Dolce Vita Confidential: Fellini, Loren, Pucci, Paparazzi, and the Swinging High Life of 1950s Rome

In this fast-paced, detailed study, film critic Levy (Rat Pack Confidential) turns his attention to Rome in the 1950s and ’60s—a city that, he argues, became the standard for every other cultural hub in the world. This is a grandiose claim, but Levy successfully supports it. He begins with an eclectic portrait of Rome’s rise out of the ashes of WWII into a metropolis: its cafes brimming with artists and writers, its cinema industry swelling from the elaborate patronage under Mussolini, and, in the middle of it all, the emergence of a new professional group, the paparazzi. The occasionally overwrought tone of Levy’s prose is mitigated by his obvious enthusiasm for his subject and the sheer breadth of information. Levy moves from homicide investigations to the history of “Hollywood on the Tiber,” and with the legendary Federico Fellini as a through-line, this becomes a fascinating look at decades of Italian cultural history. Eight pages of photos. (Oct.)