Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece about the decline and fall of pop society is never more trenchant than today. As the failed intellectual Steiner (Alain Cuny), one of the key characters in the film observes, speaking to Marcello Rubini (Mastroianni), a gossip reporter for the sleaziest pop culture tabloids of the era, “Don’t be like me. Salvation doesn’t lie within four walls. I’m too serious to be a dilettante and too much a dabbler to be a professional. Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected.”
I wrote an article about the production of La Dolce Vita for Senses of Cinema 54; you can read it here.
