'The Great Beauty' and Sorrentino's Trick
Scott Samuelson, author of "Rome as a Guide to the Good Life," on filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s masterpiece and the true meaning of carpe diem.
When I interviewed Scott Samuelson on a perfect summer day over perfect Negronis in early June, I knew I had to publish this passage from his latest book, Rome As a Guide to the Good Life: A Philosophical Grand Tour. Yes, it’s about Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty,” a film we both agree—no matter how many Negronis we’ve had—is a masterpiece. But it’s also about the “trick,” as he said in our interview, of rediscovering the great beauty in our lives, which can’t be done without first “reconnect[ing] with the things that are beautiful and tragic in life.” I’ll drink to that, and to his publisher, The University of Chicago Press, for allowing TFP to excerpt this—dare I say the word again—perfect passage. MJ
By Scott Samuelson
The last words of Paolo Sorrentino’s 2013 movie The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) are the first words of its main …
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