LA DOLCE VITA (1960) Photo monster on beach

Vintage original 9 x 7″ (24 x 18 cm.) black-and-white single weight glossy silver gelatin print still photo, USA .Marcello Mastrioianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Animee, Lex Barker, dir: Federico Fellini Rome: Riama Film. This original still for the American release has a very detailed attached paper blurb on the verso explaining the image and the entire film. The image is borderless with very minimal use and a bit irregular left edge, about fine.

Unlike the more sentimental and abstract films that would follow, La Dolce Vita is an unflinching seven-day journey through 1960s Rome, with Mastroianni, a jaded journalist at the center of the story, constantly surrounded by revelry, beautiful women and a beautiful city, but no semblance of happiness or love.

This stills reflect Fellini’s use of stark black-and-white throughout the film, which include nights that are noirish and daytime sequences that are blindingly, uncomfortably bright. This scene is for discovery of the monster, a being which the orgy participants have encountered on the beach, just caught by a fisherman. Throughout are lonely women, photographers, crowds, clubs, parties and general debauchery, with Mastroianni coming close enough to his humanity to touch it, but unable to do so.

-LADOLCEVITA -Fellini