The Great Beauty

Paolo Sorrentino opens not in tourist Rome but on the Janiculum: a cannon shot, the Acqua Paola fountain, a visitor collapsing at the view. The story never returns to the dead man; within minutes the film has announced it will build no plot. The production unlocked Rome’s closed doors. Palazzo Sacchetti on Via Giulia, the gardens of Villa Medici, the Grand Priory of the Knights of Malta on the Aventine and Borromini’s perspective gallery at Palazzo Spada all appear in turn. Jep’s terrace facing the Colosseum is no set; the flat really is on Piazza del Colosseo. Luca Bigazzi shot it. Jep’s one novel is L’apparato umano, The Human Apparatus, and the film opens on a line from Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night calling the journey imaginary. The awards run past the Oscar. It won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film, and at the 2013 European Film Awards took four prizes: film, director, actor for Toni Servillo and editing for Cristiano Travaglioli. At home the David di Donatello gave it director and actor, while best film went to Paolo Virzì’s Human Capital. A good fit if the night walk through unlocked palaces is itself enough to stand in for incident. Not for anyone who needs whether Jep writes again tied to a plot.