La critique de Roger Ebert(2)

The movie leaps from one visual extravaganza to another, following Marcello as he chases down stories and women. He has a suicidal fiancee (Magali Noel) at home. In a nightclub, he picks up a promiscuous society beauty (Anouk Aimee), and together they visit the basement lair of a prostitute. The episode ends not in decadence but in sleep; we can never be sure that Marcello has had sex with anyone.Another dawn. And we begin to understand the film's structure: A series of nights and dawns, descents and ascents. Marcello goes down into subterranean nightclubs, hospital parking lots, the hooker's hovel and an ancient crypt. And he ascends St. Peter's dome, climbs to a choir loft, and to the high-rise apartment of Steiner (Alain Cuny), the intellectual who is his hero. He will even fly over Rome.