The Great Beauty

My stomach fell when I realized that the ending of The Great Beauty was approaching – I did not know how Sorrentino could possibly resolve this luminous and affecting story of a world that I may never understand and a man living in that environment whom I feel I know all too well. the film returns its main character, Jep, to the moment whose vitality he would pine after for his entire life afterward, the shining example of a “great beauty” that he could never recapture. My heart soared with Jep’s revelation that everything – life, art, love, faith, desire, meaning – is only a trick. Convince yourself of that and anything, even the recovery of thought-to-be lost talents and motivations, is possible. Then Sorrentino lets the viewer float away on the Tiber, alone and yet surrounded by all of the life that follows the gently flowing current.

Toni Servillo, who plays Jep, talks about how beauty is notable for its transience: in the same second that you recognize a moment’s beauty, you lose it forever. A person’s desires are dictated by the search for the feelings that such great beauties inspire, and I am no exception: the sun rising slowly on the way to work as Dave Van Ronk’s cover of “Both Sides Now” mournfully concludes; a crowd’s applause; a friend’s smile at a long-forgotten joke; rolling the car windows down in the dead of night and blasting “Thunder Road” across the canyon road, hearing it echo up and down the hills; the hill near the university where all the lights of the valley are revealed as a blanked of earth-bound stars; the Depression Era-inspired goodness of Gram’s cooking; my Grandfather’s toothy grin and terrible puns; my mother patting my back on my worst of days; my father and I playing catch at dusk; the feel of a long-lost love’s arms around me, standing together near an empty street in the biting cold of the December night, and then saying goodbye forever.

All I am and all I will be is defined by these times where I witness “the great beauty.” Most nights, they keep me company as I fall asleep, floating above my bed in the air; they have become part of my treasure, like the final picture of Jep’s face, illuminated by a roving lighthouse torch, has become part of that secret place in my mind where my favorite films live and breathe. Falling asleep with memories to help is a simple trick, really.