CONTRIBUTI / 12 / Pietro Ramellini
Habits between habitus and habitat: an analysis based on Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita
This article analyses the conceptual triad habit-habitus-habitat along the twofold guideline of their common etymological root habere (to have) and its surrounding ambiguity. The analysis is developed on the basis of the film La dolce vita; actually, Federico Fellini’s masterpiece turns out to be a particularly appropriate case-study: in fact, if framing the chaotic life of the characters in terms of habits may seem paradoxical, yet their habitats disclose the ambiguous system of their structured and structuring habitus, as well as of their unnerved and unnerving habits. The analysis starts pointing out the habere as a first passive moment, wherein the characters are settled in a peaceful, consolidated possession of habits and habitus that matches the habitat of the urban jungle. Then, within a second moment that has been termed haberi (to be had), the characters are possessed by the coactive force of habits and habitus rooted in the boggy and tedious habitat of Rome. In a third moment of active awakening, a sort of etiological recherche – aimed at understanding and evaluating the previous stages – takes hold. The outcome is indeterminate and ranges from a passive acceptance of the haberi, to an active habere non haberi (to have and not to be had) and, finally, to that ambiguous mix of progress and decadence that Fellini called progressenza (progress-ence).
