Runtime: 2 hours, 22 minutes
Rating: NR
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Quick Impressions:
On the car ride home, my husband and I remarked, pretty much in unison, “That first party scene—even though I didn’t have any idea what was going on, I could have watched it forever.”
Hearing that he felt the same way, I nodded my head and decided, “Yeah, I think that’s the point of the movie.”
Let me back off a bit and say that it’s a point of the movie. I won’t pretend to be an expert on Italian cinema. I mean, I have enjoyed a lot of Italian movies (and I particularly love La vita é bella), but I haven’t seen any Fellini (unless you count random clips of La Dolce Vita). Certainly, I’ve never seen 8 ½ (the film to which The Great Beauty seems to be most often compared), though I did see Rob Marshall’s screen version of Nine (chiefly memorable because the cast boasted at least seven Oscar winners, and yet the best scene in the movie by far belonged to Fergie. I didn’t see that one coming.)
How have I never seen any Fellini, you ask? I don’t know. It wasn’t on purpose. I’ve seen a lot of other things—performance art, funerals, tons of giraffes. I’ve stayed at a hotel on the Janiculum. Oh, and I’ve gone up the Scala Sancta on my knees (which is funny because at the time I wasn’t Catholic. A friend and I were watching a pious, elderly nun slowly kneel her way to the top, pausing to kiss every step, and an older woman in our tour group suggested, “You girls should climb the Scala Sancta while you have the chance.” “But we’re not Catholic,” we told her. She replied, “But you may be one day,” (a philosophy that’s bound to lead to excitement if applied to every opportunity. Anyway, it got us up the stairs.).
What can I say about The Great Beauty? Well, the first thing I can say is that it demands a second viewing. My husband feels the same way. Already a Golden Globe and BAFTA winner for Best Foreign Film, this Oscar nominee from Italy is just the tiniest bit more dense and difficult than last week’s RoboCop. Watching it, you feel simultaneously enraptured and alarmed. No doubt you’ll be alarmed because life is so short and yet so unfathomable. I, on the other hand, was alarmed the moment I realized, “Oh no! I’ve got to go home and write a coherent review of this!”
My knee jerk reaction was, “Couldn’t I just make a giraffe disappear instead?” But on further reflection, I find I have quite a lot to say. I just don’t feel I have much authority to say any of it.
Based on my recollection of Nine, The Great Beauty truly does seem to be in conversation with 8 ½, so if I were truly diligent, I’d watch Fellini’s masterpiece and then watch The Great Beauty again before attempting a review. But when am I going to do that? To be honest, I’ll be lucky if I find time to watch The Hunt and The Broken Circle Breakdown before the Oscars on Sunday. I want to see as many of the nominated foreign films as possible, but the reality is, I’m far more likely to see several episodes of Dog With a Blog, My Little Pony, Wild Kratts, or Strawberry Shortcake.
So even though I’m not qualified to review this film, really, I’ll go ahead and give you my impressions now.
The Good:
I won’t pretend I truly “get” The Great Beauty, and I can’t offer any brilliant reading of the film as a whole after just one viewing and little understanding of the film’s context. But I will say that I wasn’t kidding about the long party scene near the beginning being the point of the movie.
That delightful, enthralling, disorganized, chaotic, ever-evolving-yet-never-progressing birthday party for protagonist Jep Gambardella is essentially a visual metaphor for the entire film, which in turn is a metaphor for Jep’s life as a frustrated writer in Rome, and (since he’s a philosopher, by extension) for life in general (the human condition).
This is pretty straight forward, I think. Life is a crazy party. It distracts us. It enthralls us. As we’re caught up in it, we sometimes experience something truly meaningful. More often we’re bored or feel detached from our surroundings. Sometimes we forget ourselves, forget everything. Sometimes we see images so vivid or horrifying or delightful that we never forget them even if we don’t realize their full significance at the time. Perhaps there is something worthwhile to find at this party; perhaps not. Happy hunting. Happy birthday.
