The movie Roger Ebert called his all-time favourite: “It won’t grow stale”
They say that ‘those who can’t do, teach’, with cynics saying that this is true of movie critics, who have failed to make a career behind the camera, so turn to criticising others instead. There may be some truth to this, but to take this cynical approach is to disregard the artistry of the likes of Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael and Philip French, who, for generations, inspired readers with their poetic take on the moving image.
In the history of film criticism, few have made a name for themselves as resolutely as Ebert, the late presenter and writer who famously appeared alongside Gene Siskel on the 1980s show At the Movies, where they’d review the latest releases. Contrasting each others’ personalities perfectly, Ebert was the ‘good cop’ to Siskel’s harsh ‘bad cop’, with the tension between the pair often bursting out in an impassioned debate.
A true purveyor of cinema, Ebert’s opinion was trusted by thousands who were willing to hang on his every word, with the critic celebrating the films of Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Orson Welles and Yasujirô Ozu throughout his career. Celebrating world cinema as well as Hollywood releases, Ebert can be credited with introducing foreign movies to a broader audience of curious American cinephiles.
Such can be reflected in his eclectic list of favourite movies, picking out such classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Citizen Kane, Raging Bull, Tokyo Story and even Terrence Malick’s divisive Tree of Life. Yet, while many keep their number one pick close to their chest, Ebert did once disclose his all-time favourite in an interview posted on his own website, with the critic giving a somewhat surprising response.
“What is my favourite film?” Ebert asked himself in an exclusive article before eventually coming to the answer of La Dolce Vita by Federico Fellini. Explaining his love of the film in good detail, Ebert began by saying, “It doesn’t get old for me. Age has not withered, not custom staled, its infinite variety. I’ve grown so worked up just writing this paragraph that I want to slide in the DVD and start watching immediately”.
Released in 1960, La Dolce Vita is Fellini’s masterpiece amid a truly impressive filmography that also includes the likes of 8½, Amarcord and La Strada. Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, and Anouk Aimée, the classic Italian film follows a week in the life of a tabloid journalist living in Rome, with the essence of the film speaking to the emptiness of loss and the importance of holding onto one’s childlike love of life’s simplest pleasures.
Continuing in his gushing adoration for Fellini’s classic, Ebert adds that the film is “one of the most visually fluid movies ever made, a movie that approaches music in its rushing passion, not simply because Nino Rota’s score is one of the best ever recorded, but because the characters seem to move with music within them”. The Academy agreed to some extent, too, awarding the film three Oscar nominations and one win for ‘Costume Design’, even if the music wasn’t directly recognised.
Holding a deep personal connection to the classic film, Ebert re-watched the film time and time again throughout his career as a journalist, prophetically explaining, “I think I will always want to see it again. It won’t grow stale, because I haven’t finished changing”.
Unsurprisingly, the film made it onto the critic’s list of ten favourite movies, joining 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tokyo Story, and Tree of Life, as well as Francis Ford Coppola’s marvellous Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now. A lover of intense character dramas, this can be seen throughout each and every one of Ebert’s ten favourites, with even grand cinematic statements like Apocalypse Now and Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God being about complex protagonists when boiled down to their cores.
Watch the trailer for La Dolce Vita below and get lost in the magic of Fellini’s cinematic masterwork, as Ebert frequently did throughout his career.
