La dolce vita
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Federico Fellini
Marcello Mastroianni
Anita Ekberg
Anouk Aimée
Yvonne Furneaux
Magali Noël
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
The citizens of Rome are startled by the sight of a huge statue of Christ being flown over the city by helicopter to the Vatican. Following in a second helicopter is Marcello Rubini, a journalist who, despite literary aspirations, earns his living writing gossip and scandal stories. In a nightclub, Marcello meets Maddalena, a jaded heiress. Together they pick up a prostitute and spend the night in the whore's room. Upon his return home at dawn, Marcello finds that his mistress, Emma, crushed by his perfidy, has attempted to poison herself. Her recovery assured, Marcello leaves Emma's side to cover the airport arrival of Sylvia Rank, a Hollywood starlet. Infatuated by the voluptuous blonde actress, Marcello accompanies her on a tour of the city, following her to St. Peter's Basilica, the Baths of Caracalla, and the Trevi fountain. The escapade ends violently, however, when Sylvia's fiancé, Robert, assaults Marcello. The reporter's next assignment is to cover a purported apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which two precocious children claim to have witnessed. The children's prevarication is exposed, and a sudden storm disperses the spectators. Later, Marcello's father visits him from the provinces but returns home when his son's lifestyle proves too strenuous for him. At a restaurant Marcello meets Paola, a young waitress whose provincial innocence appeals strongly to him. Marcello's assignments and adventures are punctuated by exhausting quarrels with Emma. The writer is further depressed when, following an evening of parties with aristocratic friends, he learns that Steiner, his wealthy and intellectual friend, has slain himself and his two children. Disillusioned, Marcello abandons himself to the pursuit of pleasure. The morning after an orgy at the seaside villa of the divorcée Nadia, Marcello and other guests roam through a forest to the beach, where a decomposing fish lies in the sand. As Marcello stares at its corpse, he sees Paola waving to him from across the canal; unable to understand what she is saying, he wanders off in the dawn to rejoin his friends.
Director
Federico Fellini
Cast
Marcello Mastroianni
Anita Ekberg
Anouk Aimée
Yvonne Furneaux
Magali Noël
Alain Cuny
Nadia Gray
Lex Barker
Annibale Ninchi
Walter Santesso
Jacques Sernas
Valeria Ciangottini
Alan Dijon
Renée Longarini
Polidor
Giulio Questi
Cesarino Miceli Picardi
Adriana Moneta
Anna Maria Salerno
Oscar Ghiglia
Gino Marturano
Leonardo Botta
Harriet White
Carlo Di Maggio
Adriano Celentano
Gio Staiano
Archie Savage
Giacomo Gabriello
Giovanna
Massimo Busetti
Rina Franchetti
Aurelio Nardi
Alfredo Rizzo
Marianna Leibl
Iris Tree
Lilly Granado
Gloria Jones
Nico Otzak
Vadim Wolkonsky
Audrey Mcdonald
Rosemary Rennel Rodd
Ferdinando Brofferio
Doris, Princess Of Monteroduni Pignatelli
Ida Galli
Loretta Ramaciotti
Giulio Girola
Mino Doro
Antonio Jacono
Carlo Musto
Tito Buzzo
Sandra Lee
Leontine Van Strein
Leo Coleman
Laura Betti
Riccardo Garrone
Franca Pasut
Prince Eugenio Ruspoli Di Poggio Suasa
Daniela Calvino
Enrico Glori
Enzo Cerusico
Enzo Doria
Giulio Paradisi
Henry Thody
Donatella Della Nora
Maïté Morand
Donato Castellaneta
John Francis Lane
Concetta Ragusa
François Dieudonné
Mario Mallarno
Nadia Balabine
Umberto Felici
Maurizio Guelfi
Leonida Repaci
Anna Salvatore
Letizia Spadini
Margherita Russo
Winie Vagliani
Desmond O'grady
Count Ivenda Dobrzensky
Francesco Consalvo
Maria Teresa Vianello
