Get your fill of Servillo, as the FSLC serves up four of his films in one three-day fest

Anyone particularly taken with a per-
formance by the multi-award-wining Italian actor Toni Servillo may want to see as much of the work of this unusual performer as possible. To this end the Film Society of Lincoln Center, together with the Lincoln Center Festival, is presenting a heavy dose of Signore Servillo over the next few days.

To begin with, the actor is starring in Carlo Goldoni’s Trilogia della villeggiatura (which Servillo also adapted and directed, and from which the photos of the actor, above and below, appear) at the Lincoln Center Festival's Rose Theater, Broadway @ 60th Street in the Time Warner Center. Remaining performances are Saturday (7/25) at 8pm and Sunday (7/26) at 3pm. I believe last night's performance was sold out but tickets remain for Saturday and Sunday. For more information click here.

TrustMovies' real interest, of course, is in Servillo's motion picture work, and the FSLC's three-day, four-film festival provides ample opportunity to revel in what this actor provides, particularly in the two on view by upcoming director Paolo Sorrentino (The Consequences of Love and Il Divo). In these artistic triumphs, in which Servillo has the leading roles (and almost constant screen-time in which to demonstrate his quiet charisma), his performances, with the help of Sorrentino's visual sense and generally expert direction, become can't-take-your-eyes-off-him experiences.

The third film in the fest, Gomorrah, is certainly the most famous on these shores, though Servillo (shown center in the photo above) is only one of a number of major players in its ensemble. Interesting-
ly, though all four films have been won multiple awards at home & abroad, it's the fourth -- and definitely the least -- of them, The Girl by the Lake, that took home the most prizes at the yearly David di Donataello awards (Italy's version of our"Oscars"): ten wins out of fifteen nominations to Il Divo's seven out of sixteen, Gomorrah's seven out of eleven, and Consequence/Love's five out of ten.

Below are brief descriptions, together with a bit of critical comment on each of the four films. Because my first experience seeing Mr. Servillo was in The Girl By the Lake, I must admit to not initially understanding what all the fuss was about. Having now seen all four of these films, I certainly do. This short and easily accessible festival provides a terrific opportunity to catch up with a world-class actor at what might be the peak of his powers.

The Consequences of Love (Le conseguenze dell’amore)
Paolo Sorrentino, Italy, 2004; 100m
Tuesday, July 28, at 4 and Wednesday, July 29, at 6:10

As a mafia accountant who has been condemned to isolation for a past "mistake" and now launders the mob’s money, Servillo creates a rich character of few words but an unforgettable"look." Early on, as he gazes from his hotel window, we see a funny and charming example of the film's title. By the end, however, we've come face-to-face with our worst fears, and it's here that Mr. Servillo manages to shock and move us in equal parts. What, exactly, is this "love" of the title? Perhaps just simple connection. You'll have your own explanation, but I doubt you will forget this film that also stars Anna Magnani's granddaughter, Olivia, and a number of other fascinating actors.

Il Divo
Paolo Sorrentino, Italy, 2008; 110m
Screening Monday July 27, at 6pm -- with Signore Servillo
appearing in person (limited ticket availability)
and Tuesday, July 28, at 9pm

Here Paolo Sorrentino probes postwar Italian politics, and if he doesn't -- for American audiences, at least -- bring the subject to heel, he does manage to entertain and pop our eyes via some utterly brilliant visuals, and a performance by Mr. Servillo in the title role as Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti that is simply one for the record books. Servillo captures the man visually, emotionally, and every which way -- and still leaves him a mystery. I've seen the film twice (my earlier review appears here), and I could probably see it ten more times -- it's that rich. Nominated for 16 David di Donatello awards, the movie walked away with seven, including Best Actor for Servillo -- who has now taken this award three times, two of them in succession.

The Girl by the Lake (La ragazza del lago)
Andrea Molaioli, Italy, 2007; 95m
Screening Monday, July 27, at 9 pm and
Wednesday, Jul 29, at 4:15 pm.
Servillo earned a Pasinetti Award in 2007 at Venice,
as well as a David di Donatello for Best Actor.

