La Dolce Vita
Sixties Italian masterpiece
La Dolce Vita is Italian for "the sweet life," referring to a lifestyle of pleasure, luxury, and self-indulgence.
The phrase entered English largely through Fellini's 1960 film depicting Rome's idle rich.
It suggests hedonistic ease—cafés, beautiful people, no pressing obligations: They spent a month living la dolce vita on the Amalfi Coast.
- FelliniItalian auteur of surrealism
- RomeItaly's capital city
- Roman holidayPleasure from witnessed suffering
- decadenceMoral decline through excess
- glamourFascinating, elegant attractiveness
Federico Fellini · high society · paparazzi · gossip columnist · Trevi Fountain · hedonism · Italian · cinema · black and white · 1960s · sophistication · excess · nightlife · scandal · bittersweet · ennui · tabloid · celebrity
La Dolce Vitamisery
Intense prolonged distress
suffering · drudgery · hardship · austerity · asceticism
La Dolce Vitacinéma vérité
Naturalistic documentary approach
kitchen sink realism · social realism · documentary filmmaking
dolce, vita, sweet, sweeten, sweetly, sweetness, sweetener, vital, vitality