Federico Fellini-La Dolce vita (1960)

One of the most influential and popular works by Federico Fellini, LA DOLCE VITA follows "the sweet life" of a tabloid journalist (Marcello Mastroianni) who covers the glitzy show business life in Rome. In constant search for the next big scandal, he is continually seduced by the decadent life led by Rome's pampered rich. Koch Lorber Films




Marcello is a young playboy journalist who spends his days between celebrities and rich people, seeking for ephemeral joy in parties and sex. When a famous film star comes to Rome, he does everything he can to meet her, and when he does, he is totally charmed by her. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0053779/plotsummary)




Seven days (and nights) in the life of a Marcello, a Roman journalist torn between making something serious of his life or drifting along on a pleasant if empty stream of casual affairs and profitable, but meaningless, newspaper and magazine work. In the course of the week, he flirts with a visiting movie star has a couple of encounters with a bored socialite, one of them in a prostitute's bedroom, is shocked when Steiner, a "serious" writer and deep thinker kills himself and his entire family, and generally ignores his adoring girlfriend. In the end, he seems to have cut himself adrift on a sea of frivolity and self-disgust, with no real idea of how to find his way "home" again . . . (http://imdb.com/title/tt0053779/plotsummary)





Marcello is a society gossip columnist. During one of his rounds, he meets again Maddalena and spends the night with her in a whore's bedroom. When he comes back home the next morning, he discovers that his girlfriend Emma poisoned herself because of him. Later, he is at the airport where the famous star Sylvia is arriving : he will go with her a few days… A chronicle of a decadent society where there is no more values except alcohol and sex, and no solutions but suicide. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0053779/plotsummary)




At three brief hours, La Dolce Vita, a piece of cynical, engrossing social commentary, stands as Federico Fellini's timeless masterpiece. A rich, detailed panorama of Rome's modern decadence and sophisticated immorality, the film is episodic in structure but held tightly in focus by the wandering protagonist through whom we witness the sordid action…




Marcello Rubini (extraordinarily played by Marcello Mastroianni) is a tabloid reporter trapped in a shallow high-society existence. A man of paradoxical emotional juxtapositions (cool but tortured, sexy but impotent), he dreams about writing something important but remains seduced by the money and prestige that accompany his shallow position…




He romanticizes finding true love but acts unfazed upon finding that his girlfriend has taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Instead, he engages in an ménage à trois, then frolics in a fountain with a giggling American starlet (bombshell Anita Ekberg), and in the film's unforgettably inspired finale, attends a wild orgy that ends, symbolically, with its participants finding a rotting sea animal while wandering the beach at dawn…




Fellini saw his film as life affirming (thus its title, The Sweet Life), but it's impossible to take him seriously. While Mastroianni drifts from one worldly pleasure to another, be it sex, drink, glamorous parties, or rich foods, they are presented, through his detached eyes, are merely momentary distractions. His existence, an endless series of wild evenings and lonely mornings, is ultimately soulless and facile. Because he lacks the courage to change, Mastroianni is left with no alternative but to wearily accept and enjoy this "sweet" life. (–Dave McCoy - Amazon.com - Editorial Reviews)