Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
The translation into Russian of the name "La grande bellezza", formally accurate, does not take into account the irony inherent in it. Italy is a country so overflowing with beauty that “great beauty” is automatically taken into quotation marks, so it is not without reason that at one time one witty man proposed to translate the name
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The translation into Russian of the name "La grande bellezza", formally accurate, does not take into account the irony inherent in it. Italy is a country so overflowing with beauty that “great beauty” is automatically taken into quotation marks, so it is not without reason that at one time one witty man proposed to translate the name of the picture as “Beauty”. It's so beautiful, it's nauseating. Great Beauty is a free remake of Sweet Life. The name was also very ironic. But the story went, as they say, without quotes. La dolce vita is an authentic lifestyle, philosophy and worldview of the European bohemia of the legendary, almost ancient Rome, this “Hollywood on the Tiber” of the late 1950s – early 1960s, which Federico Fellini showed with such chic and brilliance in his film. But where is Fellini now? Where are Visconti, Antonioni, Pasolini – the great four Italian geniuses? Where are the other two dozen outstanding creators of neorealism? It seems as far away as the Titans of the Renaissance. Today, Paolo Sorrentino is considered almost the first Italian director, but it is clear that the score here is different. Passionarity has left Italian cinema, which is why its beauty is secondary and even parody. The hero of the film is a journalist, as in "The Sweet Life", but if Marcello Roubini was between 30 and 40, then Jep Gambardella turned 65, and his first and only novel he published 40 years ago as a promising writer who came to conquer Rome. Today, he is a tired secular lion, ready to shine sharp words and literary erudition at any party and not ready to give up any of them. He is played by Tony Servillo, today’s number one Italian actor, but Marcello Mastroianni doesn’t look just like his age, but like his charisma: bile instead of charm, cynicism instead of skepticism. His hero is a barometer of the state of Rome, the Eternal City, which suddenly became dead, left to tourists, lost live blood and drive. Everywhere there is a mania of suicide, young people are autistic, old people live with memories, even sex has ceased to be erotic. Looks like the same thing. People also have fun, copulate, get drunk, but in fact, they seem to have been pumped out of them. There is no luxurious body of Anita Ekberg, no magnificent Mastroianni. As the characters of the background are bloodless chimeras: a naked actress with a sickle and a hammer in a causal place, churchmen lined up for prophecies to an old woman-missionary. There is no Steiner, Fellini’s reflective hero, who killed himself and his children by tragically losing faith in the meaning of human existence. But the thing is, Steiner can't be anymore. In fact, the hero of Sorrentino is both a journalist Marcello and Steiner, but everything is in the past: once an extraordinary person, he actually turned into a mannequin. Only in the finale is something alive glittering: in front of the hero is the image of a young lover who is naked in the coastal boulders, but this is only a memory. Sorrentino even before “Young Dad” made probably his best film; he was awarded the “Oscar” and many more prizes. But we know: just there was no Fellini – God-fighting and God-creating, but at the same time life-loving, earthly, sensual. And this carnality we feel in all the Fellinian films, which did not prevent him from being truly spiritual. Now it seems impossible to combine the two to the maximum. Sorrentino works in imitation mode, and if Fellini’s paintings were once said to be decadence, then “Great Beauty” should be considered decadence.
There's always something going on in the world Someone sees in the "Great Beauty" Paolo Sorrentino rotting in satiety the upper light of Rome, and someone - a dream, a beautiful dream of a world without poverty and struggle for a piece of bread. In the Eternal City shown by the director, everything has already happened
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Someone sees in the "Great Beauty" Paolo Sorrentino rotting in satiety the upper light of Rome, and someone - a dream, a beautiful dream of a world without poverty and struggle for a piece of bread. In the Eternal City shown by the director, everything has already happened - and there is no need to write great novels or stage grandiose plays. Not because everything great has already been said or done. Not because there is no one to appreciate the new work of art. And not even because of the daily fuss, distracting from serious pursuits, as, cunningly, complains to his girlfriend Jep Gambardella.
