'La Dolce Vita'

To have seen Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" when it opened in the U.S. in 1961 as a graduate school dropout turned erstwhile construction worker with a love of movies and a secret desire to review them was an unforgettable, totally tantalizing experience. I could never have guessed that, when it was re-released — oddly, by American International Pictures, purveyors of drive-in movies for teens — in a surprisingly painstakingly dubbed version five years later, that it would fall to me to review it in The Times. So careful was the dubbing process that Fellini's characters seemed more rounded, and his vast, captivating fresco of contemporary society acquired more depth. (Or maybe it was just that I was five years older and a tad more mature).

By Kevin Thomas

April 30, 2004