La dolce vita is a 1960 satirical comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini and written by Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, and Brunello Rondi. The film stars Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello Rubini, a tabloid journalist navigating the decadence of Rome’s high society. He is caught in a series of shallow, disillusioning encounters. Anita Ekberg portrays Sylvia Rank, an American actress who embodies the unattainable glamour and carefree allure that captivates Marcello.
Their iconic scene together, with Sylvia wading through the Trevi Fountain, epitomizes the film’s exploration of beauty, excess, and the emptiness beneath surface pleasures. Their relationship symbolizes Marcello’s internal conflict, torn between desire and existential dissatisfaction.
The film won the Palme d’Or at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Costumes. It has come to be regarded as a masterpiece of Italian cinema, as well as one of the greatest films ever made. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that “have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978.”
These vintage photos captured beautiful moments of Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg during the filming of La dolce vita in 1960.
