This slogan is actually misleading.
Let's first look at the current Chinese translation of the film. "La grande bellezza", literally translated, actually means "magnificent," "most beautiful," and "extremely beautiful." "The Romans" (Gente di Roma) is the kind of film with the city as the protagonist). The relationship between beauty and life, the relationship between creation and beauty and life and memory, and the relationship between beauty and reality constitute the core theme of this film. The style and form of the film, the composition of each shot, and the construction of each group of montages, Sorrentino is interpreting the connotation of beauty in a visual way. On the other hand, Fellini's "Sweet Life", which is an extremely sharp depiction of the capitalist economic miracle brought about tremendous changes in the daily material and spiritual life of Italians, this kind of realist criticism is not the intention of this film. Therefore, if you insist on clinging to Fellini in terms of spiritual core and theme, this film is closer to "Eight and Half", which is also full of self-reflexive characteristics.
Although the narrative structure of "A Beautiful City" is similar to "Sweet Life", it uses combined paragraphs to collage the structure of the entire film, but in fact both are derived from the prototype of Western narrative art-Homer's epic "The Odyssey" "The pioneering "journey mode", there are countless films using this narrative mode in film history. "A Beautiful City" at the beginning quoted the famous French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Louis-Ferdinand Céline)'s representative work "Wandering in the Dark Night" an interpretation of the journey-"The journey is useful Yes, you can exercise your imagination, and the rest is in vain. Our journey is purely fictional, and that is its power"-both to announce the film's narrative structure to the audience and explain the meaning of the journey. In terms of narrative form, the twelve paragraphs of "Sweet Life" form a story capacity of nearly three hours, making the movie more like a large-scale mural. In comparison, the capacity of "A Beautiful City" is more than two hours. There are more than twenty passages. It is more like a Byzantine mosaic. Sorrentino wants the audience to notice the exquisite and delicate textures and details.
As far as the narrative is concerned, although "The Beautiful City" is the same as "Sweet Life" or other classic modernist-style journey mode movies in the 1960s, such as Antonioni's "Adventure", there is no direct cause and effect between the various paragraphs. Relationship, but its final form is closed. At the end of the film, Jeep’s puzzled question "Would you like to write or not" is answered, and the endings of those modernist films are mostly like the flow of life, showing abundant openness. Only death is the only possible ending and truth. . It can also be compared that modernist-style journey mode movies tend to have a negative and negative ending. There is no way out in life, and there is no meaning in existence. However, "The Beautiful City" is an upward trend and a positive trend, and the ending is very satisfactory.
The 20-odd passages of the film seem to have little connection as a whole. They are all Jeep's wanton life encounters, but in fact there is a faint main thread inside. This is his original memory of love and beauty has been awakened. The re-stimulation of the impulse and the final awakening are the most important driving force for the development of the film's narrative. At first, the dewy marriage between Jeep and the rich girl made him suddenly feel that material satisfaction is not what he really needs; then, the husband of Eliza, his childhood sweetheart but later broke up, came to visit, which aroused Jeep’s instinctive love. Passion; several dates with Ramona, the dancer of the strip club, made him think more deeply about his first love and the memory of his first feelings about beauty (this is a more important passage that strengthens Jeep's re-cognition of feelings) ; Visit the classic paintings in the home of art collectors, let his artistic inspiration rise; the photo exhibition arranging the life growth process, ascend his spiritual growth memory; finally, the nun Maria gave a "spiritual" to Jeep Epiphany. I would like to specifically describe a passage from Mother Maria, because this is the most direct presentation of the theme of the film. Maria asked Jeep, "Why don't you write books anymore?" Jeep replied, "I was looking for a great beauty, but I couldn't find it." Maria asked again, "Do you know why I eat rhizomes?" Jeep Feel inexplicable at this. Maria added another sentence, "Because I know the importance of rhizomes." The rhizomes are the last revelation that Jeep received. This god-given metaphor, as explained in his last monologue, is actually "a life hidden under a lie." It is the thrilling beauty of the physical truth hidden under the coat that his first love girlfriend let him see under the curtain of night.
Under this main clue, Sorrentino has embedded a large number of boundless life landscapes with different styles and shapes, colorful and colorful with Ji Guang Katayu, and so-called lies built on rhizomes. First of all, the way the film unfolds shows the director's skill. Sorrentino arranged a Japanese tour group to visit the ancient buildings of Rome during the day. This is a point of view from which audiences can easily identify themselves and enter the situation quickly. Then there was a scene of a group of female voices singing chants. Before the audience could finish this scene full of historical solemnity, the film immediately jumped into the carnival ball in the dark.
