Skip to main content

Neapolitan Filmmakers Toni Servillo and Paolo Sorrentino Take On Hollywood


Toni Servillo in a scene from "La Grande Bellezza"
Italy's Oscar entry has made the short list. Paolo Sorrentino's "La Grande Bellezza" (The Great Beauty) which stars the director's top actor, Toni Servillo, was a huge hit in Italy and is gaining momentum for a coveted nomination in the category for Best Foreign Film.  

The film's A-list cast which also features Rome natives, Carlo Verdone and Sabrina Ferilli, tells the story of the Roman club underworld. Toni Servillo takes the lead role of Jep Gambardella, an uninspired writer who recounts his days as a young spectator who became seduced and intoxicated with power, finding himself caught in a web of superficiality, disillusionment and corruption. Sorrentino described "La Grande Bellezza" as "a film which probes the contradictions, the beauties, the scenes I have witnessed and the people I’ve met in Rome; a wonderful city, soothing yet at the same time full of hidden dangers."

Nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, the film has been called a "swooning love letter to Roman decadence," and Sorrentino did not hold back on the rich, colorful sets and wardrobe. Much of the film was shot on a terrace overlooking the colosseum, so there is always that element of Rome's indulgent, morally questionable history. The film takes us on a whirlwind trip through a select society with extreme highs and lows that produce euphoria one moment and desperation the next.


Paolo Sorrentino


Born in Naples in 1970, Paolo Sorrentino offers his original, thought-provoking perspective on some of Italy's darkest times. He is celebrated in cinema around the world as his films reach well beyond the borders of Italy.

One of the most innovative filmmakers of our time, whose films tell stories of complicated, layered characters faced with morally sound choices, Sorrentino is an artist's artist, one who makes films to satisfy his own artistic hunger and vision. In doing so, he succeeds to make films that are so simply honest and politically incorrect, you can't help but appreciate their fundamentalism and identify with some part of the protagonists' human flaws. His characters have ranged from rock stars to political icons and criminals. But the one thing all these diverse characters have in common is the inner moral struggle facing each of them. His characters find themselves on emotional, soul-searching passages in which they go through deep introspections of the choices their greed and ego led them to make.

Early in his career, Sorrentino teamed up with fellow Neapolitan filmmaker, Toni Servillo and the two have worked on several projects together, creating portraits of sometimes narcissistic characters who live in dark underworlds of society. These underworlds, sometimes having to do with the mafia.. and in other cases the Roman club scene, are parts of society that do indeed exist. They are realities, discussed in hushed tones, which the general public doesn't really want to acknowledge. But Sorrentino dives right into these worlds, carefully examining the characteristics and motives of the people behind them. 

Toni Servillo


Named by Vogue Italy as the most versatile actor in the history of Italian cinema, Toni Servillo hauntingly becomes these dark, troubled characters and gives an air of indifference to the methods they use to get what they want. Born in 1958 in Afragola, a town in the province of Naples, Toni Servillo teamed up with Sorrentino for the director's 2001 debut film, "L'uomo in più" (One Man Up). Set in the 1980's, the film shows the parallel lives of two men with the same name, Antonio Pisapia. One is a top soccer player and the other a successful pop singer. Servillo plays the part of the pop singer. Both men experience the height of success and the depths of failure.  It is a deeply poignant story that balances dreams and reality.


The two worked together three years later on Sorrentino's romantic psychological thriller "Le conseguenze dell'amore" (The Consequences of Love), which brought Toni Servillo his first David di Donatello award. The story follows a Mafia accountant found laundering the mob's profits. Servillo delivers an unforgettable performance of a lonely man who falls in love with a young barmaid and is willing to risk everything to be with her, including his life. 

In Sorrentino's 2008 international blockbuster "Il Divo," Servillo plays Giulio Andreotti, a former Italian prime minister and fixture in Italian politics for nearly eight decades, who was a subject of corruption investigations in the 1990's. Sorrentino and Servillo collaborated to present their take on the complicated topic of postwar Italian politics and succeeded in actually simplifying the subject, focusing on the career plateaus and valleys of one of its key players. Elected seven times as Italy's prime minister, Andreotti was known for his signature round-shouldered, slow moving stride and sense of strong inner energy. Servillo embraced those characteristics and was articulate in his portrayal of the former prime minister in his award-winning performance. Sorrentino and Servillo created a true contemporary classic and recounted a significant story in Italy's modern history.

