About the film La dolce vita...?

Question

why did Marcello's intellectual friend commit suicide?

i need your thoughts

thank you for your time!

Answer 1

That character is based on a real person, Cesare Pavese, the respected Italian novelist, and friend of the both Fellinin and co-writer Pinelli. Pinelli had closely followed the writer's career and felt that his "over-intellectualism" had left him emotionally empty, leading to his suicide in 1950. This idea of a "burnt out existence" is carried over to Steiner in the party episode where the sounds of nature are not to be experienced first-hand by himself and his guests but in the virtual world of tape recordings. It saddens him deeply. The experience at the party is not the reason, but the trigger for an end he knows it bound to come.

Answer 2

Wow that's crazy. I have it at home, I have been watching it in parts because it is so long... Haven't come to that part yet :) sorry