You mean in terms of Elena vs. becoming a director? As I recall, isn’t the relationship effectively ended by her father’s disapproval and Salvatore’s induction into the army?
I’m referring more to the fact that Alfredo didn’t think he’d become a successful filmmaker if he was “bogged down” by a romance with Elena. And the film itself supports that notion. That’s why Alfredo told Elena to leave before she had her rendez vous with Toto at the movie theater.
But isn’t Elena just a personification of the innocence of our ideals? In that sense, the “danger” that Alfredo warns of is not of seeking or being disappointed by true love, but rather in the pursuit of ideals which can be readily attained.
If you recall the parable Alfredo recounts to young Toto, the soldier departs just before achieving the fruition of his devotion (the Princess’s love). Why is this admirable when it clearly defies common sense? Because Tornatore wants to remind us that, like a Soldier or a Lover, the Artist does not operate on the same plane of understanding. He or she must be ruthlessly single-minded about their purpose, to the point of self-denial, self-immolation and self-transcendence.
The beginning and the end of the film frame Toto’s redemption as the recovery of this “transcendent love.” it is not his feelings for Elena or even his passion for cinema: it is the universal and biological drive that compels us to act against our own self-interest and strive to commune with the gods. Some call it “Love.” I call it “metta.”
But you’re right; there’s no conflict of interest between art and love as long as both ideals elevate the selfless process over its product or reward.
“Tornatore wants to remind us that, like a Soldier or a Lover, the Artist does not operate on the same plane of understanding. He or she must be ruthlessly single-minded about their purpose, to the point of self-denial, self-immolation and self-transcendence.”
Or maybe he’s just trying to justify similar choices he made at that age? And, hey, wasn’t there a woman in his bed at the beginning of the film? So maybe it’s just those particulars that were “given up”?
Alvy: Well, I don’t know what I did wrong. I mean, I can’t believe this. Somewhere, she cooled off to me. Is it something that I did?
Old woman stranger: It’s never something you do. That’s how people are. LOVE FADES.
^unless of course you use a large vibrating egg
There is a notion in some artistic circles that in order to be great at anything one must devote one’s self completely to it. This applies to both creating art and loving women.
This notion has greatly eroded in modern liberal arts culture, but the paradigm that there must be a line drawn between somebody’s work life and their personal life is a relatively new concept. This idea that love and art are at odds is explored directly in Gertrud, where characters explicitly state that femininity is an enemy of masculine achievement. This all seems absurd in modern culture where a man is defined by his personal and familh life, but in a culture where a man was primarily defined by his career and his achievements, it makes a lot more sense.
I have to say I almost threw up when I saw this movie in the theater way back when. Ugh… disgustingly sentimental… just disgusting.
“…but in a culture where a man was primarily defined by his career and his achievements, it makes a lot more sense.”
And in a culture where women now have careers the way men do, the same can be said of them.
And honestly, some people can “hack” more than one thing in their life, and others are just born tunnel-vision. Just how it is.
However I have to say the notion of giving oneself over COMPLETELY to any one thing is a surrender of personal freedom. You may as well become a suicide bomber.
I think its Italy’s way of saying, “Look America, we’re not that elitist, we can be like Hollywood too, we’re not all about going Red Desert on your ass.”
I think, though, that it’s not just that the film is sentimental (which it certainly is), but that the film is actually about memory, nostalgia, and sentimentality. Alfredo tell him to leave and don’t give into sentimentality, don’t come back. And he doesn’t . . . until what you see in the film.
I would also suggest, though, that the reading that “he gave up his one true love” (or whatever) is itself a highly-romanticized, sentimentalist reading of the film.
I don’t know Matt, but it’s one of those films I don’t think I could see again without puking. Seriously. It took all this Italian sentimentality stuff, the worst of it, and stuffed it into as, ThisLife says, a “Hollywood” film. My native Italian mother bought it hook, line, and sinker, but I just couldn’t.
I liked the ‘Young child’ part of the film but disliked the later parts of the film. I don’t think I could watch it again.
