Where was the beauty?

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La Dolce Vita is a nice looking film I think, but you are right about Ran. It is the most visually beautiful film ever committed to the medium. It really is hard to compare B&W cinematography to color cinematography though, one relies on images, while the other has to combine image with color. I think what made Andrei Tarkovsky so great was his ability to use both effectively.

Last film seen: La Dolce Vita 9/10

At the end of the movie, when Marcello follows the group of people to the beach (they are on their way to discovering the "monster fish" being pulled out of the water):

When the camera followed the people from behind through the trees, and then across the beach... that scene took my breath away the first time I saw it.

Everything is beautiful. I love the way Fellini lights and shoots black and white.Even the way he frames a simple conversation looks fabulous to me. The only things I didn't like were the blue screens from the second segment.

"The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Many scenes, these are the ones that I find the most powerful,
Anita Ekberg coming upon the Trevi Fountain (the way the camera shot opens up to the fountain after the narrow streets of the previous shot).
The entire palazzo scene with the aristocrats, but especially the scenes where they all climb up the ivy covered double staircase, carrying candles, then wandered around the old ruined villa in the candlelight.
The next morning scene, with all of the rather haggard and dissolute partiers trudging back to the main house, like they are in a funeral procession in the early morning light, then coming upon the "Princessa" going to mass.
The many scenes that show the "emptiness": the wastelands with the modern apartment blocks, the vast empty church where Steiner plays the organ, the night scenes where Emma and Marcello argue with the big overhead light blasting down on them.
The last scene, from when the party goers leave the darkened house to the music, by twos and threes, and then emerge into the dawnlight, the way they all begin to move toward the beach, the camera following them, etc. The last shot of Paola is one of the best ending shots in cinema.
Throughout, the justaposition of the night scenes, with the "clear light of day" scenes that follow I find very aethetically satisfying.
Also, I love the black and white cinematography. I think it adds greatly to the beauty of the film.

Picture this...the scene of Anita prancing around until the fountain scene. Could you imagine if that were in color? I couldn't. Black and white was perfect for that scene and the rest of the movie. The contrast of her black dress and blonde hair would have been lost in technicolor.