Trailer
Assistive Technologies

Martin Eden

Runtime
2hrs 9mins
Directed by
Pietro Marcello
Featuring
Luca Marinelli, Jessica Cressy, Vincenzo Nemolato
Film Language
Italian
Body

Through our Virtual Screening Room, you can rent films curated by the Coolidge team, while helping to support the Coolidge during this unprecedented time.

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 the great Italian classics. 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.

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Plus, watch a short introduction from star Luca Marinelli below:

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Reviews
Review Text

An absolute blast. Includes documentary footage, wealthy decadence, left-wing politics, angry speeches (in Italian!), beautiful women, square-jawed men, quotations from Baudelaire and the heroic deployment of manual typewriters, hand-rolled cigarettes, ascots and Volvo sedans. Everything I love in movies, more or less.

Review Author
A.O. Scott
Review Publication
The New York Times
Review Text

One of the most epic-feeling Italian movies in years, A throwback to '70s-era big-canvas statements. Lead actor Luca Marinelli, rousing in every scene, comes within hailing distance of the young Robert De Niro.

Review Author
Joshua Rothkopf
Review Publication
Time Out New York
Review Text

A kaleidoscopic historical fantasia that seems possessed by the ghosts of italian cinema.

Review Author
Imogen Sara Smith
Review Publication
Film Comment

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