Sorrentino’s ‘Hand of God’ now on Netflix
Youth and heroes inform recent autobiography
The Hand of God refers to the fans’ nickname for soccer’s legendary player Diego Maradona. Now “The Hand of God” is Paolo Sorrentino’s latest award-winning Italian film.
An expansive autobiographi- cal memoir that acknowledges Divine Intervention, “Hand” follows Sorrentino’s teenage altar ego, Fabietto Schisa (Filippo Scotti).
In Naples, Maradona’s soccer exploits are the center of his world until a life-changing incident marks his coming of age.
Last year at 50, when he conceived “Hand,” did Sorrentino worry he might be too young to reflect on his 15-year-old self ?
“I thought it was the right age because turning 50 is a very important divide. An important part of your career is over and the future allows me to do only necessary things,” Sorrentino said in Italian via a translator during a Zoom interview.
Fabietto shares his bedroom with his brother, an aspiring actor who auditions for a Federico Fellini movie. “That part of the movie is absolutely true,” Sorrentino said.
Fellini’s autobiographical “Amarcord” ranks among the late filmmaker’s most beloved and well-known pictures. “Fellini was very important for me in general, less so in this movie. ‘Amarcord’ was an autobiography with a significant invention component. Where in my case it’s a very real autobiography. He was a great influence when I did ‘The Great Beauty’ but for this? Not so much.”
Sorrentino won the Academy Award, a Golden Globe and BAFTA for “Great Beauty.” Now he’s back in the awards race.
“Because I’ve already been through this,” he reflected, “I understood the result of a race for awards was something that requires a convergence of several factors which cannot be governed. All you can do is your job and see what happens.”
As to what happens next, Sorrentino is not worried. “I know myself after 10 movies. I knew after the first few that I must wait for the project to arrive in my mind. Now, I am waiting for the project to happen.”
With “The Young Pope” and “The New Pope,” successful English-language projects, he doesn’t look at projects that way.
“I don’t have preferences. Stories come in different sizes,” he said. “Certain stories are more suitable for TV and others, in terms of their size, are better for film. It depends on the story that I decide what format works best.
“As for filming in English, at a certain point a story takes over and prevails. This could be an Italian story or it could be a story that would work well in English. To me what truly matters is, do you identify the right story?”
“The Hand of God” streams on Netflix starting Dec. 15.