League of movies continues its unstoppable race.
This week asked us to talk about our country of origin, talking about it through a particularly representative film.
I am Italian, the home of many things, and to some extent the home of cinema.
From Federico Fellini to Mario Monicelli, from Giuseppe Tornatore to Bernardo Bertolucci, from Matteo Garrone to Vittorio De Sica, there are dozens and dozens of directors who have made the history of Italian and world cinema.
I decided to "use" the film of one of the greatest directors in the world right now, certainly the most important Italian director of the last 30 years.
With his unmistakable style, obsession for aesthetics and unparalleled elegance, Paolo Sorrentino even managed to win an Oscar.
The film that earned him that success is the film I will tell you about today:
THE GREAT BEAUTY
Best Foreign Language Film at the 2014 Oscar, it is thanks to it that the director from Naples was able to collect an enormous international esteem, which he still enjoys today.
It is no coincidence that HBO chose him for the first TV series presented at a prestigious film competition like the one in Venice. At the Lido, Sorrentino will present "The Young Pope" with Jude Law, Andrea Orlando, James Cromwell and a sumptuous international cast.
The Young Pope is a close relative of "La Grande Bellezza".
With it, Sorrentino continued on a path that, through unshakable figures such as Jep Gambardella and Lennie Belardo, recounted the corruption of Italy and the human soul, and at the same time showed us the ecstatic and dazzling beauty of both.
The Great Beauty is staggeringly wonderful because it uses 3 things to penetrate the spectator:
- Music
- Dialogues
- Images
3 pillars of cinematography. Sorrentino, with his technique and his supreme eye, puts together these 3 components and transports us into the eternal city:
Rome
She's the absolute star of the film.
Center of the world.
Capital of Italy.
Cradle of civilization.
The city that has made anyone fall in love, has dictated the rhythms of the world for centuries, has dominated the earth for long stretches of history, today it has become something sad and regurgitating.
The Great Beauty manages to transmit well this duality, this ambiguity of Italy.
A country without equal, rich in monuments, churches, palaces, art, paintings, sculptures, but also a country deeply corrupt, lazy, incorrect, sleepy, decomposed, uneven.
Paolo Sorrentino has the ability to transfer to us this clear feeling that only a sensitive soul and a shrewd look as his could capture.
Every Italian knows he lives in the most beautiful country in the world.
Every Italian, in his heart, feels a little shame for Italy
It is a striking contrast, almost a foregone conclusion for us Italians and for this reason part of us now. After decades spent living above our means, neglecting art, culture and beauty, today we have become the European country with the highest rate of functional illiteracy. We are one of the countries in the world with the highest public debt. We are those who work the most but have among the lowest salaries in the Western world.
Yet we have the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, Michelangelo and Donatello, Leonardo and Caravaggio.
Strolling through Rome you will encounter statues thousands of years old, tiny churches with paintings by Titian, palaces worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Yet, Rome has also become a symbol of corruption and the mafia, streets full of garbage and urban traffic, noise and air pollution.
ROME REPRESENTS THE DECADENCE OF ALL OF ITALY, THE END OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
Once again a contrast, deep.
A rift between history and the contemporary.
Paolo Sorrentino chooses his fetish actor, Toni Servillo, to give a face to a man who represents aesthetics and rottenness.
Jep Gambardella is a well-known writer in search of the perfect novel, the perfect story to tell. An almost old writer, almost famous, almost loved, almost wanted but never completely famous, loved and wanted. An unfinished work, just like his writing.
Jep Gambardella is the man of the middle earth, the one of the Roman rooftop parties, of the underground, of the strange worldly, political and social knowledge.
He is a man capable of seeing beauty everywhere but also capable of destroying it, annihilating it, reducing it to something meaningless.
The Sorrentine metaphor of an Italy that is beautiful enough to cut the