An elderly journalist, he came to the capital as a young man, full of energy and some plans for the future. And he became, in fact, a melancholy type, with almost contemptuous pity and boredom looking at the ever-burstling “cultural” life and its heroes. He may have wanted to be a great writer, but he only wrote one novel 40 years ago. One can only assume that his creation, the notorious “Human Apparatus”, described the artificiality and pretense of a new environment for Jep, where people, like running machines, spin in the accelerated rhythm of fashion trends, are unable to stop. There is always something going on in Rome. And leaving the upper world threatens not just oblivion, but the unknown. Fear of another life... Before a life that Jep could have had otherwise. Another life, it turns out, happens: you can eat only roots, like Sister Mary, a missionary, revered for a saint. It is in vain that Rome calls her into her arms - a hundred-year-old woman fundamentally does not give interviews. Instead, she asks a tired Jep, “Why haven’t you written any more books?” Anxiety on the face of Jep, put before the main question for himself, echoes the discovery of the transience of life in the face of the infirm Mary. If every day is beautiful, don’t these days become ordinary, unworthy of words? A tired delicacy, so unlike an unexpectedly delicious dinner after a work day. You will definitely remember it in all the details and choose the right words - you will remember the date, and the smell of flowers, and the sounds of the night on the rocky shore, and your own charm of the one who revealed to you in the moonlight the secret of the Great Beauty. 8 out of 10 Original
It is clear that the flowering of high culture, decadence and other goodies is now behind us, that is, if a stripper is necessarily 40-year-old and sitting on a Botox, and if a cheerful paratrooper then with the participation of fat women who smell bad from their armpits! Tolerance, motherfucker! In
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It is clear that the flowering of high culture, decadence and other goodies is now behind us, that is, if a stripper is necessarily 40-year-old and sitting on a Botox, and if a cheerful paratrooper then with the participation of fat women who smell bad from their armpits! Tolerance, motherfucker! In this sense, the very idea of making a film about Rome, where the city and its nightlife will be in the foreground looks rather peculiar, simply because the peak of the success of this city is quite reflected in the Sweet Life and Rome by Fellini, the director with whose name is associated with the heyday of Italian cinema! Paolo Sorrentino is a decent director, but hardly a genius, and therefore it is difficult to expect an adequate response from him to the classics! Before us 65-year-old writer Jepp Gambardella, once in his youth, wrote a successful novel “the human apparatus” and for 40 years living at its expense, and at the same time taking interviews debunking modern stars! He is an unquestionable intellectual, but the death of an old lover forces him to reconsider the meaning of life. And in a break from Botox injections, social funerals and parties, answer the question of who we are and why we exist in this world! Talking, talking, talking, talking. As a result, Sorrentino made a story about a city dying of luxury and meaninglessness, a story about those who have forgotten about their roots, which reminds the 104-year-old saint who came to Rome to crawl on her knees up the stairs, giving redemption of sins that any even the most worthy person has! Well, the best among the whole series of characters of the film for me is a Catholic cardinal, telling recipes with the intonation of a sermon! 9 out of 10 Original
It is clear that the flowering of high culture, decadence and other goodies is now behind us, that is, if a stripper is necessarily 40-year-old and sitting on a Botox, and if a cheerful paratrooper then with the participation of fat women who smell bad from their armpits! Tolerance, motherfucker! In
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It is clear that the flowering of high culture, decadence and other goodies is now behind us, that is, if a stripper is necessarily 40-year-old and sitting on a Botox, and if a cheerful paratrooper then with the participation of fat women who smell bad from their armpits! Tolerance, motherfucker! In this sense, the very idea of making a film about Rome, where the city and its nightlife will be in the foreground looks rather peculiar, simply because the peak of the success of this city is quite reflected in the Sweet Life and Rome by Fellini, the director with whose name is associated with the heyday of Italian cinema! Paolo Sorrentino is a decent director, but hardly a genius, and therefore it is difficult to expect an adequate response from him to the classics! Before us 65-year-old writer Jepp Gambardella, once in his youth, wrote a successful novel “the human apparatus” and for 40 years living at its expense, and at the same time taking interviews debunking modern stars! He is an unquestionable intellectual, but the death of an old lover forces him to reconsider the meaning of life. And in a break from Botox injections, social funerals and parties, answer the question of who we are and why we exist in this world! Talking, talking, talking, talking. As a result, Sorrentino made a story about a city dying of luxury and meaninglessness, a story about those who have forgotten about their roots, which reminds the 104-year-old saint who came to Rome to crawl on her knees up the stairs, giving redemption of sins that any even the most worthy person has! Well, the best among the whole series of characters of the film for me is a Catholic cardinal, telling recipes with the intonation of a sermon! 9 out of 10 Original
Two lifelong friends bond whilst vacationing in a luxury Swiss Alps lodge as they ponder retirement. While Fred has no plans to resume his musical career more
Two lifelong friends bond whilst vacationing in a luxury Swiss Alps lodge as they ponder retirement. While Fred has no plans to resume his musical career despite the urging of his loving daughter Lena, Mick is intent on finishing the screenplay for what may be his last important film for his muse Brenda. And where will inspiration lead their younger friend Jimmy, an actor grasping to make sense of his next performance? close
Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious more
Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood. close
Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline had three children and then they separated. All three children are extraordinary --- all geniuses. Virtually all more
Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline had three children and then they separated. All three children are extraordinary --- all geniuses. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. Most of this was generally considered to be their father's fault. "The Royal Tenenbaums" is the story of the family's sudden, unexpected reunion one recent winter. close
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