Overall, I did not like this movie very much. Marcello just goes around randomly from here to there, wearing overly dark sunglasses. Lots of this movie didn't make sense to me at all, like the scene where the children see the Madonna and the party scene at Steiner's. But oh my gosh, Anita Ekberg!!! What a fantastically, gorgeous woman! And that scene in Trevi fountain? Holy moly! When she's under the waterfall type fountain? My god that was sexy!Cool fact: The name origin of that horrible profession - the paparazzi - is from this movie! Cool, but not worth another star!

I will not delve into symbols. This is a film about life i.e: relation between a man and a Woman and class differences. the followings may contain spoiler Marcello's relation with his fiancée, Emma is not good. He has not a strong affection towards her, he cheats her. Marcello tells that because she is not opening his intellectual, her life only includes kitchen and bedroom, which is imprisoning Marcello. Even though Marcello declare this fact blatantly to Emma and refuses her, he turns back and take her. Then the life of for Marcello changes dramatically and Steiner suicides himself. ( to me Steiner and Marcello has a kind of shared life. Also at the airport when we see that the wife of Steiner looks like Emma herself). As Marcello had chosen the usual rules, marrying his unloved fiancée, he had terminated his life. Marcello now is one of the bohemian peoples. With these people he lives the life as it comes, try to cheer themselves by perverts.İn the movie, marriage is not good. It present a life between kitchen and the bedroom for Marcello. All the couples in the movie has problems. This very clear throughout the film. Marcello does not love her fiancée and is cheating her. The American actress Sylvia looks very cheerful and flirtatious but is very unhappy and at loggerhead with her husband. Even we don't see the wife of the idealized Steiner. Last but not least the final party is about the celebration of a woman separating from her rich husband. The high society is chosen to show the contrasts of life, relations and classes blatantly. The army of freelance photographers which include the Marcello himself represent the lower class. Marcello with his talent and hard work had been able to raise his status and make strong connections with this class. He has his own flat and car, and he flirts with them a lot. the American actress, the parties in the chateaus, the cars, the borderline bohemians are the members of this very high society. The army of paparazzos, Emma, people gathered to listen to the story of little girls seeing Virgin Mary are member of the lower class. The media is good way to become a celebrity and climb to high society. we see this at the scene when two little girls tell that they see Virgin Mary and they try to catch the eyes of media, and people gather to watch this without regarding the heavy rain. As the alternative to marriage is not depicted in the movie, it implies that his is struggle of life.

Society was changing fast in these few years, and this film, displaying a social sophistication virtually unknown and surely prophetic, may have been instrumental in changing it. Perhaps this is the first time the world had seen some of these characters and situations, the dizzy 60s blonde (plus the husky variant), the paparazzi, and swinging - not shown explicitly, but only thinly veiled.Journalist Marcello (Mastroianni) is on a trajectory towards nonchalant decadence, the benchmark being set at the beginning by bored socialite Anouk Aimee, who wants to do it in a prostitute's bed while being watched. This is the first section of the film and must have knocked the audience off their seats. It is also perhaps the finest and most meaningful section, notwithstanding Anita Ekberg in the Trevi fountain (it's a pity Ekberg didn't keep the kitten on her head as it was beautifully symbolic).Each section reads like a portrait of the deadly sins of moral decadence: insincerity (Aimee), superficiality (Ekberg), unreliability (his father), weakness (Steiner), insecurity (his girlfriend), and, least effectively, irrationality (the crowd at the miracle site, a long barely relevant section that the film would have been better without). Individually these things may not bring a man down, but together - the message seems to be - they are enough to erode one's resistance.Actually, the film may not be about creeping decadence at all, but simply nihilism, the inevitable response to the ultimate meaninglessness of things. In that sense, every section here is not about a sin, a failing, but about meaninglessness, the impossibility, despite our best intentions, of being what we really want.As with many Fellini films, there's too much raucousness. There are too many parties populated by insufferable characters. Fellini got carried away here and someone ought to have reined him in. Almost all of these peripheral characters are over-the-top-pretentious which gradually dissolves the realism, and, with it, our sympathy. It's always the quiet moments that work best - perhaps that's a consequence of the dubbing technique, which makes the garrulous scenes unpleasant, but when the circus backdrop falls, the sudden serenity is startling and simple gestures take on extraordinary meaning - then it becomes sublime cinema.

Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni) is a man-about-town and a gossip journalist in Rome. His girlfriend Emma overdoses and recovers. Swedish-American bombshell Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) arrives and hangs out with Marcello while the Paparazzo hounds them. Her boyfriend Robert gets angry and hits him. As his series of adventures continue, there is an emptiness to it all and a meaninglessness to his life.This iconic film has a disjointed narrative structure. It has many sections without the connective tissue. It's a tough watch especially for a three hour movie. It's exhilarating for a long time but it gets tiring by the end. The sad emptiness infects the viewing experience. The lifestyle is thoroughly modern celebrity world. The thrill disapates. Its iconic nature deserves extra points, but this is strictly for film fans.