"We didn't want any staged pictures, but natural ones, of stars with their fans or during mundane events," Marco Panella, the curator of the exhibit, told AFP.
Panella believes Rome's golden age for movies began in 1949 with the marriage in Italy of US actors Tyrone Power and Linda Christian, followed by production house MGM's decision to shoot the epic blockbuster "Quo Vadis" in Rome's Cinecitta' studios.
La Dolce Vita was a "world of rites and Via Veneto, with its bars and its news-stands, was its center," Panella said, referring to the central street in Rome home to the largest luxury hotels.
Pictures in the exhibit, open until November 14, capture US actors Kirk Douglas and Joan Crawford signing autographs along the street, while Jack Palance sifts through the international newspapers on display at a kiosk.
Other moments immortalised in the pictures include Claudia Cardinale laughing with Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon at a gala, Audrey Hepburn and her dog stepping off her plane and Ingrid Bergman holding three pillows as she leaves a department store.
The Dolce Vita ends with Italian filmmaker Dino Risi's 1962 classic "The Easy Life" starring Vittorio Gassman and Jean-Louis Trintignant, "a movie that ends Italy's period of collective adolescence that started after the war and was characterised by energy and the willingness to go forward," Panella said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Panella believes Rome's golden age for movies began in 1949 with the marriage in Italy of US actors Tyrone Power and Linda Christian, followed by production house MGM's decision to shoot the epic blockbuster "Quo Vadis" in Rome's Cinecitta' studios.
La Dolce Vita was a "world of rites and Via Veneto, with its bars and its news-stands, was its center," Panella said, referring to the central street in Rome home to the largest luxury hotels.
Pictures in the exhibit, open until November 14, capture US actors Kirk Douglas and Joan Crawford signing autographs along the street, while Jack Palance sifts through the international newspapers on display at a kiosk.
Other moments immortalised in the pictures include Claudia Cardinale laughing with Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon at a gala, Audrey Hepburn and her dog stepping off her plane and Ingrid Bergman holding three pillows as she leaves a department store.
The Dolce Vita ends with Italian filmmaker Dino Risi's 1962 classic "The Easy Life" starring Vittorio Gassman and Jean-Louis Trintignant, "a movie that ends Italy's period of collective adolescence that started after the war and was characterised by energy and the willingness to go forward," Panella said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------