 

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

7 Days - 7 Women: Interview with Actress Sabrina Impacciatore

  Photo by Rossella Vetrano On Day 6 of our series, 7 Days - 7 Women, in which we are profiling seven strong, talented women working as filmmakers, writers or visual artists, we talk with actress Sabrina Impacciatore about the diversity of her roles. Whether she's playing a devoted mother trying to protect her child, Jesus Christ's "Veronica" in Mel Gibson's controversial film, "Passion of the Christ" or a young woman coming of age, Impacciatore escapes into the life and mind of each character she takes on, sometimes so deeply that she believes she is actually them.   It's a fine line between reality and fiction, but she treads it carefully and anyone watching her performance benefits from her emotional connection to the character that she becomes. I spoke with Impacciatore at the 2010 Open Roads: New Italian Film series in New York City. We talked about her lifelong dream of becoming an actress. She also gave me some insight into the diff...
Post a Comment
Read more

Golden Age Masterpiece: Luchino Visconti’s 1957 “White Nights”

Photo Credit: Archivio Luce Cinecittà Luchino Visconti’s 1957 film, “White Nights” (“Le notti bianche”), offers a thoughtful and poignant exploration of themes such as loneliness, desire and emotional vulnerability. Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella of the same name, it transports the tale from 19th-century St. Petersburg to a dreamy mid-20th-century Italian setting. While Visconti remains largely faithful to Dostoevsky’s narrative, his characteristic style infuses the film with emotional depth, striking visuals, and a focus on class and societal constraints.   The story follows a young man named Matteo, played by Marcello Mastroianni, who lives a solitary life in a small Italian town. One evening, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Natalia, portrayed by Austrian-Swiss actress Maria Schell, who is also feeling isolated. Although she is initially reluctant, Natalia eventually confides in Matteo about her love for a man who has promised to return and marry her, but he ha...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Timeless Talent of Stefania Sandrelli

On screen since the tender age of 14, she has captivated audiences for more than 50 years with a compelling combination of strength and vulnerability. She achieved stardom at just 14 years old playing the angelic cousin of a love-struck Marcello Mastroianni in Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style.” More than half a century later, she is still going strong and remains one of Italy’s most esteemed actors. Stefania Sandrelli was born on June 5, 1946, in Viareggio in the province of Lucca in northern Italy. As a child, she studied music and dance. Then in 1960, she won a beauty pageant and was featured on the cover of Le Ore magazine. Her purity captivated the country and shortly thereafter, movie offers began pouring in. Just one year later, she made her cinema debut in three feature films: Mario Sequi’s Gioventù di notte , Luciano Salce’s The Fascist, and Pietro Germi’s Divorce Italian Style . She instantly became a star and before long was a key figure in Italy’s legend...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: “Hitler Versus Picasso and the Others” by Claudio Poli

A compelling 2018 documentary by Claudio Poli aims to shed light on a chapter of Nazi history that is still relevant today. “Hitler Versus Picasso and the Others” is the story of how the Führer didn’t just take countless human lives but also robbed a whole culture of its artistic heritage. Narrated by actor Toni Servillo, “Hitler Versus Picasso and the Others” takes viewers on an incredible journey in search of masterpieces stolen during World War II. The stories of individual works are told by people who witnessed the looting, much of which took place during raids on homes and galleries belonging to Jewish collectors. The documentary reveals that 600,000 works of art were stolen from private owners, museums, churches and galleries.   The confiscated artwork was either kept by the Nazi elite, warehoused, sold or destroyed in bonfires. Few benefited more from this large-scale heist than Hildebrand Gurlitt, Hitler’s so-called art dealer, who kept many of the most priceless treasures ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Conversation with Actor Mirko Frezza of David di Donatello Winner "Il più grande sogno"

The 2017 David di Donatello award show, which took place on Monday, was an exciting event that celebrated many great contemporary talents of Italian cinema.  I was fortunate to have seen most of the nominees.  Among my personal favorites  is Michele Vannucci's  Il più grande sogno  simply because it is based on one of the most inspiring, beautiful stories I've ever  heard, and the person behind that story is as authentic and down-to-earth as they come. The film won the 3 Future Award, which is determined by the public. With Director Michele Vannucci and Actor Mirko Frezza I first saw  Il più grande sogno last September when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival. I didn't make it to Venice, but thanks to a great online platform called Festival Scope , which offers a handful of premieres to be screened on the web, I felt like I was there. The film itself blew me away, and then when I realized it was based on a true story, I knew t...
Post a Comment
Read more