Federico Fellini's film is both a dramatised autobiography and a biography of Rome. From his arrival in 1931 as a callow youth though to the 70s, using both dramatised vignettes and documentary style coverage, he tells of his absorbtion with and by the city, with the al fresco meals, the brothels, his love affairs and dalliances at the music halls all mixed with politics, traffic jams and priests at fashion shows.