Adapted from a 1909 novel by Jack London, yet set in a provocatively unspecified moment in Italy’s history, Martin Eden is a passionate and enthralling narrative fresco in the tradition of great Italian classics like Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard or Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900. Martin (played by the marvelously committed Luca Marinelli) is a self-taught proletarian with artistic aspirations, who hopes that his dreams of becoming a writer will help him rise above his station and marry a wealthy young university student (Jessica Cressy). The dissatisfactions of working-class toil and bourgeois success lead to political awakening and destructive anxiety in this enveloping, superbly mounted bildungsroman.
Martin Eden is directed by rapidly emerging Italian auteur Pietro Marcello (whose The Mouth of the Wolf is also available for rent through the Museum’s Virtual Cinema), and was awarded the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Director Pietro Marcello | 2019 | In Italian, Neapolitan and French with English subtitles | 129 minutes | NR
