By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Countdown To Cannes: Paolo Sorrentino

Posted Saturday, April 27th, 2013 - Comments Off on Countdown To Cannes: Paolo Sorrentino
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PAOLO SORRENTINO

Background: Italian; born Naples, Italy, 1970.

Known for / styles: Il Divo (2008), This Must Be The Place (2011), The Consequences of Love (2004); directing documentaries and narrative fiction, writing novels (Everybody’s Right, 2011), working with actor Toni Servillo and cinematographer Luca Bigazzi. Sorrentino and compatriot Matteo Garrone are sometimes credited for a revival in contemporary Italian cinema.

Notable accolades: Sorrentino has won two prizes at Cannes, including the Jury Prize (read: third place) for Il Divo and the Ecumenical Jury Prize for Sean Penn drama This Must Be The Place. The Ecumenical Jury prize is given to“works of artistic quality [that] reveal the mysterious depths of human beings… their hurts and failings as well as their hopes.” Outside of the Croisette, Sorrentino is also the owner of four David di Donatello figurines: three for The Consequences of Love (Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay) and one for This Must Be The Place (Best Screenplay). Il Divo was nominated for a Best Make-up Oscar at the 82nd Academy Awards.

Previous Cannes appearances: Sorrentino has had three films in Competition: 2004’s The Consequences of Love, 2008’s Jury Prize-winning Il Divo, and 2011’s This Must Be The Place. In 2009, Sorrentino was named Jury President of the Un Certain Regard program.

Film he’s bringing to Cannes: La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), which follows “an aging writer who bitterly recollects his passionate, lost youth.” The leading cast includes Toni Servillo (marking the fifth time the actor has worked with Sorrentino) and Sabrina Ferilli. Capturing The Great Beauty is Sorrentino’s favorite cinematographer, Vulcain Prize-winner Luca Bigazzi.

Could it win the Palme? It’s a tough call. At least half of the trailer for The Great Beauty looks and sounds like 2011 Palme winner The Tree of Life, with operatic music, poetic narration, and sweeping photography underlining the majesties of life. Even the narrative sounds familiar: Sean Penn spends much of The Tree of Life reflecting on the past. If The Great Beauty’s final product is as similar to The Tree of Life as it seems on paper, jury members may feel Sorrentino is trying to revisit someone else’s successful formula. If this early speculation is horribly off base, however,  there’s still reason for Sorrentino to be hopeful in 2013—especially if we see a return to his own form. He came close to winning before.

Why you should care: The Great Beauty sees Sorrentino back where he’s most comfortable: shooting in Italy with Italian dialogue. This Must Be The Place was an interesting English-language experiment, but the reception was mixed. It disappointed many who were eager to see new work from the man who made Il Divo. Sorrentino’s latest film looks strong—and with Matteo Garrone’s Reality behind it, Italian cinema can only get that much stronger when Grande Bellezza debuts locally May 21.

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Posted in Cannes, Cannes Originals, MCN Originals, Movie City News | Comments Off on Countdown To Cannes: Paolo Sorrentino

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon