Listening To: "I Lie" by David Lang From Soundtrack of " La Grande Bellezze"

A friend recently gave me the soundtrack recording for "The Great Beauty" (see previous post) and this is just one of the items on the double CD. The Yiddish lyrics for "I Lie" are from a song written by Belorussian-born Jewish poet, Joseph Rolnick who died (1955) in the USA aged 76. The lyrics...perhaps the words of a girl waiting for her lover... were set to music by composer David Lang as a commission for all-women vocal ensemble Kitka, first performed in 2001.
"I lie down in bed alone.....

Travels With My Film-Life: Italy's "La Grande Bellezza"

We be back in Italy.... Roma.... sampling "The Great Beauty". A philosophical journey for us oldies as we contemplate the value of our.... values and where one finds the beauty. All that we call "beautiful"... and notions of success.
The film itself is beautiful.... a succession of images,days, thoughts, even memories of the 65 year-old, world-weary journalist Jep Gambardella - played by Toni Servillo.... a Sorrentino regular whom we do watch in "The Consequences of Love" (that post is here).
I contemplate this Roman procession after the film ends and think it is moving but demands some time and patience to sink in.
The Old Man do not indulge time and patience when it comes to forming opinions, so he do be more doubtful about it all.

Travels With My Film-Life: Switzerland and Sorrentino's "The Consequences Of Love"

Here we be in the understated luxury of a Swiss hotel watching a man who seems simply to watch... or is that all that he does?

It's Paolo Sorrentino's 2004 film The Consequences of Love which is a cool, slow, beautifully photographed.... Mafia film. No frantic chases, shouting, wall-climbing suspense. (Except for the ultimate in suspense at the end!)
Instead...a gradual involvement in the enigmatic existence of Titta Di Girolamo, a lonely and severely compromised man ... played beautifully by Toni Servillo... who appears to observe everything and everyone from the sidelines. And we are drawn in to observe his fatal vulnerability and fatal choices. In short... the aforesaid consequences.

This film is so coolly made and shot... I'm still not sure how I feel about it. No.. I do... this is a good one. It lingers in the mind. It's more than its plot. And it looks so good.

So I shall look forward to watching more Servillo and Sorrentino.
Next time in Rome itself with Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty"  released this year.

Meanwhile try a taster of "Consequences..."