It's 50 years since the Fellini film that defined an era. Peter Popham reports For Philip Larkin the annus mirabilis was 1963 when "sexual intercourse began". But Rome was a couple of jumps ahead, and this month Italy is celebrating the start of the "Dolce Vita" years which began, all agree, 50 years ago this month, in November 1958, with an impromptu striptease in a Roman trattoria. La Dolce Vita, "The Sweet Life", was the title of one of Federico Fellini's most seductive films and naturally grew to encompass the liberated era that inspired it.Suddenly everything became possible, to the shock of many at the time. In 1958 Olghina di Robilant was a penniless young Venetian countess struggling to make a living in the Italian capital, and that November her rich friend Peter Howard Vanderbilt agreed to cheer her up by bankrolling a birthday party for Olga - her 24th. Now 74, she remembers Rome as safe, cheap, innocent and puritanical. "There were no crowds, no pushing, no corruption, no unsavoury ambition. The paparazzi, for example, took photos with the agreement of the stars." She threw her party in Rugantino, a trattoria in Trastevere, and one of the guests was the commissar of the local police station.
For Philip Larkin the annus mirabilis was 1963 when "sexual intercourse began". But Rome was a couple of jumps ahead, and this month Italy is celebrating the start of the "Dolce Vita" years which began, all agree, 50 years ago this month, in November 1958, with an impromptu striptease in a Roman trattoria.
La Dolce Vita, "The Sweet Life", was the title of one of Federico Fellini's most seductive films and naturally grew to encompass the liberated era that inspired it.
Suddenly everything became possible, to the shock of many at the time. In 1958 Olghina di Robilant was a penniless young Venetian countess struggling to make a living in the Italian capital, and that November her rich friend Peter Howard Vanderbilt agreed to cheer her up by bankrolling a birthday party for Olga - her 24th.
Now 74, she remembers Rome as safe, cheap, innocent and puritanical. "There were no crowds, no pushing, no corruption, no unsavoury ambition. The paparazzi, for example, took photos with the agreement of the stars." She threw her party in Rugantino, a trattoria in Trastevere, and one of the guests was the commissar of the local police station.
Now 74, she remembers Rome as safe, cheap, innocent and puritanical. "There were no crowds, no pushing, no corruption, no unsavoury ambition. The paparazzi, for example, took photos with the agreement of the stars."
So all the "crowds, no pushing, no corruption, no unsavoury ambition" can trace their roots to an orgy in 1958? Is there any chance that the Countess's memories of Rome as "safe, cheap, innocent and puritanical" are a bit rosy-colored?
Well, then again, maybe not:
Today all the old-timers agree that Rome has gone to the dogs. The crowds and permanent police guard make diving into Trevi Fountain an unattractive proposition. Rugantino's trattoria is now a McDonald's, while Via Veneto, according to Enrico Lucherini, agent to the stars, "is terrible now, full of shoe shops and tourist restaurants charging €15 for a coffee".
Beautiful women adorn the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi. But wiretaps on his telephones reveal that experience and merit weren't the qualifications he was looking forSilvio Berlusconi, the 72-year-old Italian prime minister, is no stranger to scandal. Having survived 17 criminal trials without conviction, he has inured the Italian public to feelings of shock or indignation. Last January, the prosecutor's office in Naples indicted Berlusconi and issued a report containing extracts of over 1,000 wiretapped conversations depicting Italy's state TV network, RAI, as a casting couch that Berlusconi used to grant favours to aspiring actresses -- he called them "le fanciulle mie" (my girls) -- and to try to bring down the government. The report had no impact. In the spring elections, Berlusconi returned triumphantly to power after less than two years in opposition. But in early summer, when Naples prosecutors indicated there were hundreds of other wiretaps, of a personal nature, which they requested be destroyed, Italy's political-journalistic gossip mill began churning. Forget abuse of power and possible criminal wrongdoing -- bring on the sex! Press reports speculated that the tapes contained raunchy comments involving Berlusconi and three female members of his government. Rumours about the prime minister's shenanigans are often coloured by political allegiance: critics favour stories about a doddering septuagenarian addicted to penis pumps and mysterious injections; supporters paint him as a tireless Don Juan, capable of satisfying two or three women at once.
Silvio Berlusconi, the 72-year-old Italian prime minister, is no stranger to scandal. Having survived 17 criminal trials without conviction, he has inured the Italian public to feelings of shock or indignation. Last January, the prosecutor's office in Naples indicted Berlusconi and issued a report containing extracts of over 1,000 wiretapped conversations depicting Italy's state TV network, RAI, as a casting couch that Berlusconi used to grant favours to aspiring actresses -- he called them "le fanciulle mie" (my girls) -- and to try to bring down the government. The report had no impact. In the spring elections, Berlusconi returned triumphantly to power after less than two years in opposition.
But in early summer, when Naples prosecutors indicated there were hundreds of other wiretaps, of a personal nature, which they requested be destroyed, Italy's political-journalistic gossip mill began churning. Forget abuse of power and possible criminal wrongdoing -- bring on the sex! Press reports speculated that the tapes contained raunchy comments involving Berlusconi and three female members of his government. Rumours about the prime minister's shenanigans are often coloured by political allegiance: critics favour stories about a doddering septuagenarian addicted to penis pumps and mysterious injections; supporters paint him as a tireless Don Juan, capable of satisfying two or three women at once.
:( Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
The few, the proud, the destructive Reading this article about the downfall of Citigroup -- a downfall clearly many years in the making -- I suddenly remembered an article just a bit over a year ago: The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age. The tributes to Sanford I. Weill line the walls of the carpeted hallway that leads to his skyscraper office, with its panoramic view of Central Park. A dozen framed magazine covers, their colors as vivid as an Andy Warhol painting, are the most arresting. Each heralds Mr. Weill's genius in assembling Citigroup into the most powerful financial institution since the House of Morgan a century ago. I also found myself thinking about the Kaplan-Rauh paper finding that Wall Street was largely responsible for the surge in very high incomes, which was widely taken as evidence that the new rich were really earning their money (though to be fair Tyler Cowen didn't say that.) Time for some reevaluation, don't you think?
Reading this article about the downfall of Citigroup -- a downfall clearly many years in the making -- I suddenly remembered an article just a bit over a year ago: The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age.
The tributes to Sanford I. Weill line the walls of the carpeted hallway that leads to his skyscraper office, with its panoramic view of Central Park. A dozen framed magazine covers, their colors as vivid as an Andy Warhol painting, are the most arresting. Each heralds Mr. Weill's genius in assembling Citigroup into the most powerful financial institution since the House of Morgan a century ago.
I also found myself thinking about the Kaplan-Rauh paper finding that Wall Street was largely responsible for the surge in very high incomes, which was widely taken as evidence that the new rich were really earning their money (though to be fair Tyler Cowen didn't say that.)
Time for some reevaluation, don't you think?