The birthday aspect is important, too, I think. I mean, there will always be a party going on, but there will only be a limited number of birthday parties for you. No human being on this earth has ever celebrated limitless birthdays. So Jep is at a party because he’s always at a party. Life in Rome (life on Earth, really) is one big, dynamic, confusing party. But he’s not at just any party. He’s at his birthday party, the party that helpfully reminds you that you’re older than you’ve ever been and soon you’re going to die.
Gambardella is a much more sympathetic protagonist than I expected him to be. Toni Servillo is perfect in the role. I can’t imagine anyone playing Jep better. To be honest, when I saw a giraffe in the preview and heard the film being likened to Fellini, I worried, This has tremendous potential to be sickeningly pretentious. (I mean nothing screams, “Pretentious, avant-garde European art film!” like a random, melancholy giraffe!)
The opening scene, followed by the deliciously trippy extended party scene did nothing to assuage my fears. And then we get this memorably wince-inducing piece of performance art. Watching, wincing even before the jarring “thud,” I worried, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to connect to this.
Fortunately, the protagonist can’t connect to stuff like that either. Both my husband and I found Jep surprisingly likable and highly sympathetic. Despite the world he hangs around in, he never seems fake or pretentious. It helps that he’s aware of the fakeness, the pretentiousness, the desperation, the unhappiness of his own life and the people in his immediate social circle. He doesn’t seem to call attention to his self-awareness in an effort to be cool. He doesn’t come across like some aging Italian hipster. Instead he just seems very philosophical, perpetually depressed, and painfully honest.
To me, Jep is easy to like because he’s not just pretending to be deep. He genuinely is deep (which is why he’s so depressed and disenchanted with life). He does have a bit of affectation, of course, but his cultivated persona comes across as more of a mechanism for self-preservation than anything else.
My husband and I both liked the character. It’s easy to relate to him, and he’s incredibly insightful (though he’s frustrated by his own lack of insight) and funny (even when he’s kind of cruel).
Jep has written one (highly praised) book years ago in his youth and has never written another book since. That kind of dilemma is a bit foreign to me as a writer. Whatever my failings, I’m incredibly prolific and am always working on a novel. I start at least three novels every year and finish most of them. In fact, right now, I’m forcing myself to slow down and take more time to complete my latest project. (I’m discovering that revisions are more effective after a fallow period.) But still, while I’m “waiting” to finish one book, I’m actively writing another. I’m always writing and can’t imagine running out of ideas for novels. I’ve had an idea for a book at all times since I first learned to think in words.
Of course, Jep has the burden of having published a masterpiece. The one book I did publish back in college is about the farthest thing from a masterpiece ever written. So I don’t have to worry that I’ll never surpass my earlier work from an artistic standpoint. (I already have surpassed my earlier work. I just can’t seem to find the right publisher.) As a novelist, I’m not in Jep’s situation, but I’ve often felt similar anxieties about my academic work. (You know, if you complete the first assignment really well, what will the instructor expect from your second assignment? I’ll bet a lot of people can relate to this type of anxiety.)
When pressed, Jep typically explains that he hasn’t written anything further because he has nothing else to say. He’s not exactly happy about this situation. I suppose you would call him resigned. You could also call him realistic. (The character is very believable.) While he and I write very differently, I feel like I totally get this guy. He could easily be someone that I know. I mean, when I started college, about eighty percent of the guys I knew were budding philosophers dying to engage with the intellectual world and come away with all the answers. Jep is like one of those guys forty-five years later.
I like him because he’s sincere. He doesn’t want to pretend to know the meaning of life or pretend to want to know the meaning of life. He actually wants to know the meaning of life. He’s propelled by his relentless quest for meaning. He never finds what he’s looking for, and by now he’s essentially given up hope that he ever will, but he still keeps looking, anyway, because it’s not like he has anything else to do. His book has made him a celebrity. He could behave like a pretentious guru. Thanks to his celebrity, he would quickly attract a cult of followers. But he prefers to be an ornery misanthrope. (Now, as I said before, he does have a pretty carefully cultivated persona amongst his friends, but he seems to adopt that more for his own protection than from any desire to inculcate them to a cult of personality.)
