The final scene of The Great Beauty is a masterstroke. Jep, after a series of disappointments, wanders to the seaside at dawn. A young woman’s face smiles at him from the wall of a villa. The music swells. Then, a tunnel: a priest leads the Mother Superior in pilgrimage. Jep watches them disappear. A title card appears: “Sometimes I ask myself why I never wrote another book. Because I never wanted to write about misery. But this is where it ends. This is where it truly begins.”
While the film is visually sumptuous, its themes are sharp and critical. The Great Beauty is not a love letter to Rome, but a dissection of the rot beneath its beautiful skin. The film is a "crazy critique of a society," focusing on "fleetingness, arrogance, vanity…". Jep’s world is filled with the wealthy and the powerful, yet they are all profoundly empty.
Jep Gambardella, having written one successful novel in his youth, has spent decades living as a king of Roman nightlife, writing gossip, and partying. On his 65th birthday, a profound existential crisis hits him, prompting him to seek the "great beauty" beneath the superficiality of his life. The.Great.Beauty.2013.1080p.BluRay.DTS.x264-Pub...
Widely praised for its breathtaking visuals by Luca Bigazzi.
: After his 65th birthday, a shocking revelation about a lost love from his youth triggers a profound existential crisis. The Journey The final scene of The Great Beauty is a masterstroke
The Great Beauty is unapologetically a throwback to the golden age of Italian cinema, particularly the works of Federico Fellini. Yet, it is very much its own movie. The film was an immediate sensation, winning the 2013 European Film Award for Best Movie of the Year. It went on to dominate the 26th European Film Awards, taking home the top prizes for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor for Toni Servillo.
The Great Beauty, focused on the sixty-fifth birthday of a successful journalist and social animal in Rome, is a wonderful film: i... offscreen.com Film of the Week: The Great Beauty - Film Comment The music swells
The Great Beauty (2013): Bellissima! Magnifico! - Notes on films
The film’s rich cinematography and sound design reward high-quality presentation; Blu-ray or lossless formats best convey its visual textures and Alexandre Desplat’s nuanced score.
The Great Beauty is a movie packed to the brim with ideas, fragmented and filled to fruition by director Paolo Sorrentino, that un... CriterionCast
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino and shot by cinematographer Luca Bigazzi, the film is an absolute sensory overload. Watching a low-resolution or heavily compressed stream strips the film of its fundamental purpose: .