La Grande Bellezza

[wilder]

A Fellini-esque tale of a journalist looking to recapture his youth in the city.

Directed by Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo, This Must Be The Place)
Written by Paolo Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello
Starring Toni Servillo
US Theatrical - NY Nov 15, LA Nov 22, wider expansion to follow
Official Site
UK Blu-ray from Artificial Eye on January 13, 2014.

[wilder]

US Trailer

[jenkins]

tbh i missed the very overbooked like father, like son. and sebastián lelio's gloria was my favorite out of everything. but from the known contenders, the great beauty was the biggest, best and most badass

my contextual trail was paulo sorrentino's il divo to erik gandini's videocracy to matteo garrone's reality to the great beauty. it's difficult to imagine another italian culture movie as encompassing as this one. incredibly challenging to imagine a movie with more aesthetics. i see it as a culmination in terms of themes, characters, and cinema. there are enough references to see sorrentino is taking the fellini torch. you'll see fellini, he'll show you through direct and indirect references, and what excites me is having that backdrop against the italy of today and the cinema of today

i wonder if there's further to go on the subject of modern italian culture, and italian pop culture, and the feeding of one to the other. the great beauty's quest is indeed to go further and look past what's been built. enjoyed it very much. about the most i can enjoy a movie

[wilder]

i wonder if there's further to go on the subject of modern italian culture, and italian pop culture, and the feeding of one to the other. the great beauty's quest is indeed to go further and look past what's been built.

Bit tangential, and this thing was kind of half-baked, but it might interest you:

[jenkins]

videocracy is in a trail i have. remember when the madman paparazzi guy is trying to mad boost his rep with the public, and while we're seeing him shower he touches his penis, so it grows a little bit and looks camera ready, remember that? i like how that pictorially summarizes the doc

[Ghostboy]

I saw this the other day at a festival in the Netherlands, and thus understood nary a word, on account of the Dutch subtitles and Italian dialogue. Still one of the best movie experiences of the year for me.

[Alexandro]

Masterpiece. Run and see it.

[jenkins]

hmm. not sure why my first response framed the movie exclusively within italian culture. must say, upon seeing it again, that response overlooks the movie's full nature. way more than italy here. but disagreeing with myself is my favorite thing to do, bc at least i know for sure a fight isn't ensuing

tomorrow or later i will explain but i gotta jet

[jenkins]

spoilers

Jep Gambardella: This is how it always ends. With death. But first there was life, hidden beneath the blah, blah, blah... It's all settled beneath the chitter chatter and the noise, silence and sentiment, emotion and fear. The haggard, inconstant flashes of beauty. And then the wretched squalor and miserable humanity. All buried under the cover of the embarrassment of being in the world, blah, blah, blah... Beyond there is what lies beyond. And I don't deal with what lies beyond. Therefore... let this novel begin. After all... it's just a trick. Yes, it's just a trick.

(thank you imdb for having this quote, the closing statement of the movie)

jep tells the 100+yo nun the reason he hasn't written a book after his successful first novella, the human apparatus, is he was searching for but could not find the great beauty. titular line. jep's social life within the high arts of italy, the gorgeous movie and all the aesthetics he sees and we (the audience) see, don't fulfill him to a nurturing artistic point. as in, within the arts, within italy, he searches for meaning, and his wonderful and lovely search continues amid what could be interpreted by others as an end to a search. he doesn't feel it as his ending. the beauty around him isn't the great beauty he seeks, he doesn't feel like the art world has completed him, and he senses the way artists use art as a way to process themselves, and how their art has qualities that can be variably appreciated, but appreciated as a roar against the humungous problem of being human

not spoiler
i underappreciated this movie's core after my first viewing, because the movie is so fucking good. italy looks great, and much italian art is discussed, but there's more than italian art to consider here. the rumination is about what it means to be human in general. many reviews, including my first response, mention how well paolo sorrentino understands and captures cinema and italy. i'd say that's the easy thing to notice

in the movie it's twice mentioned that flaubert wanted to write a novel about nothing but failed. is this movie kind of like that? i think so. it fails about being nothing, for sure, and calling it only beautiful misses everything else there is to discuss. there's a lot to discuss. looking forward to more people seeing it

[Alexandro]

After watching it on my tv a couple of months ago, I took the chance to see it on the big screen. This is one of those films. It's full splendor can only be enjoyed like that. Comparisons to Fellini are inevitable and apt, particularly of course La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2. But Sorrentino goes beyond that. By making the film such an specific experience within italian modern culture, it becomes universal. What it means to be alive? What are the defining traits of one's life? What is beauty?

SPOILERS

Amidst a ton of memorable sequences and beautiful scenes of decadence and transcendence, Jep comes out to his balcony to find a group of migrating flamingoes. This is the scene where he confesses he has never found the great beauty, and just as he says this, the camera stops to calmly observe one of these birds. I kept thinking: "it's right in front of you!". But he doesn't see it. Not fully. It's only in memory, remembering the only girl he kind of loved, in a fleeting moment of pure ecstasy, that he recognizes the passing existence of something like that. That sense of bittersweet realization permeates the whole film, and you find everyone endearing and pitiful, feel envy for their luxurious and carefree life and happy you are not them. The film is kaleidoscope of the human experience, hurtful and beautiful at the same time.