One needs to make choices or perish/stagnate. Perhaps sometimes these choices will involve what may be great love versus what may be artistic greatness. Perhaps sometimes the choice will be between one form of self expression which is complemented by romantic love versus another form of self expression which is complemented by the lack of romantic love, and either choice will leave the chooser fulfilled in some ways and unfulfilled in others. Sometimes it’s a false choice, and the truth is that one must choose between both or neither, but which path leads to which end is not understood until it is too late. I have not seen this movie, so I can’t echo or contradict where it fits.
odilonvert – One might look at giving one’s self over COMPLETELY to any one thing as an acceptance of personal freedom rather than a surrender (or, as surrendering to it in the sense of giving one’s self to the idea of freedom as opposed to surrendering in the sense of giving it up, as I suspect you meant) if the individual is recognizing the magnitude of that choice and is consciously making it every time it arises (as opposed to acting by routine).
Yeah, don’t get me wrong—it’s far from being a favorite and I have no interest in every seeing it again.
Facepalm
No. Just no.
Toto isn’t happy in his life, even as a famous director. Nobody discounts his art, even him, but notice how we never see it, it’s never an important part of the plot, it’s never shown. What’s shown is his true love/s, cinema, Alfredo, blue-eyed Elena—and their consummation of elements into one single form in the closing fucking montage. What, you skipped 90% of the goddamned movie to decide that how Toto’s life turned out because of Alfredo’s decision is the point the movie is trying to make? News: a character’s decision is not always, in fact is seldom, a storyteller’s belief. The character represents a view, one view, possibly part of the storyteller but also recognized as an impulse, a part of a wider collection of decisions.
To say that this movie sez art > love is to ignore, let’s see…. the closing montage already mentioned, the mother’s soliloquy preceding, the framing of his relationship with the woman before the flashback, the recurrent element of the slips nailed to the walls, the construction of how the movie is “seen” through Toto’s loving eyes, the laugh as old Toto finally sees how he has been deceived by Alfredo and accepts the digression, the anchors in the sand, the anchors in the sand the second time when Toto and Elena get back together, the reveal of Elena talking to Alfredo, Alfredo’s lectures about being stuck in the booth, the doppelganger matching between the Public Square Fool and Alfredo, the length of time which is a great length of time that Toto watches movies instead of understands his own townspeople, which also is shown with his acknowledgment of misunderstanding his mother, and the point.
To say that this movie is “I think its Italy’s way of saying, “Look America, we’re not that elitist, we can be like Hollywood too, we’re not all about going Red Desert on your ass.”” is to ignore first and foremost the direct Michelangelo Antonioni reference, as well as the social cinema references, the documentary references, the gradiating adult cinema references, the neorealism references, and those other variety of anywhere from white-phone, silent, homegrown Italian, sandal and sand epic, giallo, horror, and mythological films made and appreciated by Italians. The movie may be sentimental in that it fully embraces the “magic” of cinema, but that magic is self-aware with its points about how the various visual codes attracted and spoke to the audiences, anywhere from the sentimental family movies to the discussions of the villagers after leaving the Visconti film on Sicilian fisherman, the mob that gathers and the two-shot of the two illiterate Italians, the audience in abject silence and the audience in motion, and even the masturbation, catcalling, spitting, fucking, quoting, and cheering that could be found in audiences over cinematic history. Which is like 40% of the friggin’ movie.
So in other words, no, the dramatic element of a single character making a life-altering decision that affects the course of the movie is not the ultimate and specified theme of the entire movie about a completely different character and how he gradually learns to amalgamate his loves together into an understanding of himself.
—PolarisDiB
I still hate it. (the movie)
@A. — I see what you mean. But I guess I am too willful a person to give up everything to any one thing without feeling as if it were a surrender, a taking, an imprisonment, a slavery. Freedom from making choices is what that amounts to, but for me that is no freedom. It’s giving up the ability to be a distinct person from the blob of whatever it is you are mushing yourself into in the name of “sacrifice.”
For me, that will only work when I’m dead and mingle with the earth.
“how he gradually learns to amalgamate his loves together into an understanding of himself.”
Right.
ThisLife
News to me. It’s one thing to make a film about a man who gave up love in pursuit of his art. It’s something else to make a film that actually supports and promotes this philosophy about love. Vulgar if you ask me.