The meaning might be nebulous, but the feelings these scenes evoke are something that can only really be achieved on film. The moment Ekberg and Mastroianni frolic in the Trevi fountain is one of those purely cinematic moments that sticks in the memory, similarly to the final shot of the film, which echoes Francois Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups. Despite his cynical worldview, Marcello still aspires to a more respectable life, and makes a few attempts to write his novel before the seductive decadence of his career draw him back again, Mastroianni is incredibly likeable, despite his many dalliances with an heiress and most iconic, a film star played by Anita Ekberg. his slick performance feels like a dry run for Guido from 8 1/2, but there is a more pervasive melancholy and vulnerability to his role here (most evident in the sequence with his father). Mastroianni’s reporter is effortlessly cool, while remaining unapologetically frivolous and cynical about his profession. When a close friend dies in a murder/suicide, Marcello finds himself too close to the story, and has to contend with his colleagues ghoulishly lurking around his deceased friends house. Fellini adroitly contrasts Marcello’s hedonistic lifestyle, with the more intrusive, corrupting influence of the press. Instead of a conventional narrative, La Dolce Vita is comprised of a series of vignettes, following gossip journalist Marcello ( Marcello Mastroianni) as he navigates the peaks and troughs of his profession, from glamorous dinner parties to the more sordid, corrupting side of the job.
There’s very little in the way of an overarching narrative here, and tonally Fellini jumps from irreverence to tragedy, from dream-like stylisation to neo-realism, in the blink of an eye and yet there are moments that feel deeply profound. Writing for Cahiers Du Cinema, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze wrote that Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita is “ a succession of cinematic moments” and it’s difficult to argue against this assessment.
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