La Dolce Vita teenage "Umbrian angel") were shot on location at Passo Oscuro, a small resort town situated on the Italian coast 30 kilometers from Rome. Fellini scrapped a major sequence that would have involved the relationship of Marcello with Dolores, an older writer living in a tower, to be played by 1930s Academy Award-winning actress Luise Rainer. If the director’s dealings with Rainer "who used to involve Fellini in futile discussion" were problematic, biographer Kezich argues that while rewriting the screenplay, the Dolores character grew "hyperbolic" and Fellini decided to jettison "the entire story line." The scene in the Trevi Fountain was
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