One thing I really like about the movie is how almost every character is a foil for Jep. It’s a very interesting move in terms of character development and overall film structure. I mean, Jep basically moves from person to person, searching for meaning. He seems to be on a first name basis with all of Rome. Each time, he engages and seems to ask, “Do you have something worthwhile to tell me?” The answer is always no, and he knows it will be, but he approaches each new encounter with a surprising amount of patience, always giving the new person the opportunity to prove him wrong about humanity.
He’s sort of like Socrates. In fact, he’s exactly like Socrates—and not just because he never writes anything. His entire day is taken up with engaging in dialectic with every single person he meets. They behave as if he’s challenging them or expanding their worldview in his wisdom, but what he really wants is for them to enlighten him.
The difference is, Socrates liked a good argument, and Jep communicates primarily through metaphor—often visual, sometimes poetic. He (like the film) is a big fan of going, “Well, look at this. What do you make of this?” The person being asked usually assumes it’s a test when in fact it’s an honest question, and he genuinely wants to know.
So anyway, Jep goes along engaging with all of these disparate people, and he gets something from all of them, but none of them even comes close to giving him what he’s really after. From a literary standpoint, what’s great about all this is that just about everybody else in the entire movie works as a foil for Jep. (And even he is aware of this. It’s like his mode of life, finding foils and trying to learn more about himself and the world.)
His two most pointed foils, in my opinion, are the disturbed young man and the “Saint” who arrives at the end of the story.
The crazy adolescent essentially is Jep, an earlier incarnation of Jep. When he approaches Jep in the restaurant talking about the books he’s read, the reply Jep gives him initially seems like a casual way of easing tension. But actually, it’s very good and apt advice. If the young man follows this advice, he will probably end up like Jep, unfulfilled and disillusioned, but sane and still breathing in old age. On some level, the adolescent understands this, too. That’s why his reply to Jep is so pointed and nasty. He knows that Jep was like him, but he also knows that he will never be like Jep. There is another option.
The Saint, meanwhile, is probably the most fascinating character in the whole film. She’s definitely offered to us to make a point. But are we supposed to notice how she differs from Jep or marvel at the similarities between the two? To be honest, I’m not completely sure. (The answer is probably both.) For me, their similarities are remarkable. She knows the names of all the flamingos, for example, and he knows by name virtually everyone in Rome. I don’t want to spoil the ending of the movie, so I won’t go into great detail here. I’ll just say that the Saint and Jep have a surprising amount in common, enough, in fact, that exploring what does make them different would certainly be worthwhile to him.
Several other really well rounded and compelling characters appear in the film, as well. Probably my favorite of them is Jep’s editor, a confident woman who doesn’t feel intimidated when people mention that she’s a dwarf.
Best Scene:
I’m not letting my five-year-old see this movie. Nudity and subtitles aside, I don’t want her watching that first long birthday party scene and getting any more ideas than she already has. Seriously, I’m pretty sure that crazy pageant of excess is exactly what she has in mind for her next birthday. (Her suggestions keep getting increasingly elaborate as the days go on, and she won’t be turning six until next January! Who knows what she’ll have thought up by then! No way is there room in our budget for that guy who disappears giraffes!)
Honestly, though, the party scenes are some of the most accessible and enjoyable of the entire film. It’s so easy to get lost in them. They’re just so fun and so easy to watch, exhilarating and relaxing all at once. It’s like a big mash-up of The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Spring Breakers except instead of thinking judgmentally, “That’s so decadent!” instead you’re busy going, “Oooh! Pretty!”
All the party scenes are cool, though. Yeah, they may be kind of pointless, but that’s life, right? (Seriously, I think every party would be cooler if you held it in an orchard, or you hired a screaming, painty child to entertain.)
Best Action Sequence:
Speaking of that screaming, painty child—I love that part! Both my husband and I singled it out as a moment from the movie that leaves a lasting impression. Again, I see an obvious metaphor for life. Most of the time, we’re all just like that kid, running around, covered in all kinds of paint, screaming our heads off—and then sometimes we take a step back and…wow!
