A book club without books
Paolo Sorrentino, born 31 May 1970), is an Italian film director, screenwriter, and writer. His 2013 film The Great Beauty won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe, and the Bafta Award for Best Foreign Language Film. … Read full post…Paolo Sorrentino
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 cafés to find Rome itself, in all its 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, this transporting experience by the brilliant Italian director Paolo Sorrentino is a breathtaking Felliniesque tale of decadence and lost love. … Read full post…The Great Beauty
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo 2 November 1906 – 17 March 1976) was an Italian filmmaker, stage director, and screenwriter. A major figure of Italian art and culture in the mid-20th century, Visconti was one of the fathers of cinematic neorealism, but later moved towards luxurious, sweeping epics dealing with themes of beauty, decadence, death and European history, especially the decay of the nobility and the bourgeoisie. He was the recipient of many accolades, including the Palme d’Or and the Golden Lion, and many of his works are regarded as highly-influential to future generations of filmmakers. Read
Luchino Visconti’s award-winning classic examines the solitary life of a retired American professor (Burt Lancaster) who lives alone in a luxurious palazzo in Rome. When he is confronted by a vulgar Italian marchesa and her companions – her lover, her daughter and the daugther’s boyfriend – he is forced to rent them an apartment on the upper floor of his palazzo. Before long his quiet routine is turned upside down and the introverted professor becomes entangled in his tenants’ machinations. In the midst of this chaos each of the new neighbors’ lives – including that of the professor himself – takes an unexpected but inevitable turn.
Visconti’s penultimate film, Conversation Piece marks the culmination of his career as a master of Italian cinema. … Read full post…Conversation Piece