Reel simulations: CGI and special effects in two films by Paolo Sorrentino.

Criticism on two recent films by director Paolo Sorrentino (<italic>La grande bellezza</italic>, 2013; <italic>Youth</italic>, 2015) has tended to identify them with a formalistic retreat from the afflicted state of the Italian nation. Instead of analysing these films according to their relation to historical reality, this article examines Sorrentino’s use of special effects and how form, reflexivity, and motion achieve new levels of cinematic expressivity in the digital format. It argues that the new techniques and technology utilized in these films represent a potentially positive creative direction, away from transparent, photographic realism and towards arrangements of visual illusion that are typical of global digital media in the age of media convergence. In order to substantiate this thesis, the essay traces material and theoretical connections between Italian filmmaking, its links with the stationary art of painting, and video games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]