How ‘La Grande Bellezza’ captured Italy’s Berlusconian era
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Thursday, July 6, 2023
Moneta, Complicity, Orietta Berti, Injection, The Great Beauty, Interview, Religion, Life, Oscar, Orders, decorations, and medals of Italy, Television, Woman, Janiculum, Staring, Mafia, Christianity, Narcissism, The Eternal City, Beauty, Patient, Time, Police, Il Sole 24 Ore, Pleasure, Caricature, Character, Ruby, Socialism, Film industry, Nightclub, Entertainment, Tourism, Berlusconism, Silvio Berlusconi, Costa Concordia, Catholic Church
His career was marked by a series of public and private scandals and by the school of thought that it gave rise to, “Berlusconism”.
Key Points:
- His career was marked by a series of public and private scandals and by the school of thought that it gave rise to, “Berlusconism”.
- One director in particular has distinguished himself in exploring the stigma left by Berlusconi on Italian society: Paolo Sorrentino.
Entertainment as “categorical imperative”
- Of the four salient features of Berlusconism shown in La Grande Bellezza, the most striking is that of the pursuit of individual pleasure.
- In an interview, Sorrentino said that Berlusconi raised entertainment during his tenure to the level of “categorical imperative”.
- Take the sweeping, Fellinian scene of the night club in the first part of the film, for example.
Television and the cult of the self
- The second feature of Berlusconi’s life is television, a medium inextricably linked to his financial success and political rise.
- One of Italy’s sex symbols from the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared on several TV entertainment shows in the 1980s and 2000s.
- Her character is somewhat of a caricature of her public persona, merging two themes – sex and television – dear to Berlusconi.
Corruption at every level
- The last major feature of Berlusconi’s life to stand out in the film is corruption.
- From falsifying business accounts to bribing lawyers, the former Prime Minister has been charged with almost every offence under the sun.
Historical perspective
- The strength of Berlusconi’s depiction also lies in its historical perspective.
- Through this spectacular, bloody performance, she represents the dead end to which the Soviet interpretation of Marxist thought has led.
- The transition to the second sequence, that of the nightclub, is a guest’s hysterical scream filmed in close-up.
- It acts as a cry of distress to express the transition from strong but bygone ideologies to the ideology of seemingly carefree, narcissistic enjoyment.