The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) (La grande bellezza)

Travel is useful, it exercises the imagination.

All the rest is disappointment and fatigue.

Our journey is entirely imaginary.

That is its strength.

It goes from life to death.

People, animals, cities, things, all are imagined.

It's a novel, just a fictitious narrative.

Littré says so, and he's never wrong.

And besides, in the first place, anyone can do as much.

You just have to close your eyes.

It's on the other side of life.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline Journey to the End of the Night

Fire!

You're a real pain in the ass!

Enough!

They even have cocktails with cherries. Remember?

Hey, jerks!

I'll screw you!

Have you seen Ermanno?

- I'll screw you! Now! - Get lost!

What the hell are you doing?

My phone's been stolen!

I'm starring in two TV dramas...

I'm playing a Pope in one,

and a junkie on the road to recovery in the other.

Impressive!

No theatre work?

I'm supposed to do Shakespeare with Pietro, but...

it has to be at least three hours long,

be an ambitious project,

and no more small cities!

I'm trying to write a piece for theatre, and the concept is...

- What about you? - I might give up acting.

In this shitty country there are never any good female roles.

I'll write my first novel, a Proust-style piece.

Really? Proust is my favourite writer!

Along with Ammaniti...

What a coincidence.

Who is that woman?

Don't you recognise her? It's Lorena.

Who?

An ex TV showgirl, now in full physical and mental decline.

Never seen her!

But then I've never had a television.

Viola, I know you don't have one. You tell me all the time.

- What does she do now? - Nothing, of course.

Happy birthday, Jep!

Happy birthday, Rome!

La Colita!

"To this question, as kids,

"my friends always gave the same answer...

"pussy.

"Whereas I answered...

"the smell of old people's houses.

"The question was:

"What do you like most, really, in life?

"I was destined for sensibility.

"I was destined to become a writer.

"I was destined to become Jep Gambardella."

You paid no attention to me tonight!

Romano, don't start moaning, we're not an item.

- You liked that guy? - I like everyone and no one.

But I wonder why you're always with me when it's no one's turn.

- Will you take me to the airport? - Sure. What time are you leaving?

- In three hours. - Three hours?

Then I should crash on your sofa...

Go home, I need to pack and I don't want anyone around.

- But I live miles away. - See you at 8:00.

Goodnight.

Guys?

Children!

Run along!

Catellani?

The best, of course.

Did Catellani the tailor make your suit?

"There was no doubt about Malagna's shady intentions.

"The girl should be rescued at any cost, without loss of time."

Sir, you drank!

Just enough to forget my birthday.

- You want infusion? - Heavens, no!

- I got you a present. - How sweet!

This is a lucky charm from my country.

Good thing it's lucky, because it's pretty ugly.

Keep it on your bedside and stop complaining!

I will! And thanks. Wake me up at 15:00, you rascal.

You're funny when you call me that!

I don't love you!

Brilliant!

Did you enjoy the performance?

Parts of it.

That violent head-butt made me understand many things.

- Let's start from the beginning. - Or the end?

You know, Talia Concept loves to provoke.

Don't bother, there are more important things than provoking me.

And this habit of speaking in the third person is unbearable.

What are you reading?

I don't need to read, I live on vibrations, extra-sensory ones.

Extra-sensoriality aside,

what do you mean by vibrations?

The poetry of vibrations cannot be described with the vulgarity of words.

Well, try at least.

I'm an artist, I don't need to explain jack shit.

So I'll write: "Lives on vibrations, but she doesn't know what they are."

I'm starting to dislike this interview, I sense conflictuality in you.

- Conflictuality as a vibration? - As a pain in the ass.

Let's talk about my mum's abusive boyfriend.

No! I want to know what a vibration is.

It's my radar to intercept the world.

Your radar... meaning?

You're a pain in the ass.

We got off to a bad start...

Talia Concept wants to be interviewed by your paper, it has many readers.

But you're biased.

Write about how she has sex with her fiancé 11 times a day,

he's a talented conceptual artist,

he covers basketballs with confetti! He's sensational!

Talia Concept is talking about things that are meaningless to me.

All I've heard is unpublishable fluff.

You can't charm me with things like:

"I'm an artist, I don't need to explain".

Our paper has a core of cultured readers

that don't want to be taken for fools. I work for that core.

So let me talk about my eventful,

difficult but necessary journey as an artist!

Necessary for who?

For heaven's sake, madam, what is a vibration?

- I don't know. - You don't know.

You are an obsessive jerk!

I'll tell your editor to send me a journalist of a higher stature.

A piece of advice: when you speak to my editor,

go easy on the stature business. She's a dwarf, you know.

Jep, this interview is a hoot!

Maybe, but don't send me to interview someone who head-butts walls again.

- You know what the trick is? - Foam rubber.

Amateur dramatics isn't dead.

Did you get offended about the stature comment?

Don't be silly! That's the funniest bit!

I'm a dwarf, it's no secret.

It's the first and last thing everyone says about me.

You're a spectacular woman, Dadina.

You've had the career you deserve.

But you haven't had the career you deserve.

Maybe I don't have much to say...

Bullshit, you're lazy. You never leave Rome.

Go to Giglio to do that report on the Concordia I've asked you to do 50 times.

Re-heated rice is always tastier than freshly cooked rice.

The old is better than the new.

Plans tonight, chérie?

As the great De Blasi, my predecessor, said:

"Tonight I'll do two things, eat soup and have a shag."

Two things that contradict each other.

That's what I'd say too, and she'd reply, in a serious tone:

"No, Dadina, they don't, because they're both hot."

There's a publishing house in Ancona, it's not that small,

they want an interview book about you.

Another interview book? We're obsessed with interviews!

Can't you hear them? "As I always say"... to who?

Forget it!

And honestly, who'll buy a book called:

"Visions and revisions. Jep Gambardella's Galaxy"?

It's a serious title!

Unfortunately in this country, in order to be taken seriously,

you have to take yourself seriously.

I only wrote one novel, 40 years ago. Impossible to find too...

Bullshit, "The Human Apparatus" was a masterpiece!

It even won the... what was it?

- The Bancarella prize. - Shit, the Bancarella prize!

You're very kind, but forget it... it'd be too pompous.

I can't, you'll put me in an awkward position.

I've agreed and I've even accepted an advance...

- How much? - 1,500 euros.

Give it back, I'll give you 1,500 euros.

By the way, I spoke to the theatre people.

They'll give you three nights but you pay for the lights.

Who cares about that!

Jep, this is great news.

It's really great news. Thank you!

Are you still up?

It's time to go to bed.

That's Viola Bartoli, Bartoli's widow.

The guy who was killed, the actual Bartoli.

Viola has a 50 metre yacht that belonged to Himmler, the Nazi.

You know what I call Viola?

- No, what? - "To-good-to-poo".

- I don't understand. - Because she's pernickety.

Usually pernickety people don't poo.

When I introduced Trumeau to my family, my father said:

"Miss, before marrying my son, have you ever seen him poo?"

- How gross! - It's not as bad as you think.

Actually, my wife and I are the only couple in Italy who are in love.

Orietta, watch out for Lello.

Yes, I know.

He's the world's greatest salesman, he cons everyone.

In no time he'll get you to spend every penny on whatever he's selling.

You always flatter me.

Just because I express myself well doesn't mean I'm always working!

- What do you do? - I sell toys.

Not just in a shop,

he's a wholesaler on a global scale, he even sells to the Chinese!

What about him?