Neapolitan Leopardi and the Naples of Mario Martone

Abstract

To make a biopic of any writer is an effort almost inevitably doomed to failure. Filming the life of Leopardi was a hard challenge. During the study of Il giovane favoloso, however, something unexpected came up: Martone was not interested so much in the poet of Recanati, as in Leopardi's Neapolitan and final period. A great part of the film, in fact, deals with and also invents episodes of his and Antonio Ranieri’s life in Naples. Martone’s strong connection with Naples is apparent in the treatment of the city, from the camera shots to the use of colors and the intensity of the scenes. Watching the movie I realized that the film the director wanted to make was on Naples, as he had done in many of his earlier works. And Leopardi’s final period gave him a perfect excuse to do this. Il giovane favoloso ends with a dramatic scene of erupting Vesuvius while the voice of the poet recites his final canto “La ginestra.” But Martone’s dialogue with Leopardi had already started years before in “La salita”, an episode in the film I vesuviani. There the director describes the climb of mount Vesuvius that the mayor of Naples, interpreted by Tony Servillo, undertakes to reflect upon the changes his city has undergone, its corruption, and the compromises he has been forced to accept. It could be interpreted as the realization of the presumption and fallibility of humankind Leopardi so well portrayed in “La ginestra,” that is, as his prophecy.