A few years ago I visited Rome. Even though it was hot as hell, it was worth it. The city offers everything: ancient ruins, fabulous buildings, churches, temples, fountains … and parties, delicious ice-creams, crusty pizzas, tasty pastas … you name it. In four days that I’ve spent in Rome I could find several filming locations that were included in some memorable Italian and Hollywood movies, e.g. La Dolce Vita, Roman Holiday or Angels & Demons.
La dolce vita and Trevi fountain
La dolce vita (Italian for “the sweet life”) is a 1960 masterpiece by the Italian director Federico Fellini. It’s a story of a young playboy journalist Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni), torn between making something serious of his life or spending nights and days with casual affairs and meaningless magazine work.
The most famous scene from the movie is definitely the scene with Anita Ekberg in the Trevi fountain (Fontana di Trevi). Apparently the scene was shot over one winter week. Fellini even claimed that Ekberg stood in the cold water in her dress for hours without any trouble while Mastroianni had to wear a wetsuit beneath his clothes. But that wasn’t enough. He had to drink a bottle of vodka before he was ready to shoot the scene.
Roman Holiday and the Spanish steps
Roman Holiday is a 1953 romantic comedy directed and produced by William Wyler and starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Peck is Joe, an American reporter working in Rome and Hepburn is Ann, the crown princess of an unspecified country, who’s on a widely publicized tour of several European capitals, including Rome. They meet and of course she falls in love with him …
Joe offers to show Rome to Ann, so we can see several famous sights. There is also a very sweet scene shot on Spanish steps, where Ann had her gelato and Joe accidentally meets her. Well, if you like the movie and you’ll have some spare hours, than I suggest you check one of the Roman Holiday walking tours.
Angels & Demons and everything else
Angels & Demons is a 2009 American movie based on Dan Brown’s novel by the same name and the sequel to The Da Vinci Code. Apart from the first few minutes the whole story is set in Rome. In the movie we could see every major tourist’s spots – I had a strange feeling that producers thought that they have to include all of them; otherwise moviegoers wouldn’t believe that the story is really taking place in Rome.
Here are some examples from the movie and my trip to Rome:
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi or “Fountain of the Four Rivers”, located in the Piazza Navona
A tile at St. Peter’s square
Pantheon
Appearance in the movies can certainly persuade some more tourists to visit the city, even though Rome doesn’t have problems with the number of visitors. According to Euromonitor International’s Top 100 City Destinations for 2023 Rome is the 9th most attractive city in the world and 5th in Europe (behind Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam and Berlin).
If you have a chance, visit Rome. It’s a spectacular city!
The original version of this article was first published on BrandsAndFilms.com in December, 2010.
