Eduardo Scarpetta according to Mario Martone: the Neapolitan director presented in competition at the Venice Film Festival “Qui rido io”, a film focused on the greatest author and actor of the Neapolitan theater between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.
The progenitor of the Scarpetta-De Filippo dynasty, the great artist was the father of Eduardo, Peppino and Titina De Filippo, unrecognized children, among the many that Scarpetta had with different women.
In this feature film that tries to imagine the life of Scarpetta and all the people who revolve around him, the narrative focuses on the family and the theater, two areas inextricably linked since the “king of the box office of the time” made practically anyone act had blood ties to him.
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The parody of “The daughter of Iorio”
However, there is also another fundamental event dealt with in the film, when, at the height of his success, Scarpetta takes a dangerous venture: he makes the parody of “The daughter of Iorio” by Gabriele D’Annunzio.
On the evening of the debut in the theater, an uproar breaks out: the comedy is interrupted by screams and whistles and Scarpetta ends up being denounced for plagiarism by D’Annunzio himself. Thus began the first historic lawsuit on copyright in Italy. Two years after “The Mayor of the Rione Sanità”, Martone is back in competition in Venice with a film fully in its strings, which mixes cinema and theater, reality and fiction, acting on stage and family problems.
A large cast
As in his other feature films, the staging of the Neapolitan director could appear simple and scholastic, but also in this case his great ability to orchestrate the editing times and the attention to every detail of the packaging manage to give a remarkable visual spectacle to the viewer. . Mixing drama and comedy, “Qui rido io” is a product capable of both offering good entertainment and leaving the viewer different food for thought.