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The Criterion Collection

The Great Beauty (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray + DVD]

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Format: Multi-Format March 25, 2014


Description

For decades, journalist Jep Gambardella has charmed and seduced his way through the glittering nightlife of Rome. Since the legendary success of his only novel, he has been a permanent fixture in the city's literary and elite social circles. But on his sixty-fifth birthday, Jep unexpectedly finds himself taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the lavish nightclubs, parties, and cafes to find Rome itself, in all it's monumental glory: A timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty. Featuring sensuous cinematography, a lush score, and an award-winning central performance by the great Toni Servillo (GOMORRAH), this transporting experience by the brilliant Italian director Paolo Sorrentino (IL DIVO) is a breathtaking Fellini-esque tale of decadence and lost love.

Genre: Drama


Format: Subtitled, Widescreen, Color, Blu-ray, Multiple Formats


Contributor: Toni Servillo, Isabella Ferrari, Serena Grandi, Roberto Herlitzka, Franco Graziosi, Massimo Popolizio, Iaia Forte, Ivan Franek, Giorgio Pasotti, Pamela Villoresi, Paolo Sorrentino, Francesca Cima, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Galatea Ranzi, Carlo Verdone, Nicola Giuliano, Sonia Gessner See more


Language: Italian


Runtime: 2 hours and 19 minutes


Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ Unknown


Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No


MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ NR (Not Rated)


Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 8 ounces


Item model number ‏ : ‎ CRRN2345BR


Director ‏ : ‎ Paolo Sorrentino


Media Format ‏ : ‎ Subtitled, Widescreen, Color, Blu-ray, Multiple Formats


Run time ‏ : ‎ 2 hours and 19 minutes


Release date ‏ : ‎ March 25, 2014


Actors ‏ : ‎ Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Iaia Forte


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • How to Tell if This Masterpiece is For You!
There may be movies that provide more aesthetic bliss to the viewer (and listener) than The Great Beauty, but I doubt that any of them are as thematically rich and thought-provoking. And vice-versa! And this is appropriate, because, as one might guess from the title, one of the things this movie is about is the nature of beauty and our approach and response to it. But it's certainly not for all tastes. The biggest sticking point for some will be its lack of a conventional plot. There is no specific problem that confronts our hero, Jep, early in the first act and which gets resolved late in the third. It is simply the story of a man who, after his 65th birthday party, begins to gradually question his life--and even that is not telegraphed; it dawns on you slowly. You are simply watching a series of episodes in the life of a human being, and learning a great deal about him. If that is acceptable to you, then know these things: -- It's a visual and aural feast. The beautiful city of Rome, and the faces of a large ensemble of character actors, are lensed with, well, great beauty. And this is accompanied by a soundtrack that includes some of the most soul-stirring modern music, such as David Lang's "I Lie" and Arvo Part's setting of "My Heart's in the Highlands." -- Not only that, but the editing style is purely cinematic, designed not to just tell a story, but to create juxtapositions that startle, soothe, illuminate. -- It rewards repeated viewings. In fact, there are some things that will puzzle you the first time, that you'll only make sense of ten minutes after they happen (including the most important event in the movie, which happens offstage), and when you see it again, what happened will not only be clear to you, but the reason for the initial obscurity (to be true to Jep's emotional life) will be clear. -- It is drowning in symbols, but none of them are simple and programmatic (X stands for Y); instead they are multiply suggestive. Some of the action, for instance, is portrayed as taking place in spaces that are obviously other than where they must be (the usual substitution is some exquisite locale, full of open space, for someplace mundane and cramped). That's a look inside Jep's head. -- It has extraordinary thematic richness. I told a friend that it was "about everything." I can imagine an entire book devoted to exploring what it says about the human condition, and how it says it, and would not bet against that actually happening someday. (I've already spent the better part of a whole day writing about it at IMDB, after seeing it a second time.) Of course, it is not about everything equally, so here's a list of some of its main concerns: how memory haunts and shapes us, the unknowable in life, whether the world (and art) should be analyzed or just experienced, whether viewing art (in the broad sense), and hence living our lives, should be an active or passive experience. -- After two viewings and some thought, it starts to reveal more plot than it seems to have had at first. There is, after all, a story here, involving Jep's relationships with two women, one in his past, one in the present. (It's not obviously a story the first time, any more than anything in your life is, except in retrospect.) So, yes, add the nature of love to that list. -- It is touching, mostly melancholy, but ultimately hopeful. The ending, in fact, is very quietly transcendent. -- It is, in places, very, very funny. In my admittedly insanely fine-tuned ranking of my favorite films, The Great Beauty originally clocked in at #64. It jumped to #35 on its second viewing, and in my original version of this review I said I "could easily imagine it gaining another 10 places." In fact, on my third viewing it vaulted to #16. This is a movie for cinephiles to cherish. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2014 by Eric M. Van
    • Beauty, decay, and nostalgia through the eyes of a Roman elite
We first meet Jep Gambardella, given life by the brilliant Tony Servillo (Gomorrah, Sorrentino’s Il Divo), at a Berlusconi-esque bacchanal. He has realized his youthful ambition, to be “the king of the high life” in the Eternal City. His home overlooks the Coliseum at its best angle. Rome is a giant candy jar for him—and much more: it is his stage, his dreamscape, his prison, his aging process reflected—it is a serpentine, cocaine-fueled conga train in the achingly early hours; a train leading nowhere. Once, many years ago, he wrote a successful novel, The Human Apparatus, whose title and contents are impossibly pretentious, according to a fellow socialite and frequent critic. Gambardella, secure in his wealth and social status, takes her prodding with affected, chuckling indifference; but when pushed further, he steps out of the role of gentleman and verbally eviscerates his critic, calmly exploding her narrative of her own personal and professional success. She leaves the gathering in tears. In another scene, Gambardella visits an old acquaintance who manages a strip club. The man, awed by the presence of such a famous public figure, rambles about his drug use and laments what a loser he is for having to stay awake until 6 a.m. every night at age seventy. Gambardella listens with attention and compassion. Later in the film, he meditates upon his own nocturnal routine, finding little of value in the endless soirées that turn inevitably into long, debauched affairs. Yet he is clearly attached to the lifestyle they represent. Sorrentino is showing us the emptiness of life as a certain kind of Roman elite. Tonally and stylistically, his film is entirely different from Martin Scorsese’s contemporary The Wolf of Wall Street, but both touch upon a certain deep vein of unhappiness and darkly comic absurdity in the lives of the amoral ultra-wealthy. Both directors are enamored of the spectacle of excess as an almost transcendent force. But the comparison should end there, out of respect for both films and their widely divergent ambitions. Is Gambardella’s life completely empty, debauched, irredeemable? No. He is a thoughtful man who endlessly wrestles to brook the contradictions within himself, to uncover the treasures in his past that will reassemble his shattered romantic soul, even as he remains suave, acerbic, self-deprecating, utterly unflappable in his public life. Through his eyes, and Sorrentino’s, we see the immense beauty of Rome: Rome as a place outside of time, in images of its Renaissance-era glories shrouded in darkness, of a drug-addled partygoer staring in awe at planes’ jet trails streaking through the pre-dawn sky; Rome as a thoroughfare bridging Europe and the tropics, suggested by the haunting apparition of a migrating flock of flamingos alighting on Gambardella’s terrace, and a giraffe (a magician’s prop) adorning the scene of a bitter parting; Rome as a place where a central paradox of Italy, and a timeless theme of humanity, plays out: the tension between the profane and the sacred, the conflicting desires to adore, celebrate, and idolize the human body and to hide it in shame, punish it, and deny its passions with spiritual poverty. There is a rich tapestry here, and moments of enduring poignancy. There are many superlative performances, among them Giovanna Vignola as Jep’s energetic editor, the closest thing he has to a peer and a companion; and Carlo Verdone as the significantly named Romano, a struggling artist and close friend of Jep’s. The soundtrack and score are their own presence, and provide much of the film’s emotional power in dynamic relation with the cinematography. There are vignettes, characters whose arcs last seconds and leave the viewer with bizarre and lingering impressions to interpret. This is a film fully realized, and, like the warm, ephemeral memories it calls up in Jep’s most vulnerable moments, like the ancient foundations of the Forum, its imprint will not fade fast. It will inspire its viewers to write books and make films: not motivated by jealousy at the singular accomplishment of its creators, but by its affirmation of the bounties of the world and the tragedies of our time. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2014 by Nicholas C. Triolo

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