You won't be disappointed!

Sorry, this movie sucks

Simply A Masterpiece

Absolutely the worst movie.

Visually stunning. Luca Bigazzi's cinematography is outstanding not to mention Toni Servillo's performance. Paolo Sorrentino made Italians proud again!

Film theory professors are inclined to force their students to find and reflect on nonsensical connections, such as mulling about the relationship between a recent Italian film and the most historically important Italian genre. This was my try to integrate La Grande Belezza in the frame of Italian neorealism.Firstly, a clear definition of 'genre' is needed to approach Italian neorealism from this perspective. Structural film theorists created the term 'genre' in order to detect underlying patterns in a group of otherwise unrelated film texts in opposition to the prior focus on the oeuvre of a distinguished director (Altman, 2006). Given their origin, it is logical to assume 'genres' are contained -and thereby defined, wholly within the film text. Altman refutes this seemingly independent nature, stating that critics and spectators themselves generate and modify mental expectations for each genre (2006). Accordingly, the context, in other words the social and political situation surrounding the film text, is at least partly responsible for the generally accepted meaning of a particular genre. In the continuum from text-dependent to context-dependent genres, a specific genre is situated near the extreme of the context side, namely Italian neorealism.To elaborate, the Italian neorealism was a reaction to the propagandistic use of film during the fascist regime of Berlusconi from 1922 to 1945 (Wagstaff, 2007). The Italian film directors of the immediate post-world war II strove, similar to many counter-movements, to a complete opposition of the prior film production. The realistic aspect of their films is therefore not solely based on an aesthetic reason, but also on political and social motivations. Ben-Ghiat has even stated that the Italian neorealist cinema was part of the transition period of Italy towards a democratic structure, film was more suited than any other medium at the time to express the need to reintegrate the humanist ideals of the Enlightenment into the national image and culture (2008). Contrastingly, Altman has noted in his article of 2006 that some historians have linked the realistic nature of the neorealist movement to a forced aesthetic due to the absence of production materials and general poverty. Bazin diverges from this purely practical view as he evaluates the neorealist films as a reminder that realism is in fact an aesthetic choice. He attributes the choice for this aesthetic with political reasons, relating the Italian neorealist movement to the revolutionary cinema of Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Dovzhenko (1967). Although on an aesthetical level the neorealist cinema is more similar to the social realist cinema under Stalin.In comparison, Paolo Sorrentino's main aim in La Grande Bellezza (2013) could be deemed to be similar in its intention, i.e. presenting the social and political reality of a specific place and time. Additionally, In terms of space it has overlaps with Roberto Rossellini's Roma, città aperta (1945) and Vittorio De Sica's Ladri di biciclette (1948). However, even though La Grande Bellezza contains many connections with Italian neorealism on a textual level, no film critic or spectator would ever deem it to be a neorealist film. The context of post-world war II Italy is too strongly interwoven with the label of 'Italian neorealism'. It is therefore impossible to make another neorealist film, no matter how closely it follows the aesthetics and content. In light of the previous conclusion it seems to be more productive to view Italian neorealism not as a genre such as it was defined at the beginning of this essay, but as a film movement that liberated the Italian film production from its propagandistic abuse by the fascist regime. Italian neorealist films had to strive for simplicity in order to achieve this goal of purification, thereby being forced to limit their possibility of content and aesthetics (Bondanella, 1993). However, since the context has changed filmmakers are now no longer bound to these strict rules when they want to convey a realistic portrayal of the contemporary social and political situation. Plus, Hsu writes in his article of 2006 about the recent trend of incorporating many different genres in a single film text and the overall blurring of the distinct dividing lines between genres. These circumstances suggest the unlikely nature of any filmmaker restricting himself to the narrow regulations of the genre of Italian neorealism. La Grande Bellezza, which displays influences of the films of Rossellini and De Sica yet incorporates a greater variety than just those sources, is more common.Specifically, Sorrentino's film contains surrealistic scenes, adopts stylistic schemata from the CinemaScope aesthetic of the early American widescreen, plays with colour contrasts to add symbolical elements to the scenes, references the visual style of other media such as music videos, and contrasts wildly varying tones and atmospheres throughout its runtime. In conclusion, regarding the style of filmmaking La Grande Bellezza is as far removed from the simplistic archetype of a neorealist film as possible. A more apt comparison is the bombastic and multiperspective Roma (1972) by Fellini. The consensus in genre theory dictates that genres change over time as they are reassessed and redefined by all involved agents. A genre that is not able to change due to its dependency on the context, as is the case with Italian neorealism, is therefore destined to die out. In the specific case of Italian neorealist cinema many film critics and theorists point to De Sica's Umberto D. (1952) as the end point of the movement. However, Paolo Sorrentino and many other international filmmakers have proven that even though Italian neorealism has ended as a genre, it is still influencing contemporary film production and this will likely continue in the future. The fundamental motivation of the neorealist filmmakers was to liberate cinema, a goal in which they succeeded. Other directors have opted to celebrate that freedom, instead of clinging to the movement that provided their freedom. La Grande Bellezza is a good example of a film made in this liberated style thanks to the collection of influences that Paolo Sorrentino integrated within his work.Altman, R. (2006). Film, genre: London, British Film Institute 2006.Ben-Ghiat, R. (2008). Un cinéma d'après- guerre : le néoréalisme italien et la transition démocratique. (Cinema after the War: Italian Neorealism and the Transition from Fascism to Democracy). Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 63e année(6), 1248.Bondanella, P. (1993). Viaggio in Italia The Films of Roberto Rossellini: Camebridge University Press.Wagstaff, C. (2007). Italian neorealist cinema : an aesthetic approach. Toronto ; Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press.

Greetings from Lithuania."La grande bellezza" (2013) is without a doubt the best movie Paolo Sorrentino has made yet. Not only this is his best film to date, this is a one great movie on every account. I was captivated by it from the first frame, which opens on a pretty long party sequence till the very last frame. Yet, this movie isn't for everyone. Those who like clear and plot based movie might find this gem to difficult and even boring. Nevertheless, this is one of the very best Italian movies i have ever seen. Every scene in this movie is done very skilfully and it's just interesting to watch and to listen to characters, especially to our hero Jep Gambardella (superbly played by Toni Servillo), a "party lion", who at 65 starts to have some thought about life and starts to find and see beauty in everything, even the most bizarre things. Overall, "La grande bellezza" (or "The Great Beauty") was a huge surprise to me. Saw it first time just now, i would like to recommend this near masterpiece to everyone who liked great movie simply about life - it's not about plot, it's about moments here and now, the people, culture, even nightlife of some Bohemia of Rome. Great movie.

This looks like to be the message of the movie or at least the opinion of its main character, Jep Gambardella, a journalist who has failed as a writer. He has nevertheless ambitions and opinions about life and the world in his beautiful house in Rome with a view to the Colosseum. But when he reaches 65 he realizes that he has wasted his life in mundane high society parties being much endeared by the women even at that age. He becomes then very disillusioned and seeks often refuge in memories and nostalgia of the past. All this develops itself in beautiful images and scenes of interiors and exteriors and beautiful film framings including of mundane parties and balls. There are also discussions sometimes superficial, sometimes deeper about human nature and the life and behaviour of this or that character. We must not forget that we are among high society members. No worker or proletarian is ever seen. We see a lot of characters sometimes very strange in terms of faces and behaviours. A good movie about life or at better its vacuity for those who think so.