A gorgeous corpse appears one morning on the lake shore of a lovely mountain town. Servillo plays a high-level investigator called in because, perhaps, the local boys aren't up to the job. A movie of many suspects, a lot of plot and simply tons of coincidence and manufactured moments, it is seldom uninteresting, the scenery is gorgeous, and a starry cast (Valeria Golino and Fabrizio Gifuni among them) helps pass the time. My review for GreenCine, during last year's FSLC Open Roads festival, appears here.

Gomorrah (Gomorra)
Matteo Garrone, Italy, 2008; 137m
Screening Tuesday, July 28, at 6:15
and Wednesday Jul 29, at 8:20

Exactly how wide and deep does the reach of the Camorra -- the Naples-and-environs-based Italian organized crime empire -- extend? The answers come thick and fast is this award-winning dose of cinema-journalism, adapted by Matteo Garrone from journalist Roberto Saviano's best-seller. And yet these answers simply open up into new questions, so crooked, venal and often sociopathic are just about everyone we encounter in this movie. Servillo plays a middle man who organizes the illegal dumping of toxic waste, and even though he is probably doing the most harm to his country and its people of anyone we see in the movie, his section of the film is physically much less violent brutal than the others. In this ensemble piece, his role is no larger than that of another half-dozen characters, but he brings his usual quiet strength to the proceedings. My original review and thoughts on the film -- and how it reflects on the social contract in Italy today-- appear here. Gomorrah has proven the most successful Italian film to come to America in some years, with Il Divo close behind. See them both (and the other two, as well) during this short fest and come away with a renewed respect for what one actor can bring to film. For ticket information on the entire series, click here.

Thanks to Griselda Guerrasio of Cinecitta/Filmitalia
for helping to make this series possible.
All stills are courtesy of the respective films.

IL DIVO -- whew, stunning! -- and a short interview with Paolo Sorrentino

If you care much about film and its future; about what can be done to bring to imagined life a still-living, quite powerful and frightening ex-head-of-state, who remains about as private a personage as you're likely to encounter; and about how riveting visuals can hold you fast, even while events and people you don't fully understand are flashing by at breakneck speed -- then line up Friday to experience IL DIVO.

As all of the above is happening, you are likely to cling, as the film itself does, to writer/director Paolo Sorrentino's ace-in-the-hole: his leading character Giulio Andreotti, an Italian politician whose career has spanned a half-century and who has been accused, tried and convicted of everything from murder to conspiracy and has yet to serve a day in prison. In fact, the fellow is now serving as a "Senator for Life." As played by the award-winning actor Toni Servillo (unrecogniziable here from his role in Gomorrah), Andreotti is the eye of the hurricane. Unnervingly quiet while all about him are rushing, screaming (or dancing the frug), he maintains his calm and keeps his own counsel. Already enormously decorated (for this and other roles), Servillo deserves every award in the book for his look-alike/bone-deep recreation of Andreotti. (The real Giulio is shown below, left; Servillo's version appears at right.)

If this were all Il Divo had to offer, it would be plenty, but Sorrentino probes for more and finds it: the magnetism of power, the way Andreotti achieves it, and how to make that power and the world around it come to eye-popping visual life. I do not recall another movie -- not even my favorite film "find" over the past year, Valzer -- that achieves such consistently stunning visuals. I'd describe a few of these, but why ruin your own discovery? I'll just say that the director's use of motion and repose, light and dark, composition and color (and how he finds the right music to accompany all this) is special indeed. (As is his use of the great -- and uncredited, except where fashion is concerned -- Fanny Ardant.)

There's a caveat here, however, and for some it may be a deal-breaker. Sorrentino packs in so quickly so many characters and so much information (often via titles that are then subtitled, making the screen awfully word-heavy) that he will have you reeling. Steady yourself and proceed, as most of this will eventually become clearer -- if not clear. So impressed with this movie was I after a first visit that I arranged to see it again and enjoyed it even more. Normally I feel that, if a movie cannot explain itself properly the first time you see it, then it is at fault. Il Divo -- a work of art -- is so good in so many ways, it proves the exception to the rule.

Sorrentino's film opens this Friday, April 24, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and at Landmark's Sunshine Cinema. I presume some sort of limited-release, national-rollout will follow soon. It had better or expect a film-fan mutiny.

