‘The Great Beauty’ wins Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film

Paolo Sorrentino’s masterpiece La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) won the Oscar for best foreign language film Sunday night March 2. This is 11th Italian film in history to receive an Oscar.

An ode to Rome, the film depicts la città eterna as gorgeous, cryptic but full of life. The film’s stupendous cinemetography by Luca Bigazzi captures the dramatic beauty of the city. Writer and director, Sorrentino said, “Rome is a city where one could have the experience of seeing a magician making a giraffe disappear.”

The film follows 65-year-old journalist Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo) as he wanders through Rome’s alluring and mysterious cobblestone streets. The uber-elegant protagonist experiences a love affair with the city through a series of lavish parties and strange encounters. In some ways, the film recalls Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita  – with Rome in the foreground and as a backdrop. Director Sorrentino deflected the comparison in Cannes earlier this year: “La Dolce Vita was a masterpiece, mine is a movie.”

Congratulations, Paolo Sorrentino and La Grande Bellezza.

-Rose Minutaglio