Angela Giavalisco
Tiziano Cortini
Maria Mazzanti
Tomás Torres
Gloria Hendy
Noel Sheldon
April Hennessy
Angela Wilson
Giovanni Querrel
I. Campanino
Teresa Tsao
Giulio Citti
Lisa Schneider
Aldo Vasco
Francisco Lori
Romolo Giordani
Ada Passeri
Nina Hohenlohe
Maria Marigliano
Mario De Grenet
Franco Rossellini
Joan Antequera
Orietta Fiume
Katherine Denise
Mario Conocchia
Umberto Orsini
Domino
Lucia Vasilico
Crew
Giuseppe Amato
Vito Anzalone
Mario Basile
I. Campanino
Leo Catozzo
Adriano Celentano
Mario De Biase
Osvaldo De Micheli
Dominique Deluche
Otello Fava
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Franco Ferrara
Ennio Flajano
Ennio Flajano
Piero Gherardi
Piero Gherardi
Giorgio Giovannini
Ennio Guarnieri
Guidarino Guidi
Franco Magli
Renata Magnanti
Otello Martelli
Nello Meniconi
Gianfranco Mingozzi
Lucia Mirisola
Agostino Moretti
Manlio M. Moretti
Paolo Nuzi
Tullio Pinelli
Tullio Pinelli
Angelo Rizzoli
Giancarlo Romani
Brunello Rondi
Brunello Rondi
Nino Rota
Lilli Veenman
Alessandro Von Norman
Arturo Zavattini
Photo Collections
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Wins
Best Costume Design
Award Nominations
Best Art Direction
Best Director
Best Writing, Screenplay
Quotes
You are the first woman on the first day of creation. You are mother, sister, lover, friend, angel, devil, earth, home.- Marcello Rubini
Don't be like me. Salvation doesn't lie within four walls. I'm too serious to be a dilettante and too much a dabbler to be a professional. Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected.- Steiner
By 1965 there'll be total depravity. How squalid everything will be.- Transvestite
Trivia
Producer Dino de Laurentiis left the project when director Federico Fellini refused to cast 'Newman, Paul' in the lead.
The film contributed the term "paparazzi" to the language. The term derives from Marcello's photographer friend Paparazzo.
Notes
Location scenes filmed in and around Rome. Opened in Rome in February 1960 as La dolce vita; running time: 180 min; opened in Paris in May 1960 as La douceur de vivre; running time: 172 min. American International Pictures rereleased a dubbed version in the United States in 1966; running time: 175 min.
Miscellaneous Notes
Voted One of the Year's Five Best Foreign Language Films by the 1961 National Board of Review.
Voted One of the Year's Ten Best Foreign Language Films by the 1961 New York Times Film Critics.
Winner of the Palme d'Or for Best Film at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.
Released in United States Spring April 20, 1961
Re-released in United States September 6, 1991
Re-released in United States April 10, 1992
Released in United States March 1980
Released in United States August 18, 1990
Released in United States 2011
Shown at Lincoln Center, New York City in the series "A Roman Holiday" August 18, 1990.
Re-released in Oslo July 4, 1991.
Shot between March and August, 1959.
Totalscope
Re-released in Canberra September 25, 1989.
Re-released in Adelaide September 7, 1989.
Re-released in Brisbane October 1989.
Released in United States Spring April 20, 1961
Re-released in United States September 6, 1991 (Public Theater; New York City)
Re-released in United States April 10, 1992 (Los Angeles)
Released in United States March 1980 (Shown at FILMEX: Los Angeles International Film Exposition (The Epic: A Monumental Movie Marathon) March 4-21, 1980.)
Released in United States August 18, 1990 (Shown at Lincoln Center, New York City in the series "A Roman Holiday" August 18, 1990.)
Released in United States 2011 (World Cinema)
Voted Best Foreign Film of the Year by the 1961 New York Film Critics Association.
