You can find beauty in the most mundane things, if you look closely enough. —-Paolo Sorrentino
The other day I watched “The Great Beauty” on the Criterion Channel and really enjoyed it.
So today, desperate for some entertainment I decided to return to the Criterion Channel and watch another of director Paolo Sorrentino’s creations, this time his first movie, “One Man Up“.
It’s the story of the rise and fall (mostly fall) of two men with the same name, Antonio Pisapia. One is a popular singer and the other an up and coming football (soccer) player. They live separate, yet nearby, lives and their stories overlap and echo each other in strange and interesting ways.
Their downfall is caused by the usual sins, sex, drugs and stubbornness. You can’t really say they don’t deserve what happens to them, but you are rooting for… at least their redemption if not their return to their early success (which doesn’t seem possible).
One does, in the end, find some sort of peace with himself while the other one… doesn’t.
I won’t tell you which is which.
The movie is gorgeous, sexy, and has some wonderful seafood. It’s Italian, in other words.
The most important thing I discovered a few days after turning 65 is that I can’t waste any more time doing things I don’t want to do. —-Jep Gambardella, The Great Beauty
The Great Beauty
I went to sleep intending to get up at the crack of dawn and go somewhere on my bike – but it was 34 degrees in Fahrenheit, which in Centigrade is just too damn cold for me. So I checked what was on the Criterion Channel’s 24/7 feed and was presented with a scene of a wild, colorful, lusty party, obviously Italian. I checked and it was a movie called The Great Beauty, directed by Paolo Sorrentino.
So I watched the whole thing. And really enjoyed it. Under a very thin veneer of carefree hedonism, decadence, and debauchery is a world of empty people, desperate to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
But, oh, such fine debauchery, such exquisite decadence, such amazingly carefree hedonism. I don’t get to go to parties like this, I don’t get invited to parties like this, I don’t even know how to find parties like this… not to mention I can’t afford to go to parties like this (the tailored suits alone would bankrupt me).
Bill Chance 