La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita La Dolce Vita (; Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life") is a 1960 Italian drama film directed and co-written by Federico Fellini. The film follows Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a journalist writing for gossip magazines, over seven days and nights on his journey through the "sweet life" of Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness. "La Dolce Vita" won the "Palme d'Or" (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Costumes. The film was a massive box office hit in Europe with 13,617,148 admissions in Italy and
La Dolce Vita dawn. Also employed as an ordering device is the image of a downward spiral that Marcello sets in motion when descending the first of several staircases (including ladders) that open and close episodes. The upshot is that the film's aesthetic form, rather than its content, embodies the theme of Rome as a moral wasteland. Writing for "L'Espresso", the Italian novelist Alberto Moravia highlighted the film's variations in tone, In "Filmcritica XI", Italian poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini argued that ""La Dolce Vita" was too important to be discussed as one would normally discuss a film. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, film