Then we saw a large number of bizarre, mysterious and strange scenes and characters that seem to have nothing to do with the main clue: the carnival ball held to commemorate Jeep’s birthday; the incomprehensible cosmetic treatment; the graffiti creation by the grumpy daughter of the art collector "Abstract painting"; a funeral with a strong irony; a neighbor living next door was arrested by the police, who turned out to be a wanted criminal who absconded for ten years; and an elegant woman played by French actress Fanny Ardant An accidental encounter on the street; Mother Maria blew away the cranes that had briefly perched on the balcony during the migration journey; the mentally ill boy who loved Prost and Chekov; the Chinese who clamored on the street, and ate in restaurants Mysterious Arabs, Mexicans dancing in the discotheque. The connection between these fragments and the construction of the fragments themselves are often called upon to come and go, with heads but no tails. Like the relationship between Jeep and Ramona. Just now Jeep explained that he will take you to see the sea monster. The next scene will jump to another segment, and the line of Ramona will be disconnected forever.
Of course, as an Italian film, and an Italian film that is at least superficially related to traditional Italian films, the visual highlights naturally cannot be ignored. Sorrentino was originally a director who is very good at visual construction. In "Il Divo" (Il Divo), he uses extremely explicit mobile photography style to construct satirical emotional effects, which is extremely stunning. In this film, at the beginning of the film, Sorrentino used a series of moving camera lenses with varying angles to form a montage, allowing the audience to enter Rome with a poetic feeling similar to the beginning of Evans's "Rain". The mobile photography in this film has the same high proportions as "Star Premier", but most of the shots are not intended to show the subjective mental state related to Jeep (there is a flashback nature of playing in the garden in childhood. The lens is very beautiful), and the suspense-surprise-satisfaction related to the time dimension has nothing to do with the model, but an independent movement that has nothing to do with the subject. The purpose is to continuously change the spatial structure and form a unique sense of rhythm. Everything is still related to It is related to the construction of aesthetics. In the scene of the opening carnival ball, Sorrentino slows down the camera until it is pushed in front of Jeep at a super slow speed, showing a different kind of tranquility that is independent of everyone and belongs to Jeep in the carnival. A moment of loneliness. The adjustment of movement and stillness is also an important feature of the film's rhythm.
In addition to mobile photography, another major feature of the film is that night scenes occupies a high proportion, which makes all the lights become stage lights (the top light and side lights are especially numerous), and all the characters become Actors of the city of Rome. Most of the weather in the film is sunny, and Rome looks magnificent under the scorching sun. The only rain scene in the film is symbolic. It happened after Jeep heard the news of the death of his first love, and the sad tears of the two men turned into rain.
As mentioned above, with the help of the queen photographer Luca Bigazzi in the entire film Sorrentino, almost every shot is explaining the potential and possibility of beauty. From my personal point of view, the most subtle thing is the scene where Jeep talked with Eliza's husband who came to visit at the stairway. The other party told Jeep that Eliza had unfortunately passed away yesterday. This news made the two men who had loved this woman at the same time plunged into grief. At this time, the center of the visual perspective was a slightly twisted stair railing. The "heart"-shaped composition, and the lines of the entire scene also show an arc shape. Such a subtle, delicate and artistic intuition relies on the in-depth body and soul observation of all things in life (this is a real-life shooting) to create a wonderful scene that can only be seen in traditional classic Italian movies. Another scene that made me feel unique and contagious was a shot of the moon rising. The background sound is Jeep talking ironically about the upcoming funeral. The picture shows the slowly rising moon. When the monologue says, "Many people think that the funeral is an accident. There are no rules at all. This is not a fact... "The moon suddenly unfolded its wings and turned into a plane that soared into the sky. It can be said that this is a typical Italian or even Fellini-style humor.
Toni Servillo, who plays Jeep in the film, is a well-known star in Italy today. He is the kind of chameleon-shaped actor, and he can easily possess the soul of any role. Sorrentino had a wonderful collaboration with Severo in "The Prime Minister". By comparing the contrasting images of Severo in the next two movies, you can see his amazing acting skills. One is an extremely silent, introverted, and cunning politician, and the other is an extremely free, detached, and emotional artist. Many people compare Jeep with the reporter played by Mastroianni in "Sweet Life", but in fact, there are essential differences between the two roles. The former gradually found inspiration and comprehend the creation. The truth is that the latter is indulging in a sweet life and cannot be extricated from it. In terms of character, the latter also has more helpless and self-deprecating qualities. The flaw in the film’s beauty is precisely the character’s overly detached and unrestrained spiritual qualities. After all, in the film, he has completed the sublimation of the soul and soul in a way of gradual realization, and has gained insight into the truth of beauty and life. His consistent mental state from the beginning to the end made the final climax of sentiment not raise his emotions to the top, and the sudden infinite joy that seemed to be less absolute. Purity is not the state pursued by this film.
Today's Italian cinema is in decline, and few masterpieces are produced every year. It is impossible to return to the grand scene of the film Renaissance in the 1960s. However, the magnificent, rich and varied artistic resources of traditional Italian cinema must not be discarded. At least "The Beautiful City" proves that once Italian filmmakers can accurately and patiently find the most suitable part of their traditional resources, they can still produce great works.
Originally published in "Iris", November 2013 (the sixth issue)
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