I met Paolo Sorrentino (shown above, shooting) in the bright and airy lounge of one of New York City's newest venues, the spectacular metal and glass Standard Hotel in the city's meatpacking district. So very chic that it possesses not a bit of signage to let the wanderer know that he's arrived (I asked the doorman about this: "The local community group won't allow any signs," he explained), the hotel provided exactly the right bizarre visual in which to meet the director of one of the most spectacular and visually innovative films in a long while. Along with us are the PR representative, Susan Norget, and our translator, Lilia Pino Blouin.

While chatting with the two women prior to the interview, I learned that Sorrentino has actually shown his film, at a private screening, to its leading character "Senator for Life" Giulio Andreotti, and that Andreotti had not -- surprise! -- been pleased. In fact he threatened to walk out, but then stayed for the entire film (How could he leave? Il Divo's too riveting!) while particularly hating and complaining about the scene in which his character "confesses" -- which is one of the many smart and richly imagined pieces in this fascinating puzzle of a movie.

TrustMovies: It seems to me that your film is a character study more than anything else -- about a man whom we cannot know completely because he is so closed. But you get into him by imagining what is going on.

Paolo Sorrentino: One of the things most important in the film is this study of the character because I was very curious, very intrigued, by his character because he was so mysterious and so hard to understand. When it is so hard to understand a person, you study about what you can. So I finished with what I could study and then I invented something which I felt was reliable… about him.

The wife (Anna Bonaiuto, left) and the secretary (Piera Degli Esposti).

It stuck me a reliable. Even if it is not exactly true, perhaps it can still be reliable.

Ah, yes. I hope so.

Your movie made me want to be an Italian so that I could more fully understand all the ins-and-outs of the people and the politics. But Il Divo also made me grateful I was not an Italian so that I didn't have to live under the power and control of "leaders" like this. Of course, we did live through Mr. Bush over here… (Sorrentino laughs) But it is not the same.

No, it is not the same.

Bush had his eight years, but this guy has had…. fifty?

Italy, I think, is a rather strange country for democracy.

Why?

Because I think that democracy has not completely developed here. Italy has one foot in the west, but its other foot in some country like the third world or like Latin America. So we have what we call two shoes in different situation. For example, the fact that Andreotti has now been made a "senator for life" is something like a dictatorship. And so we weave between, hmmm, the United Kingdom and… Zimbabwe.

From Il Divo: the Andreotti entourage

When I was watching the film, despite all the evil things that Andreotti was doing, I kept thinking, Wow-- this could be a great man! But he has gone greatly wrong. Does that make sense?

That is true because there is a greatness in Andreotti. Certainly he is greatly fascinating. And evil is greatly fascinating.

But Andreotti had such skills in surrounding himself with this cadre of powerful people and making use of them so well for his own purposes. This is certainly a skill. We hope Obama will have such skills -- but will use them toward better ends.

I think this happens when you have a man who loves power for the sake of power and not for the greater good. I believe that Andreotti is a kind of man who loves the power and so all his actions are finalized around the idea to hold onto this power. Not for so much money or women. Just for the power.

And this is what your movie explores so well.

I hope that my film will really be seen by an international audience, not just by Italian people, because this characteristic of power and its use is common to many other statesman and in many other countries.

I think the film has a very good chance of doing this because of your visual skill. I have never seen scenes like this in any other movie: the cat in parliament, the night club scene in which everyone is dancing and Andreotti is just there, so quiet, like a center of stillness that rivets your attention. And your actor, Toni Servillo, is amazing. I have never seen a performance like this. It is memorable.

Yes, Andreotti is still -- in a world that moves very fast, yet he is always very calm and very private. This is part of his fascination.

There is a scene in which you come in very close in on Andreotti and his wife -- you can see the pores of their skin! I have seen things like this done in other films but not in the same way, not accomplishing as much.

That was the idea: for me -- for the wife, too -- to know very well who he is. So we have to go close in!

In Il Divo, a kidnapped Aldo Moro haunts Giulio's dreams.

How did you choose you music? We never hear Sibelius very much in films and it's wonderful to hear him again and used like this. And rock songs too -- what a great combination of classical and popular!

During the writing of the film I heard this music, both the classical and the rock, and I found out that they work very well together. So I decided to combine them.

How do you get to your visuals? Do you storyboard them? I'm asking because I've never made a movie, and I don't know how things get from the mind of the moviemaker onto the screen --and particulary in a format so spectacular as you have here. This is the kind of film where people will leave the theatre and immediately go screaming to their friends, "You've gotta see this movie, you've gotta see this movie!" (Sorrentino laughs, and I ask the PR representative Susan Norget, who is sitting across from us). Don't you think so, Susan?

