Movie: Martin Eden
Genre: Drama
Director: Pietro Marcello
Writers: Maurizio Bracci, Pietro Marcello
Starring: Luca Marinelli, Jessica Cesi
Release Date: September 2, 2019 (Venice Film Festival)
Awards: 76th Venice Film Festival Main Competition Unit - Best Actor, etc
Martin Eden is a semi-autobiographical novel by American writer Jack London, and the film version of Martin Eden is set in Italy when filmed, with relatively deep cultural barriers, unfamiliar languages, and even not English. The shooting style is very similar to the Hong Kong films or music MVs of the 1990s, the protagonists pass through the streets of different places, the crowds are crowded, the characters are displayed in a portrait style, the camera is pointed at the camera to reveal a sad or happy look, like watching silent films, there is a sense of alienation and memory, and even unwilling to look at it directly, which is different from the viewing experience, mainly because of the unwillingness to remember those colored memories.
The transformation of a poor man into a high-society writer is originally an inspirational story, but the film focuses more on Martin Eden's psychological struggles and spiritual changes in the process, which is an abstract and private philosophical level of thinking, trying to question the ultimate meaning of the universe and the value of life. A person's wandering by the sea gives Martin Eden a lot of blank space, but these blank parts are filled with the oppression of reality, making the poetry soaked with the hard blood tears and cries of the poor people at the bottom who are trying their best to survive, and also making the character image gradually full. To become a writer from a poor man is not an idealist's hollow, but the feat of a realist to break through the class and make his voice heard.
If it were not for miss Irina, a young sailor, Martin Eden would still be a poor person who did not graduate from elementary school and has been at the bottom of society for many years. Miss Irina was very fond of him, lent him many books to read, and was his enlightenment teacher, suggesting that he must be educated in order to think independently and have a future. Martin Eden himself was also very motivated, going to the old book shop to buy a lot of books in one go, using his spare time to read hard and try to write.
After a series of unemployment, Martin Eden saw the newspaper call for papers and came up with the idea of becoming a writer. Martin Eden is doing something that breaks through the class limits of society, not only to prove for himself whether it is feasible for the uneducated to be a writer, but also to try to tear off the labels that the people around him have attached to him. Later, Martin Eden fell out with his brother-in-law, left his sister's family, and went to the countryside to rent a house to write alone, he had to resist the pressure of life, break his knowledge gaps, class restrictions, and Elena's relationship also became precarious, love could not solve everything, writing could not.
Desperate, Martin finally received a notice of acceptance for the novel, paid 200,000 lira. Since then, he has gradually become a well-known writer. It is not easy to accomplish these things, and people's perseverance, and even later success, is not an extremely mission-oriented and forward-looking thing. People who ultimately succeed in accomplishing something may not have strong beliefs, wills, or even superior visions at the beginning, but may only be a little stronger than others, a little more ideas, and the real factor that makes them successful is diligence, that is, they are tempered by all aspects when doing things. Even sometimes just watch one step at a time, can not stop, must persist, stop one step will all collapse, forced by helplessness, must go on.
Writing must not only have a philosophical stance, but also a person must choose a stance, even if nothing is chosen. Under the impact of various philosophical positions, it is not a certain doctrine that separates Martin and Elena, but that they are not a type of person in the first place, and it is also under the packaging of "philosophical cloaks" that the film becomes a little difficult. After becoming a famous writer, Martin lived a luxurious life, with fame and fortune, but lost himself. Writing itself has no meaning, it is life that gives it value, and the subject of life is people, live well, know yourself well, once you lose yourself, it is equivalent to losing everything, this is an eternal topic.
Martin Eden and Gatsby have a lot in common, starting from the bottom, going through hardships and obstacles, and joining the upper class, but everything on the outside cannot change his origin, memory and the world in his eyes, no matter how much they have, they will still worry about what they can't get, compared with the short "possession", the eternal "loss" is the norm of life. So, they lose themselves in an extremely painful emptiness, unable to accept the fact that the imaginary end is only the beginning, unable to really control life because they are always looking outward and not letting the soul keep pace with the body.
It's just that Martin Eden took the initiative to make a choice, and people would rather not want anything, but also know who they really are, which comes from the attachment to the beginning of life.