Martin Eden

Martin Eden
Martin Eden
Martin Eden
Martin Eden
Martin Eden
NOW AVAILABLE TO OWN OR VIEW ON DEMAND
Martin Eden poster - a film by Pietro Marcello
One of my favourite films of the past year. I really recommend it.
A powerful film with a compelling central performance. Dramatically and emotionally immensely satisfying.
David Stratton
THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
An Italian saga worthy of high praise. The director comes from documentary and trained initially as a painter, which is obvious - the film has rich archaic colours and a couple of moments so beautiful you’d think Caravaggio was his gaffer. Luca Marinelli’s performance is mesmerising - It helps that he is broodingly beautiful, somewhere between Brando and Belmondo... A star in born.
Brilliant. A ravishing adaptation of Jack London’s 1909 Künstlerroman. Marinelli is magnificent in the title role.
Outstanding. Deserves a big audience. It's a huge film in its themes, its characters and ambitions. Never have I seen a film that makes such a drama from the writer’s creative frenzy, the obsessive-compulsive need to reach an audience. It’s the heady mix of sex, politics and high idealism that transforms this story of an aspiring writer into a parable... a modern 'Pilgrim’s Progress'.
Compelling. A rattling good yarn with an unusual combination of drama and intelligence.
Glorious! A triumphant adaptation of Jack London's novel. Luminously shot on 16mm film, it’s both a richly textured bildungsroman and a rambling cultural, political and historical panorama.
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.
Luminous cinema. The tense, emotional energy behind Martin’s archetypal European hero’s journey (think: Faust, Hamlet) is expressive and dynamic. Among all else, Marcello’s re-telling of “Martin Eden” is an indictment of pandering art, much like James Gray or Martin Scorsese’s call to a more challenging, illuminating, and thoughtful expression of filmmaking. And it’s dazzling ambit goes to show that such films aren’t limited by that directive, so much as they are set free by it.
A masterpiece. Agonisingly beautiful.
Director: Pietro Marcello
Cast: Luca Marinelli, Carlo Cecchi, Jessica Cressy, Vicenzo Nemolato, Marco Leonardi, Denise Sardisco, Carmen Pommella
Duration: 129mins
Country of Origin: Italy
M
Coarse language and a sex scene
One of my favourite films of the past year. I really recommend it.
A powerful film with a compelling central performance. Dramatically and emotionally immensely satisfying.
David Stratton
THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
An Italian saga worthy of high praise. The director comes from documentary and trained initially as a painter, which is obvious - the film has rich archaic colours and a couple of moments so beautiful you’d think Caravaggio was his gaffer. Luca Marinelli’s performance is mesmerising - It helps that he is broodingly beautiful, somewhere between Brando and Belmondo... A star in born.
Brilliant. A ravishing adaptation of Jack London’s 1909 Künstlerroman. Marinelli is magnificent in the title role.
Outstanding. Deserves a big audience. It's a huge film in its themes, its characters and ambitions. Never have I seen a film that makes such a drama from the writer’s creative frenzy, the obsessive-compulsive need to reach an audience. It’s the heady mix of sex, politics and high idealism that transforms this story of an aspiring writer into a parable... a modern 'Pilgrim’s Progress'.
Compelling. A rattling good yarn with an unusual combination of drama and intelligence.
Glorious! A triumphant adaptation of Jack London's novel. Luminously shot on 16mm film, it’s both a richly textured bildungsroman and a rambling cultural, political and historical panorama.
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.
Luminous cinema. The tense, emotional energy behind Martin’s archetypal European hero’s journey (think: Faust, Hamlet) is expressive and dynamic. Among all else, Marcello’s re-telling of “Martin Eden” is an indictment of pandering art, much like James Gray or Martin Scorsese’s call to a more challenging, illuminating, and thoughtful expression of filmmaking. And it’s dazzling ambit goes to show that such films aren’t limited by that directive, so much as they are set free by it.
A masterpiece. Agonisingly beautiful.

"THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR" - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
WINNER – VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - Best Actor
WINNER – TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL - Platform Prize (Best Film)
OFFICIAL SELECTION – BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL SELECTION – NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL

Bold and dazzling, acclaimed writer/director Pietro Marcello’s multi award-winning drama MARTIN EDEN provocatively transposes Jack London’s 1909 novel about a self-taught and outspoken writer out of the American West and into a pivotal moment in Italy’s pre-war history.

Thirty-something sailor Martin Eden (remarkable newcomer Luca Marinelli) is inspired to remake himself as a novelist, following a chance encounter with the sophisticated, wealthy Elena (the luminous Jessica Cressy). She immediately becomes not only the object of his passionate affections, but also the symbol of the status Martin aspires to achieve. Pursuing his newfound social and literary obsessions, Martin abandons his friends and working-class roots without hesitation, but eventually undergoes a political awakening that triggers yet another change.

A passionate and enthralling cinematic achievement in the tradition of Rossellini and Visconti, Pietro Marcello’s enveloping and superbly-mounted fable interweaves historical footage with an extraordinary production design of his own. The film’s ideas are universal and timeless: the hypocrisy of class, the disillusionment of ideologies, the limits of romanticism and realism, and the question of what it means, ultimately, to be an individual.

Martin Eden poster - a film by Pietro Marcello

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NOW AVAILABLE TO OWN OR VIEW ON DEMAND