The famous scene of Anita Ekberg in the Fontana di Trevi. This is one of the most celebrated images in cinema's history.

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Dolce Vita

La Dolce Vita (Italian for "The Sweet Life") is a 1960 film directed by Federico Fellini. It is usually cited as the film that signals the split between Fellini's earlier neo-realist films and his later art films. more...

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Synopsis

The film lacks traditional plot structure: instead, it presents a series of nights and mornings along the Via Veneto in Rome as seen through the eyes of its main character, a jaded society reporter named Marcello (played by Marcello Mastroianni).

Marcello is a man who commits to nothing: he has relationships with Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), his simple, jealous lover; Maddalena (Anouk AimÃ©e), a sophisticated woman with whom he has an episodic relationship; Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), a beautiful actress whom he follows in her wanderings through Rome (including the famous scene of her nighttime bath in the Trevi Fountain), and a multitude of other characters who inhabit the Via Veneto. Marcello wants to quit his job as a gossip columnist and become a novelist, but he never seems to be able to concentrate long enough to make any progress on his serious writings.

Famous scenes

The best-known scene may be that in which Anita Ekberg's character plays in the Trevi Fountain at night.

In the film's opening sequence, Marcello and a photographer colleague, named Paparazzo, ride in a helicopter. They are following another helicopter carrying a gilded statue of Jesus, suspended from a cable. The statue is being flown to the Vatican. Along the way, Marcello's helicopter stops to observe a group of women sunbathing on a rooftop. Marcello asks the women for their phone number, and they ask him where the statue is being taken. The noisy engine of the helicopter precludes any mutual understanding. This motif of miscommunication replays itself throughout the film.

Another famous episode is a large-scale Goyesque scene of a presumed false miracle, when two children claim an appearance of the Virgin on the outskirts of Rome, drawing immense crowds.

Another involves an intellectual soirÃ©e given by Steiner (played by Alain Cuny), a friend of Marcello with an apparently perfect family life, who ends up murdering his children and committing suicide. After Steiner's death Marcello embarks on an aimless life of orgies, after one of which he walks outside in the early morning to find a dead sea monster on the beach, the symbolic end to the film.

Production

The film was not made on location: the Via Veneto was meticulously recreated in the Cinecitta Studios.

In the "party of the nobles," attended by Marcello in a castle outside Rome, some of the servants and waiters (as well as some of the guests) are played by real aristocrats.