Marcello Rubini is a well connected tabloid journalist, who spends his days and nights in pursuit of women, luxury, artistic merit and, well—the sweet life. Marcello reports on celebrity gossip, eccentric religious stories, and aristocratic scandals, but he really wants to write literature and mingle with artistic high society. He has an obsessively faithful girlfriend at home, but he chases after heiresses and actresses who will never love him back. And he is envious of his intellectual friend Steiner, who seems to live the life he always dreamed for himself, but who harbors great fears and a sadness that will boil over into tragedy. The film takes Marcello through a series of episodes, each closer to and further from his dreams, ending on a life path both everything and nothing like the life he wanted to live. In a life of desire and compromise, perhaps the sweet life is always out of reach.
“La Dolce Vita” is consistently ranked as one of the greatest films of all time. The film isn’t so much plot or character driven, as it is a series of episodes and vignettes of the unfulfilled, sordid, bored, and hungry life of Marcello. Much is made by film critics about the film’s technically and symbolically symmetrical structure: The story seems to have a prologue, an epilogue, an Intermezzo, and 7 balanced acts, or episodes. Each episode zig-zags through literal depictions of Marcello ascending and descending, day turning to night, and back to day again, all against a backdrop of ancient and modern Italy. I was also intrigued by the inclusion of the Paparazzi (this film actually is the genesis of the term) and the conflict between public and private. I found the film interesting and relatable, while being dull and confusing. I think I both do, and do not, understand the high praise this film gets and think it’s worth another rewatch (but at ~3 hours, I don’t think I’ll start anytime soon).