So that’s the really obvious reading of the moment. But there’s more there than that. I also love Ramona’s reaction to the child, and the whole Ramona character, to be honest. Sabrina Ferilli is just fantastic, and she somehow keeps getting increasingly beautiful as the film goes on. I wish her character got more closure on camera, but this movie loves foils, and I know her entire story arc is an echo of the true love Jep experienced in his youth. Their whole relationship is part of his grieving process even before any fresh grief gets brought into it. I don’t want to talk more about that because it will spoil the movie.
Best Scene Visually:
This movie is just one amazing visual after another. Watching The Great Beauty is like going to a rave in an art museum. (In fact, that’s the kind of thing that actually happens in Jep’s day-to-day life.)
I told my husband, “I’ll bet a lot of artists struggle with anxiety of influence and worry that they can’t produce anything original or worthwhile in Rome because everywhere you go, Michelangelo statues are just lying all over the street.” Rome is a great place to feel inferior. I can imagine that nothing can make you despair of greatness like living among the ruins of a once great civilization. There’s got to be some kind of weird “Ozymandius” effect of being an artist living in Rome and feeling inadequate to surpass the greatness of previous artists who are now dead and rotting.
My favorite thing about the entire film, though, is the extreme irony we get when The Saint shows up. Early on, we’re shown that highly pretentious, contrived, disturbing (and possibly faked) piece of performance art. And throughout the movie, Jep goes to one avant-garde social event after another. At each party they seem determined to outdo the last. Everyone is trying to create the most outrageous spectacle possible. And yet which character ultimately provides some of the most outrageous spectacles in the movie, the most uncanny, unnerving uses of space and the human body? It’s the person who is not trying to be outrageous or a spectacle. The saint is just living her truth, yet around her, truly disturbing and potentially miraculous things happen.
(My husband also likes how the exit of the flamingos contrasts so beautifully with the disappearance of the giraffe. I feel like I should mention that, though I’m being deliberately vague so that I don’t spoil the movie.)
The Negatives:
What might keep people from connecting with this film? It’s over two hours long. It’s in Italian. And it’s very much an “art film,” not the type of plot-driven, formulaic piece we usually get from Hollywood.
Now suppose you love artsy foreign films. Will you love The Great Beauty? I don’t know. I would imagine that knowing Fellini to a point would be helpful. And then it’s also easy to imagine that knowing Fellini too well would make you like this imitation of Fellini less. But I don’t know Fellini. As I’ve said, I did see Rob Marshall’s Nine, and I do see definite similarities between the hang-ups of this protagonist and the protagonist of Nine. Jep, to me, is a far more likable character, and the philosophical issues are addressed more deftly in The Great Beauty. But for all I know, Fellini tackles these similar issues with the greatest skill and lightest hand or all.
So I’m afraid my “negatives” section is going to fall a bit short this time because I don’t feel like I have sufficient background to give the film the kind of critique it deserves.
One thing I do wish is that we knew more about the friend Jep verbally destroys at the party. What he does is pretty harsh, but she’s definitely asking for it. I’d just like to know why she’s behaving in such an aggressive way in the first place. She’s clearly looking for a fight. I wish we knew more about her motivations.
If you’re like me and do not have much knowledge Italian cinema, then I can tell you that you may find this movie confusing. It’s not hard to follow in terms of plot. Not that much happens (though something is always happening). It’s just pretty hard as you’re watching to puzzle out the meaning of the film. That’s really not a problem, though, because The Great Beauty is such a joy to watch even if you have absolutely no idea what any of it means.
Overall:
It’s worth watching The Great Beauty just to hear the biting zinger about Flaubert the protagonist delivers when insulting his combative friend at a party. If you have an intense aversion to subtitles or disappearing giraffes, then this is probably not the movie for you. Honestly, though, while the film isn’t always easy to understand, it’s never hard to watch. Rome is Rome, and who can resist a great party? Funny, genuine, and often mesmerizing, The Great Beauty is a movie about life that transcends language. Will it win an Oscar this Sunday night? I don’t know, but I am so excited to watch the Academy Awards. Here’s hoping something so crazy happens that the ceremony puts one of Jep Gambardella’s parties to shame!