My city, my self

Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo, superb) turns 65 at the start of Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty, by which point it has been some 40 years since the publication of his only novel, The Human Apparatus, 40 years Jep seems to have devoted to living some version of la dolce vita, establishing himself as a society journalist while somehow earning enough to purchase a luxury apartment overlooking the coliseum, to making himself an essential component of his city’s cultural life, both as commentator and member of its elite. I hesitate to apply the verb “work” to Jep’s career—to appear to be making an effort would seem anathema to Jep’s very being. Indeed, among the film’s motifs is the image of Jep reclining, in sun-draped hammock or on comfy looking bed. Self-effacing yet ruthless in his critique of others, glamorous in the most relaxed way imaginable, Jep has constructed a sort of fortress around himself, one that others cannot penetrate and that he himself cannot apparently escape from. Is that fortress, in some half-metaphysical, half-entirely literal sense, Rome? Among other things, The Great Beauty—which cries out to be called by its original Italian La grande bellezza—is an homage to all that’s delicious, decadent and disappointing about 21^st century Rome, an empire long-fallen yet still slowly fading or withering in the honey-sun, while wearing an immaculate pair of hand-made leather shoes. 

The film’s first major set-piece—there are many—surveys the ostensibly fabulous but, it seems to me, kind of lame party celebrating Jep’s birthday, replete with terrible techno, line dancing, a screaming woman, mariachis, and a very friendly variation on dwarf tossing. (The dwarf in question is not mere Fellini-esque cliché; she’s Jep’s editor and one of the film’s central, if not exactly developed, characters.) Jep’s is a world where there’s always a party and the party feels always almost over, continuing not because it’s too much fun, but rather, because these particular partygoers don’t know how to do much else, and it’s too late in life to learn. I love that fact that The Great Beauty is about cultured people older than we’re accustomed to watching navigate this kind of existentialist-bacchanalian terrain, people old enough to not stumble for even a moment of over my use of “Fellini-esque,” the sort of people for whom a fleeting apparition of Fanny Ardant is freighted with meaning. Presumably, these same cultured older people are the sort content to watch Jep wander a non-sequitur-laden Rome with no special agenda, to amble through his mildly aching memories of young love lost, to monitor his curious liaison with Ramona (Sabrina Ferilli), a fairly sophisticated stripper by vocation, and to do all this for 142 minutes. While I didn’t find The Great Beauty to be the masterpiece others have claimed it to be, I truly hope that there are still those who are willing to immerse themselves in its sauntering without becoming impatient. It invites us to a world not dead but dying, that invokes a cinema long passed but not passé, a wry way of regarding the old world that’s somewhat shapeless but never charmless. Sorrentino is only in his early 40s, but The Great Beauty suggests that he is already more than prepared for the listless regrets of old age. I hope there are still movies as melancholy and knowing, as well crafted and daringly aimless as this one when he turns 65. 

                                     

All the news that's fit to primp: Broadcast News

Tom (William Hurt) met Jane (Holly Hunter) when Jane gave a lecture at an industry conference about the moronization of the TV news. Nearly the whole of Jane’s audience of cynical, careerist colleagues just rolled their eyes, but for Tom, Jane’s words fell upon him with the force of revelation. Because Tom’s a symptom of precisely the problem Jane’s addressing. Tall, handsome and Aryan, sporting a pleasing baritone, displaying no special talent whatsoever for journalistic insight, Tom was a born anchorman. Soon he becomes Jane’s anchorman, and Jane his producer, whispering instructions in his ear at just the right on-air moments, which causes all sorts of problems not just for Jane’s sense of professional integrity—this is a woman who forces herself into sobs on a daily basis just to assure herself that she hasn’t lost her ability to feel—but for her personal life, since she discovers that she fancies Tom, and once her old buddy, the devoted reporter but less than telegenic Aaron (Albert Brooks), discovers that Jane fancies Tom, Aaron realizes that he’s always fancied Jane, and Aaron really needs to hate Tom, even though Tom makes it hard by being a basically nice guy. Things get complicated, and it’s to the credit of writer/director James L. Brooks that Broadcast News (1987), never compromises those complications by imposing facile resolutions.

Seeing Broadcast News for the first time, it initially struck me as jarring to imagine William Hurt and Jack Nicholson inhabiting the same movie—there are simply certain stars, or certain star egos, that seem to burn too boldly to share a constellation. Brooks himself tacitly acknowledges something momentous about a Hurt/Nicholson collision by taking their few seconds of shared screen time and filling it with an enormous close-up of their shaking hands. As it turns out Nicholson’s role is almost small enough to be considered a cameo, the bulk of his performance playing out on TV monitors watched by the other characters, a little bit like Brian O’Blivion in Videodrome (83), but with better grooming and less zeal.

What’s more deeply unsettling is the experience of witnessing Criterion’s spinning “C” introductory logo being followed by the whimsical, overly illustrative strains of Bill Conti’s musical score. Whether issuing works from the giants of foreign art cinema, studio era classics or psychotronic cult obscurities, Criterion has nearly always been synonymous with durability and keen, eclectic taste, so it takes some time to reconcile their brand with music from the dude who conducts the Oscars. But, okay, so I’m sensitive to sappy music. Fact is Broadcast News does represent the zenith of a particular kind of Hollywood film, one Brooks has made a career of, sometimes winningly, sometimes disastrously (How Do You Know), sometimes problematically while under the impression that this is As Good As It Gets. His are brainy, ambitious comedies with an interest in group dynamics, social milieux and romantic frustration, that delve into their characters’ eccentricities rather than simply use those eccentricities for superficial colour. Broadcast News has also accumulated tremendous historical value by having examined how televised news was generated, consumed, and essentially downgraded at a key moment in its development, and benefits enormously from Michael Ballhaus’ superb camerawork every time we’re offering a peek behind the scenes. It’s also, of course, fairly entertaining, thanks for especially to Hunter, who can somehow be at once zany and emotionally grounded, and Albert Brooks, rather moving and very much in his element, playing a character whose relationship to his female colleague is remarkably similar to that of Brooks’ character in Taxi Driver (76). Yet, as with some other James Brooks films, I couldn’t shake the feeling while watching Broadcast News that its clever gags were actually intended to be much funnier than they are. It might be a matter of rhythm: I recall at least two scenes that end with Albert Brooks saying or doing something funny, but instead of cutting on the joke, the scene ends with Hunter’s laughing reaction. I’d have preferred it if Brooks let me laugh instead.