As many of us know, July 30 through August 5 is AMC's Mob Week. So far, I've caught the restaraunt scene in The Godfather Part I, and the beginning of The Godfather Part II. Despite my pitiable show of affection for Mob Week, I'd like to use the occasion to highlight one of my favorite contemporary directors, Paolo Sorrentino.
A native of Naples, Italy who's barely in his 40s, Sorrentino has the rhythm of a musician in his editing style, and visuals are as sharp and shiny as cut glass. He's been rightly called the love child of Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and Federico Fellini (here). So far his films haven't been noticed by the Hollywood mainstream, most of his acclaim coming from the festival circuit. However, he is certainly gaining notice far outside of Italy - perhaps his recent feature starring Sean Penn, This Must Be the Place, will help with that too.
This Must Be the Place (2011)
Set in Ireland and the U.S., This Must Be the Place is about an aging rock star, Cheyenne (based on Robert Smith of The Cure), who sets out to confront the ex-Nazi war criminal who tortured his father during the Holocaust - and in the process, finally grows up. It has an almost Wes Anderson-style of dry humor and poignancy, and long takes that convey its grotesque yet deeply emotional undercurrent. Frances McDormand contrasts Penn's character as his energetic, health-concsious (and normal-looking) wife. Sorrentino also brings in David Byrne as himselfe, lead singer of Talking Heads, to play one of Cheyenne's friends. Part bildungsroman, part biopic, Sorrentino's first English-language film must not necessarily be the place to start if you want to get a sense of Sorrentino style as a director.
His pace slows down and his storytelling scope becomes more focused in this, his latest film. His previous features have focused on Italian politics and the runnings of the Mafia, but they have always kept an intense focus on character, which is what Sorrentino chiefly does in This Must Be the Place. Here's my take on two of his earlier films, ones which contrast organized crime with the breathing, bleeding human being that plays a central part in it.
The Consequences of Love (2004)
Staring Tony Servillo, The Consequences of Love is about a seemingly emotionless man who lives in a hotel in Switzerland. Regularly, he delivers money to a bank account as a pawn for the Mafia. Also, he's addicted to heroine.
A few sequences stand out. Each time he make the cash deliveries, Sorrentino dresses the scene with serio-comic, highly stylized music and editing. It looks like a James Bond intro and a Jaguar commercial crashed into each other on the Autobahn. The first couple of minutes of this.
Long takes are one of Sorrentino's specialties: the opening shot (doubling for the title sequence) is a 2-min. static shot of a bellboy traveling down a moving sidewalk. Sorrentino is also a master of the moving camera. When Servillo's character sits on his hotel bed and shoots up heroine, the camera moves from a front medium shot, goes 180 degrees over his head and down the other side of the bed, while the music swells and the drug enters his body. Acrobatic sequences like this contrast with quieter dialogue- and monologue-driven scenes. Sorrentino's knack for conveying a stylized portrait of an inwardly tortured man continues in his political biopic, Il Divo.
Il Divo (2008)
Servillo returns to play Giulio Adreotti, who was Italy's long-reigning Prime Minister, with a political career lasting from the 50s to the 90s. The film explores the various deaths connected with Andreotti's career and his alleged Mafia ties. Stylistically, the film is breathtaking, and in certain places, funny. Such as when Andreotti stares down a cat that has one blue eye and one green eye. Narratively, you could probably get more out of the story that this film has to tell if you are familiar with Italian politics, which I am not. But, that doesn't mean it's not worth your while. Sorrentino said that he wanted to create for the audience the sense of being a spectator of the political scandals of Andreotti's life, flashbulbs and all. In fact, the film's subtitle is "The Spectacular Life of Giulio Andreotti."
The latter half of the film lags a bit by trying to compress a lot of historical details into the narrative in a short amount of time. The film overall, however, is a beautifully conducted symphony of private monologue, musical anachronism, interactive text, and a camera with moves that would rival Beyonce's. The trailer says it best.
***
If for no other reason, watch Sorrentino's films for their music. He's found a fusion between music and image that few filmmakers have achieved. And his body of work shows that he's much more than a director of "gangster pictures." That being said, I'd love to turn on AMC's Mob Week in a few years and see Il Divo or Consequences. The Godfather, Scarface, and Goodfellas have had a good run.