Susan Norget: Well, we hope so!

So, what's next for you? Tell me about La Partita lenta, your short film that I found on the IMDB?

La Partita lenta is a short film that I did for an Italian bank. Two other directors did this, too. The bank called us and proposed that we make …

A commercial?

It's not a commercial because we don't do a commercial about the bank. The bank helps finance movies because they want to do sort of … some thing humanitarian. To promote the arts.

Ah, yes, banks always love to promote the arts!

Yes! (he laughs) We pretended to believe them and we did it.

Will we get to see this?

Yes, the film is on YouTube. Go there and ask for La Partita lenta.

Is it subtitled?

There is no dialog -- well, only one word.

Massimo Popolizio, as "The Shark," has second thoughts.

Do you know Salvatore Maira's film Valzer ?

No, I didn't see the film but I know Salvatore Maira.

You should see it. It's another great Italian movie.

I don't think it got such a good distribution in Italy.

No, I don't think so. But maybe now with your film and Gomorrah and some others, we'll see a deserved resurgence of Italian film?

I hope so.

Thank you so much for your time, Paolo. And for your help in translating, Lilia.

Don't-Miss DVD & Blu-ray: Italian master Paolo Sorrentino THIS MUST BE THE PLACE

A movie that came and went with amazing speed and near-silence, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE -- from that Italian master of cinema, Paolo Sorrentino, who has given us Il Divo, The Consequences of Love and The Family Friend -- is another strange, beautiful and not-so-easily categorized movie that lingers long after its credits have rolled. Giving Sean Penn what may be his best role ever (one in which he holds back quite beautifully, rather than letting loose and boring us all too soon), the movie also gets terrific performances from its entire ensemble.

Signore Sorrentino, shown at right, is a marvelous stylist. All four of his films that I've seen are extraor-dinarily beautiful to view, each in its own manner. Each also stars a fine actor playing the role of an odd, obsessed and solitary man, successful in his own world and at his own game but not so much anywhere or with anyone else. Mr. Penn. below, has a quiet field day here; he seems a to be channeling simultaneously some strange combination of the most subdued modes of both Gene Simmons and Quentin Crisp, and he is utterly remarkable at it. This is an extraordinarily brave performance on Penn's part because, once we get quickly past his bizarre appearance, he remains so quiet and subdued that we begin hanging on his every word and tiny movement. The reward: seeing an actor of great intelligence and fierce focus giving his all to a most bizarre role.

Penn, above, plays Cheyenne, an ex-rocker who has withdrawn to his estate in Ireland where he lives with his loved and loving companion (the always fine Frances McDormand, in the penultimate photo, below) and maybe a daughter (a oddly lovely Eve Hewson, below), never plays music, and seems to concentrate only on making money via the market.

When his father suddenly dies back in the USA, Cheyenne learns that the old man was a Holocaust survivor who had been a victim of a Nazi guard, whom Cheyenne then takes upon himself to find -- and kill. Along the way he hooks up with everyone from the war criminal's relatives (among these, a granddaughter played by Kerry Condon (below), to a big-time Nazi hunter (Judd Hirsch).

This sounds a bit crazy and it plays even more so. Yet it also plays perfectly into Cheyenne's character and Penn's performance -- he is both funny and endearing: two qualities I've rarely encountered in this actor since Fast Times at Ridgemont High -- as well as into all the other characters our hero meets along this odd road-trip.

Now, about the extraordinary beauty of this film: From the opening credits -- in a lovely script and dayglo chartreuse -- to the composition and gorgeous colors strewn about the filmmaker's canvas, this is an experience not to be missed. (If you can at all view this film on a Blu-ray disc, do.) Yes, that's David Byrne, below in white, playing himself and contributing some wonderful music to the movie's soundtrack.

Much has been made of Michelangelo Antonioni and his creative "color" work on Red Desert, but I must say that this film has, for me, sets the new standard of what creative use of color can bring to a motion picture.

The film has lessons to impart, I think, but it teaches with a tender, sometimes ironic hand. And the change that occurs, while it takes on quite a physical presence in Mr. Penn, has an after-life that may have you thinking about the film at odd times, once your first viewing has ended.

