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Paolo Sorrentino: a Trans- Cultural and Post-National Auteur

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Paolo Sorrentino: a Trans- Cultural and Post-National Auteur JICMS 7 (3) pp. 331–338 Intellect Limited 2019 Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies Volume 7 Number 3 © 2019 Intellect Ltd Editorial. English language. doi: 10.1386/jicms.7.3.331_2 EDITORIAL AnnAchiArA MAriAni The University of Tennessee Paolo Sorrentino: A trans- cultural and post-national auteur This special issue of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies (JICMS) 1. See references for on Paolo Sorrentino is the first collection of articles in English devoted to this an up-to-date list of publications on prominent, award-winning director and paves the way for new ideological Sorrentino. and theoretical approaches to his cinematography. Sorrentino’s indisputable status as a renowned auteur has been established and advanced by numerous film studies scholars.1 As Claudio Bisoni states, Even before La grande bellezza (2013) triumphed with the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2014, Sorrentino’s oeurve had long been considered works of ‘industrial’ auteur cinema: they could compete successfully in international festivals thanks to a negotiation of an individual visual style and characters that are firmly rooted within Italian society. (Bisoni 2016: 251) Alex Marlow-Mann agrees, and asserts confidently that, ‘given his degree of control (over settings, characters, gestures, editing strategies, music) together with the considerable thematic parallels between his films, and the coherent 331 00_JICMS 7.3_Editorial_331-338.indd 331 08/06/19 8:18 AM Annachiara Mariani 2. Giulio Andreotti stylistic aesthetics since his debut film, Sorrentino’s films are prime candidates (1919–2013) was the sixth longest-serving for auteurist analysis’ (2010: 162). Finally, in ‘What is Italian cinema?’ Alan prime minister since O’Leary remarks, ‘[a]s its most internationally visible products, Sorrentino’s the Italian Unification films assert the “authentic” Italian cinema to be that which directly recalls the and widely considered the most powerful and auteur cinema of the so-called golden age’ (2018: 19). prominent politician Sorrentino’s global breadth, his unique visionary style and distinctive of the so-called First aesthetics, his outspoken hubris and weighty poetics, his metaphysical Republic. lyricism and stunning compositions (with Luca Bigazzi behind the lens) tout court make him a contemporary director worthy of scrutiny. The purpose of this issue is to rediscover and deconstruct Sorrentino’s current exegesis, highlighting auteurial traits to present a more extensive picture of his cine- matic opus. Paolo Sorrentino’s cinematic career dates to the late 1990s, when as a screenwriter he wrote and directed his first short films Un paradise (A Paradise) (1994), L’amore non ha confine (Love Has No Boundaries) (1998) and La notte lunga (The Long Night) (2001) (which inaugurated his life-long collab- oration with Indigo Film). His first feature film L’uomo in piú (One Man Up) (2001) received praise and prizes at the 58th Venice Film Festival and initi- ated his long-term collaboration with Neapolitan actor Tony Servillo. It was with his second feature film, Le conseguenze dell’amore (The Consequences of Love) (2004), that he truly stepped into the limelight, winning five David di Donatello and three Nastri d’argento awards. In 2006, he directed the dysto- pian L’amico di famiglia (The Family Friend) and, in 2008, his much-acclaimed biopic on Giulio Andreotti,2 Il divo. This was awarded the Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival, thereby placing Sorrentino at the centre of a nationwide cinematic and political debate. Il divo also impressed festival juror Sean Penn, leading to their collaboration in This Must Be the Place (2011), Sorrentino’s first English-language film. In 2014, La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty) (2013) won the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, and a BAFTA and five EFA Awards. In 2016, La Giovinezza (Youth) gained an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song and two Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song. The film also won three European Film Awards. In addition, in 2016, Sorrentino wrote and directed The Young Pope (2016), his first English-language Italian drama television series for HBO, Canal+ and Sky Atlantic, whose stellar cast included Jude Law, Diane Keaton and James Cromwell. To add to this list of achievements, Sorrentino has also published a novel, Hanno tutti ragione (Everybody’s Right) in 2010, and two collections of short stories: Tony Pagoda e i suoi amici (Tony Pagoda and His Friends) (2012) and Gli aspetti irrilevanti (The Irrelevant Aspects) (2016). His latest biopic, Loro (Them or The Gold) (2018), offers a