- Italy
MARTIN EDEN
Synopsis
Martin Eden (Luca Marinelli) is a sailor, uneducated and without prospects, when he comes to the aid of a young man from a good family in a street fight in Naples. The family invites him over out of gratitude, and Martin encounters a world of books, manners and conversation – and Elena, the sister of the man he rescued. He resolves to become a writer and starts teaching himself everything this class has a head start on him in. The rise succeeds against rejection and hunger, but the closer Martin comes to his goal, the more estranged he grows from the people for whom he set it. “Martin Eden” (Italy, 2019) by Pietro Marcello transposes Jack London’s 1909 novel from California to a Naples with no fixed decade.
Marcello mixes archive footage and staged scenes and tells of self-education, class and the price of success. At the Venice Film Festival 2019 the film competed for the Golden Lion; Luca Marinelli won the Volpi Cup for best actor. “Martin Eden” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2019.
Festival
Shown at the 2019 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
