La Dolce Vita (Blu-ray)

THE CRITERION COLLECTION

The biggest hit from the most popular Italian filmmaker of all time, La Dolce Vita rocketed Federico Fellini (8½) to international mainstream success ironically, by offering a damning critique of the culture of stardom. A look at the darkness beneath the seductive lifestyles of Rome's rich and glamorous, the film follows a notorious celebrity journalist played by a sublimely cool Marcello Mastroianni (8½) during a hectic week spent on the peripheries of the spotlight. This mordant picture was an incisive commentary on the deepening decadence of the European 1960s, and it provided a prescient glimpse of just how gossip- and fame-obsessed our society would become.