La Dolce Vita: Fellini immortalized the phrase for art, the PPP for politics

Sep 03, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

When Anita Ekberg died earlier this year, people in journalism, philosophy, arts and literature no doubt had a mountain of sentiments to express about the most iconic moment in cinema ever – Ekberg jumping into the Trevi Fountain of Rome fully dressed with the lead actor, Marcello Mastroianni following her into the water in the phenomenal movie, “La Dolce Vita.” That movie was directed by Federico Fellini.

The movie is about the merger of philosophy and journalism and if you operate on both of these plains you will find the film dear and special. It is generally regarded by art specialists as one of the greatest acts of movie-directing ever. Italian directors have no American or British counterparts. They are simply in a class of their own.

Bernardo Bertolucci directed the great Marlon Brando in “Last Tango in Paris,” and it remains for me, Brando’s best performance surpassing by far his role in Tennessee Williams’ “A Street Car named Desire.” After Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, I would rate Last Tango in Paris as the second best existentialist film ever made. These two films are masterpieces in an understanding of the fragility of human existence.

In journalism and literature, the phrase “La Dolce Vita” has different expressions but the meaning is definitely the same – “The Good Life”, The Sweet Life,” “The Pleasurable Life,” “The Luxurious Life.”

In almost all writings, it is used as “The Sweet Life.”

La Dolce Vita is enjoyed by people who live ostentatiously with the vulgar display of the trappings of wealth. When applied to politics, La Dolce Vita is about the majestic lifestyle of authoritarian leaders.

If ever the phrase was applicable to any country it was Libya under Gaddafi and his sons. The saying could be applied to Latin Governments in the fifties like Argentina under Eve Perón, Cuba under Batista.

In Italy, where the symbolic meaning was born, former Prime Minister Silvio Burlesconi lived La Dolce Vita to the fullest. Such a lifestyle brought him down and (ironically) in all places, Italy where anything goes. Analysts believe such a lifestyle also was the essential reason why Sarkozy lost the election in France.

Perhaps the two most flagrant examples of La Dolce Vita in the English speaking world are Tony Blair of the UK and Bill Clinton of the US. These men are jetsetters flying to sybaritic parties in private jets and spending holidays on private luxury yachts.

Bill Clinton’s La Dolce Vita is definitely a negative factor in the campaign of his wife, Hilary. I think the Democrats stand a greater chance of winning the 2016 presidential election either with Vice-President Biden or Senator Elizabeth Warren.

If Hilary wins, Bill Clinton might rival Burlesconi for enjoying La Dolce Vita.

In the British West Indies, there has never been anything close to La Dolce Vita in politics except in Guyana under Bharrat Jagdeo. In oil-rich Trinidad, Prime Ministers, Basdeo Panday, Patrick Manning and Kamla Bissessar and their Cabinet members never displayed ostentatious living as we see in Guyana since 1999.

The idea to write this column came to me on Tuesday morning. I parked at Church and Wellington Streets and walked down westerly on Robb Street. I had to pass Freedom House, head office of the PPP. The absence of the usual fleet of expensive SUVs weren’t there.

While the PPP was in power, whenever you pass Freedom House, you couldn’t miss the luxury cars. The SUVs might be gone but what Fellini did for cinema with La Dolce Vita, the PPP has done for politics.

A comparison needs to be made with Jagdeo’s mansion and Prime Ministerial residences in CARICOM countries. Are they as extravagant as Jagdeo’s? In no other country in the CARICOM region, party apparatchiks live so royally as in Guyana. There is a swimming pool in the Happy Acre area that is comparable to any in the world with an elaborate underwater lighting system.

Mark Benschop almost his life trying to film the house with swimming pool of Kwame McCoy.

This newspaper got a libel writ for putting on its front page a Leonora mansion that has a pool house that is a mansion in itself. Sityra Gyaal sold a house in Pradoville 2 for US$1 million. In top class economies that would be a costly home. Here are a few lines from a famous song.

“We’ll pour the wine and fill the cup of joy and drink a drink as if it were the last. Then say to those who say “to live this way is mad”, then mad we’d rather be than wise.” The PPP was never wise when in power.