Everyone lives in his own fantasy world, but most people don't understand that. No one perceives the real world. Each person simply call his private, personal fantasies the truth. The difference is that I know I live in a fantasy world. I prefer it that way and resent anything that disturbs my vision."- Federico Fellini

Iconic Italian director Federico Fellini began his career as a cartoonist, journalist, and scriptwriter. Marcello Mastroianni played Italian auteur’s alter ego several films. Typical for Fellini's films is carnivalesque style and constantly shifting boundary between illusion, studio-built artificiality, and reality. Once he remarked, "I make pictures to tell a story, to tell lies and to amuse." Four of his movies won Oscars for best foreign-language film.

One of the most controversial and acclaimed of Fellini's many classics, few films have indelibly defined society as caustically and honestly as La Dolce Vita.

He drew inspiration for the film from his own life: “Rome had become a big place in the 1950’s, full of international types and lots of activity. It was a confusing carnival and I was being shoved along with it, not sure where I was going or what I wanted to do. And i wanted to get all that on film.”

Mastroianni stars as Marcello Rubini is a third-rate reporter who lives a playboy's life as he pursues a shabby career of scandal mongering. He struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of “the sweet life” in Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.

The character of Paparazzo, the news photographer (played by Walter Santesso) who works with Marcello, is the origin of the word paparazzi.

Marcello spends every evening in Via Veneto - the venerable hotspot for people who want to be seen - vicariously awaiting the next scandal or party invitation. One evening is spent with an enigmatic woman named Maddalena (Anouk Aimee), whose dark sunglasses conceal a bruised eye. Her declared love for Marcello is merely whispered from a distance, deflected by the reverberating walls. Another evening is in Steiner's (Alain Cuny) penthouse, a wealthy intellectual. Consumed by self-doubt and fleeting happiness, he is unable to enjoy his success. Still another evening is spent with a famous actress named Sylvia (Anita Ekberg). With the advent of dawn, she, too, returns to home to her boyfriend. Away from the nightlife of Via Veneto, he finds himself caught up in the carnival spectacle of a false sighting of the Virgin Mary. Soon the empty evenings seem to weave together into some decadent rhythm, punctuated only by the regret of the following morning.

“What I intended was to show the state of Rome's soul,” recalls Fellini, “a way of being of a people. What it became was a scandalous report, a fresco of a street and a society...I intended it as a report on Sodom and Gomorrah, a trip into anguish and despair. I intended for it to be a document, not a documentary.”

La Dolce Vita was hailed as "one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s" by The New York Times It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning one for Best Costume Design: Black-and-White. La Dolce Vita also earned the top prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. In 1999, it was voted the 6th Greatest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Reviews:

“Fellini is nothing if not fertile, fierce and urbane in calculating the social scene around him and packing it onto the screen. He has an uncanny eye for finding the offbeat and grotesque incident, the gross and bizarre occurrence that exposes a glaring irony. He has, too, a splendid sense of balance and a deliciously sardonic wit that not only guided his cameras but also affected the writing of the script. In sum, it is an awesome picture, licentious in content but moral and vastly sophisticated in its attitude and what it says." - New York Times

“A brilliantly conceived epic fable.” - LA Times


"In this one masterpiece, Federico Fellini achieved the ideal balance -- between social observation and unconscious imagery, between artistic discipline and freedom...” San Francisco Chronicle