Jep has "More Than a Feeling" in The Great Beauty

 

Neapolitan director Paolo Sorrentino's film The Great Beauty (2013) is about a wealthy sybarite, Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), a city (Rome), and a country (Italy).  It is also a tribute to Italian cinema.  The unflattering and grotesque characters lack a sense of purpose.  Yet they populate a city with extraordinary beauty, which they could not replicate today. 

 

The occasion is Jep's 65th birthday.  He learns that his first love has died.  While hoofing around Rome he has numerous flashbacks including a scene where Elisa (Annaluisa Campasa) confronts him as a young man near the beach, exposing her teenage breasts and walking away. 

 

This film is loaded with beautiful music, sacred and profane.  Sacred includes:

 

1) the opening vocal "I Lie" composed by David Lang, performed by Torino Vocalesemble, with lyrics in Yiddish by Joseph Rolnick, at the church of San Pietro on the Janiculum hill. 

 

2) John Tavener and William Blake's "The Lamb," performed by the Choir of the Temple Church is also noteworthy. 

 

3) Polish composer Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3 known as "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," III Movement called the Lento - Cantabile Semplice which features a soprano.

 

4) "Dies Irae" by Zbigniew Preisner

 

5) "Beata viscera," c. 1200 - Magister Perotinus & Jan Garbarek

 

Profane includes Bob Sinclar & Raffaella Carra "Far L'Amore," which opens the party.

 

Yet the music that filled my head was the glorious vocal by Brad Delp (no falsetto he), lead singer for the band Boston, remembering Marianne, walking away in "More Than a Feeling."  Yes Jep, this is the tune that should be the voice inside your head !

 

 

Brad Delp is an amazing singer and his ever rising tenor in "More Than a Feeling" is legendary, ultimately hitting E (660 Hz) above high C (tenor C or C₅ is 525 Hz) on the line ending in "slipped away."

More Than a Feeling

I looked out this morning and the sun was gone
Turned on some music to start my day
I lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away

It's more than a feeling, when I hear that old song they used to play (more than a feeling)
I begin dreaming (more than a feeling)
'Till I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin' away

So many people have come and gone
Their faces fade as the years go by
Yet I still recall as I wander on
As clear as the sun in the summer sky

It's more than a feeling, when I hear that old song they used to play (more than a feeling)
I begin dreaming (more than a feeling)
'Till I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walkin' away

When I'm tired and thinking cold
I hide in my music, forget the day
And dream of a girl I used to know
I closed my eyes and she slipped away
She slipped away

It's more than a feeling, when I hear that old song they used to play (more than a feeling)
I begin dreaming (more than a feeling)
'Till I see Marianne walk away