognition of the simple goodness and hope that she represents. Nonetheless, a glimmer of the depth of the character is still seen as he looks into the eyes of the dying sea creature lying hopelessly on the sand, surrounded by revellers and fishermen that feel nothing for the creature’s agony, and asks why the creature insists on continuing to stare. However, as Marcello walks away from the young innocent girl calling to him from across the shallow waters (which he could have easily crossed), he stumbles across the sand with some drunken gal that represents nothing more than the senseless life that he has chosen to pursue.
Marcello’s relationship with Emma reveals the conflict inside the man: to Emma, Marcello is a cheat and a liar, but she is chained by her love and compassion to remain by his side, in spite of his constant abuse and infidelity. Marcello, on the other hand, continually belittles and ignores Emma, even telling his father that she is not his fiancé or even his girlfriend, but only the cleaning woman. Even when Emma attempts suicide, Marcello oscillates between love for Emma and his disgust for her, revealing his complete selfishness and egoism as he scolds her in rage for actions even as he carries her to the hospital. Later, as the two bitterly fight in the car on a dark, abandoned road, Marcello screams at her with bitter hatred, only to return for her and sleep in her arms. Marcello is scared of losing her, but despises the life that Emma represents.
At the end of the film we are left with one great impression: the meaningless, frivolous and empty life of the aristocracy, spent in pointless pursuit of hedonistic pleasure that demeans their lives and leaves their existence devoid of any true meaning, juxtaposed with the vision of the innocent, young girl from the provinces, who smiles as we recall her singing happily to the music on the radio as she works. It is apparent that she takes joy in the simple pleasures of her life, she is faithful to her home and her love, and her innocence separates her from the degradation of the life Marcello pursues. |
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