This Must Be the Place, from The Weinstein Company via Anchor Bay Entertainment, is now available on DVD and Blu-ray, for sale and/or rental, and other currently favored forms of viewing (VOD, streaming).  Take a chance, film buffs, and discover the wonders of Paolo Sorrentino -- if you haven't already.

With European Film Awards winner, YOUTH, Paolo Sorrentino offers up another amazement

A master class in filmmaking, from a visual standpoint, certainly, YOUTH is... what? Paolo Sorrentino's best yet? Don't we say that nearly every time a new movie appears from this guy? Why not? In my estimation, he is among and perhaps the finest living filmmaker, even if his movies are, yes, all over the place. But what he lacks as a screenwriter, he more than makes up for as a director. As a writer, he seems to cajole, even fondle, his screenplays into providing the kind of imaginative, rich, one-of-a-kind visuals in which so many of us art-movie fans exult.

Sorrentino's stories fascinate, as well: tales told to make their themes resonate -- even if sometimes not as strongly or in as condensed a fashion as we might like. And yet, post viewing -- and I have seen most of his movies more than once -- I find myself enjoying and learning from them even more. With Youth, the filmmaker (shown on set, at left) has made a movie about -- among other things -- age, art, love, family, moviemaking, creativity and commerce -- and he's wrapped all this into a near-constant array of stunning color, composi-tion and juxtaposition.

Take the poster image, shown at top, as one instance. This is from one of the film's most ravishing scenes, in which youth and age are juxtaposed to marvelous effect in a lush, deep and dark several moments that brings to the by-now tiresome "dream sequence" something unique -- and visually beyond compare. (The cinematographer here is the great Luca Bigazzi.)

The story is one of two old friends -- a retired composer/conductor (played by Michael Caine, above) in his consistent and increasingly elegant less-is-more mode) and a filmmaker (Harvey Keitel, below) working on what may be his final opus. The two spar (often about a girl they once knew), enjoy each other and their surroundings (a first-class hotel high in the Swiss mountainside) and try to work through their various family problems (the Caine character's daughter is married to the Keitel character's son).

Further complications arise when the maestro is contacted by a very high-level personage and asked to come (briefly) out of his retirement while, simultaneously, the filmmaker finds himself having trouble finishing his screenplay worked on (in the Italian style) by a bevy of screenwriters (shown below).

Along the way, much is made of the composer/conductor's series of songs that have proven his most acclaimed and popular work. Much is also made of a certain leading actress, who is to be the star of the filmmaker's new work. We hear about both of these over and over again, from different angles and various other characters. This is quite a build-up. Many filmmakers would be content to leave it at that (or fearful not to, and then have to make good on their inflated claims). Not so Sorrentino.

When we meet at last that famous star, as played by Jane Fonda (above and below) in a role that requires not merely terrific acting but a near-complete abandonment of the usual "star" vanity, Ms Fonda more than delivers the goods.

Likewise, the movie's finale, when, at last, we approach the moment when we're about to hear that famous and much bandied-about music. We expect, of course, a cut to black, as the movie ends, letting instead our fertile imaginations provide the celestial music. Oh, no. Sorrentino, together with his composer David Lang, provide an ending so glorious, aurally and visually, that it brings this 124-minute movie to a grand close.

In the youth department of Youth are Rachel Weisz (above) as Caine's daughter, and Paul Dano (below, right) as a famous young actor researching some background material for his latest role. Both are fine, especially Mr. Dano, but they take an understandable and expected back seat to their elders here.

In set piece after set piece, Sorrentino provides great beauty (to crib from the title of his previous film), as well as fine irony and ideas to chew over at some later time -- maybe when you watch the film again. One of the things I liked best about Youth, in retrospect, is how it makes rather joyful and endearing fun at movie-making and movie-makers.

God knows that Sorrentino takes his art and craft seriously. Yet he also, I believe, understands that, hey, it's just a movie. But since it is a movie, why not make of it every glorious thing we can?

Youth, from Fox Searchlight Pictures, while continuing its run in New York and Los Angeles, opens around the country Friday, December 25 (what a Christmas present for film-goers!), Here in Southern Florida it will play in West Palm Beach, Naples, Delray Beach, Hollywood, Miami and Fort Lauderdale.  Click here then enter your location to find a nearby playdate.