fictional, four- year snapshot of Italian tycoon and political leader Silvio Berlusconi’s life; it was released in two parts: Loro 1 and Loro 2. Loro 1 focuses more on ‘them’ – as the title states – i.e. the people who are infatuated with Berlusconi’s power and money and are willing to do whatever it takes to get close to him. Loro 2 illustrates the private life of the magnate and his wife, on the verge of divorce, as personal and public crises unravel his marriage and political empire. Sorrentino skilfully manages to neither praise nor condemn the politi- cal leader, but rather, he portrays the transforming and damaging effects of berlusconismo in Italian society, which promoted and furthered moral corrup- tion and ruthless ambitions while disregarding any ethical principles. As a unit, Loro is a biopic of a man obsessed with power who cannot come to terms with 332 Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies www.intellectbooks.com 333 00_JICMS 7.3_Editorial_331-338.indd 332 08/06/19 8:18 AM Paolo Sorrentino the fact that he is losing it. He has grown conditioned to achieving everything he wants in life and Sorrentino isolates moments where Berlusconi cannot accept his failures. However, if ‘everything is not enough’, as he states in the film, he is destined to incessantly search for something that he will never get and he will never find. The agitation that he experiences not only characterizes Berlusconi’s character but is also present in all of us: the Neapolitan director once again asks his audience to reflect on our universal condition of human dissatisfaction, without offering an answer. Sorrentino’s next project is a sequel series to The Young Pope (which will focus on a new character, appropri- ately) entitled The New Pope. The seven articles in this special issue are the result of a rigorous and challenging selection process and shed new light on hermeneutical traits overlooked in earlier studies. Previous scholarship has pointed out that Sorrentino’s work offers a compelling example of what has been termed ‘post- modern impegno’ (postmodern engagement) (Antonello and Mussgnug 2009: 4,11). Millicent Marcus has also remarked: Sorrentino’s post-realism aesthetics, irony and ethics of political engagement can coexist with his vogue for postmodern stylistic virtu- osity – including the use of pastiche, abundant citation, semiotic play- fulness, imagistic saturation, decorative exuberance, flamboyant camera work, performative excess, over-the-top musical score, obtrusive editing, theatrical lighting, dazzling set design. (2010: 248) Although a few scholars have pointed out the sexist and misogynist nature of Sorrentino’s views (Mariani 2017), recent studies have upheld that his use of comic irony undermines the apparent sexism in his films. According to Simor and Sorfa, the director hyperbolizes the object of desire for parodic purposes with the help of his excessive film style, and thus the ‘sexist’ presentation of female beauty becomes a humorous subversion. This ironically expressed ambiguity is the main characteristic of Sorrentino’s humour (Simor and Sorfa 2017: 212). The contributors to this special issue masterfully examine Sorrentino’s authorial trademarks: ‘excessive visuals, scathing humour and a yearning for spirituality’ (Simor and Sorfa 2017: 212) and grand themes of memory, nostalgia, ageing, love, thirst for fulfilment, search for the self, identity crisis, human estrangement, marginality, irony and power. In so doing, they offer an unprecedented theoretical angle, new hermeneutical perspectives and unique cues for discussion while enriching the existing literature. Although they refer to previous scholarship, the contributions here go further, advancing unusual perspectives that at times deconstruct the established assumptions and paradigms of Sorrentino’s hermeneutics. The first part of this tripartite issue, entitled ‘Deconstructing Sorrentino’s ethos’, opens with Mimmo Cangiano’s claim of a Romantic and modernist Sorrentino. In his article ‘Against postmodernism: Paolo Sorrentino and the search for authenticity’, Cangiano deconstructs the most common assertion about Sorrentino’s post- modern penchant, stating that his cinematic oeuvre challenges postmodernist theories of identity by focusing on Romantic and modernist leitmotifs, such as the search for identity and authenticity in life. Cangiano furthers this argument by highlighting these characters’ proclivity to follow their sensory impulses and their incessant urge to travel. In his view, these traits 332 Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies www.intellectbooks.com 333 00_JICMS 7.3_Editorial_331-338.indd 333 08/06/19 8:18 AM Annachiara Mariani demonstrate that the characters’ flawed perspectives are rooted in a world of unreality. He maintains that Sorrentino’s archetypal figure is a man who, in seeking his own self, is attempting
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