California Italian Studies

Towards the conclusion of the film La grande bellezza (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013), the protagonist, Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), responds honestly to the question of why he never wrote a second novel: “Io cercavo la grande bellezza. Non l’ho trovata” (I was searching for the great beauty. I never found it). Sorrentino’s entire film, however, disputes Jep’s claim. Once viewers reach this point, they have already spent an hour feasting their eyes on the visual spectacles that Jep’s journalistic vocation and Rome’s nightlife have to offer. While most of these spectacles are just that—shows empty of significance, magic that is “solo un trucco” (only a trick)—other moments, often the most banal, become marvels, creating a transformative experience for the protagonist and other characters, Romans and tourists alike. In so doing, Sorrentino taps into the great tradition of Rome’s constant search for beauty and artistic creation that go beyond human abilities, a quest that found expression in both ancient poets and Renaissance authors. Indeed, Sorrentino’s oneiric digressions and depictions of transformation evoke the imagery and language of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, whose many characters equally find themselves transformed and transported when confronted by visions of the divine. Similarly, Jep’s multiple encounters with scenes that themselves are the intersection of art and the ineffable, recall Vasari’s ekphrastic language in his Lives, specifically those moments in which the artistic creations of his illustrious artefici reach the sublime.

It is the purpose of this paper to examine Sorrentino’s film La grande bellezza and its visual discourse on the gaze, spectacle, and transformation, by putting the film in dialogue with Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Vasari’s Lives. Of the countless authors who have treated this subject during Rome’s (and Italy’s) illustrious history, these two in particular put the same emphasis on artists or creators as heroes, underscoring man’s ability to surpass nature and rival the divine in his creative process. Both authors, however, offer different perspectives on art and the gaze that Sorrentino echoes within the film. The connection between physical dangers and the act of looking stem from Ovid, while the attention to artists’ abilities to both trick the eye and rival God in their creations, are evocative of Vasari’s rhetoric in his Lives. Ultimately, this discussion of La grande bellezza in the context of the Metamorphoses and the Lives enriches the visual text and confirms that Sorrentino’s film is as much a reflection on Rome’s mythos as it is the personal journey of the protagonist.