Paolo Sorrentino's THE GREAT BEAUTY -- Italy's entry for Best Foreign Language Film -- opens

Paolo Sorrentino is back. He of Il Divo, The Family Friend, The Consequences of Love and the woefully under-seen and under-appreciated This Must Be the Place has a new movie opening this Friday in New York (next Friday in L.A.), and it's Italy's submission as Best Foreign-Language Film. THE GREAT BEAUTY (La grande bellezza) is a film of exactly that. What else would anyone who appreciates international cinema expect of Signore Sorrentino (shown at left), who, to my mind, produces frame for frame the most beautiful compositions of anyone working in the medium today and then elides them into something both mysterious and spectacular. (His cinematographer here is the great Luca Bigazzi -- Kryptonite!, click and scroll down -- while the film editing is by Cristiano Travaglioli.)

More than any of the five films I've seen of this master (he's now made six full-length narratives, though I don't think his first, One Man Up, has ever been released in the USA, theatrically or on DVD), The Great Beauty seems to me to be the film that requires the most full understanding and appreciation of Italy, and specifically, Rome.

In this movie, the images pass by with great poise and sophistication, and the visual pleasure is non-stop. The meaning of those rolling images, however, is not so easily ferreted out. For old-time film buffs, an almost immediate reminder of Fellini and his La Dolce Vita and 8-1/2, as though The Great Beauty were an updating of these a half century later. And in some ways, it is. But Sorrentino is so much subtler a director than was Fellini that any comparison goes only so far.

Sorrentno's Rome, as experienced via that fine and hugely versatile actor he so often uses -- Toni Servillo (above)-- is a place of great beauty and desolation/desiccation, of wonder and horror. Yet the images this writer/director chooses and uses, instead of reducing their subject to the cliched visuals of Hollywood horror or beauty, instead often brings you both in the self-same shot. Intellectually, the movie is constantly pulling you up short, as well as pulling the rug from under your preconceptions.

Everyone is at once grand, foolish, awful and beautiful -- rather like life and that fellow/gal in the mirror we must daily confront. As our guide, Servillo -- playing a 65-year-old journalist/novelist named Jep Gambardella -- brings to the film the sort of quiet ease of a man who has seen and done most everything and now understands the fatuousness of so much that has passed for "life."

As befits his character, Servillo has seldom seemed this secure in himself and his place in the world of the film. He imparts a remarkable grace and stature to the proceedings. Whether he is putting an egotistical career woman in her place (then later dancing with her like a pro) or advising a foolish but wealthy mother what to do about her clearly unbalanced adult son, there is about the man a kind of weary wisdom that is both consoling and upsetting, as though he understands all and knows that there is nothing to be done about anything.

We get a look at journalism and performance art in a quietly hilarious interview with a dolt of a performance artist; then, in an even more hilarious scene (above) in which a child creates "fine art" (this will call to mind My Kid Could Paint That, and even more so the recent and much fawned-over documentary about artists and relationships, Cutie and the Boxer), we see what goes into the creation of "modern art"; religion shows its silly faces in both a Mother Teresa-like character and a prominent Catholic high-mukety-muk.

Love? Ah, yes: that, too. And it's a wild and deep and forever-with-us "first love."  Except that it proves as specious as all else. Even the old friend who now runs a strip club business (in which his middle-aged daughter does the stripping) proves more interesting and enduring than anything like "love." Boy, this is a dark movie, beautiful as it is. And the more I consider it, the darker it grows -- but so quietly and un-insistently that I can hardly wait to see it again.

The only thing missing (unless I myself managed to miss it) is politics. But then, Sorrentino gave us plenty of this with Il Divo. The music, as always with Sorrentino, is a blessing over the entire film, providing the kind of religious beauty and peace that religion itself cannot.

If all of the above sounds like a rave review, I must warn you that my spouse gave up on this film after about an hour and a half (the movie runs almost two and one-half hours). And I myself felt a bit flummoxed at the finale. I'd been unable to take my eyes off the screen for fear of missing any of that "great beauty," but what did it all mean? You got me. Since then, however, I've been thinking about the film, piecing it together, and now in writing this reviews, the movie has taken on even more meaning. I will indeed watch it again.

The Great Beauty, one of those rare new releases from Janus Films, opens this Friday, November 15, at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema; on the 22, it opens in Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt, and over the next few weeks it willl opens at another 15 - 20 cities. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.