‘Martin Eden’ is a enthralling meditation on individualism, class, and the limitations of art
By Emma Murphree | May 2021
Heralded by TIFF as “A passionate and enthralling narrative fresco in the tradition of the Italian classics”, Pietro Marcello’s 2019 film, Martin Eden, expertly blurs the line between archetypal adaptation of a classic novel, and glaring social critique of contemporary class conflict. Adapted from the 1909 Jack London novel of the same name, Martin Eden follows its eponymous protagonist over a period of several years, from his origins as a proletarian Neapolitan sailor to eminent novelist and poet. Martin’s trajectory is punctuated by a romance with a bourgeois Elena Orsini, whom he meets when he rescues her brother from a fight, and soon discovers has a mutual appreciation for the writings of Baudelaire. Orsini’s affluent background drives much of the film’s conflict. She pushes Martin to enroll in school, so as to rectify his poor education, yet is predictably ignorant of the ways in which Martin’s grim socioeconomic position would prevent him from doing so.
Despite his lack of formal education, Martin is resolute in his desire to become a writer. This aspiration is instigated in part, by his correspondences with Elena, who encourages him, yet makes several attempts to steer him away from writing about subjects she deems to be too depressing — these subjects being the plight of the Neapolitan working class and Martin’s own lived experiences. The play’s first act is rife with mounting tension as the class divide between Elena and Martin begins to reveal itself in increasingly uncomfortable ways, culminating in an argument between the two at a movie theater that exhumes Elena’s general dislike of any media depicting class struggle and/or violence. Fed up, Martin forces Elena to go with him to his Naples, overrun with pimps, prostitutes, and a general decrepitude that Elena finds traumatizing. This event irrevocably fractures their relationship, and they split up soon after.
Set against the backdrop of burgeoning class conflict and labor organizing, London’s socialist inclinations are equally central to Marcello’s adaptation as they were to the source material. Martin, initially sympathetic to the socialist movement, begins to question the socialist focus on collectivism. In a fervent speech he delivers to an assemblage of workers on strike, Martin espouses his politics of individualism, screaming “As soon as a society of slaves starts to organize itself without any respect for the individuals that compose it, so its decline begins!” Despite this, Martin is equally repudiating of capitalists, and later in the film argues with Elena’s father and his colleague at the Orsini dinner table.
The care and nuance with which Marcello traverses these discussions of class conflict is perhaps the most conspicuous in the film’s second act, which sees a newly individualistic Martin dedicating himself fully to writing, using what little funds he has to purchase books and a typewriter. The further Martin immerses himself in his desire to become a published writer, the further he strays from London’s socialist ideals, mirroring the way London himself experienced a shift in ideology as he became more successful. At times, the film’s politics can feel convoluted, as Marcello constructs a narrative awash with subjectivity. At the film’s core are several dichotomies, the most prominent and far-reaching being individualism v.s. collectivism, and politics v.s. art. The lines between each of these dichotomies are obliquely defined by Marcello, who does not try to manufacture a consensus in the viewer, but rather presents a complex and immersive narrative.
It is difficult to pinpoint the exact time period the film takes place in, in large part due to the subtly anachronistic costuming, sound, and production design — all of which evoke different eras within the twentieth century. This manipulation of time prompts us to examine how the history of art has more or less been dictated by the ruling class. If the only people allowed to dictate what kinds of art get produced are the wealthy and well-connected — and if we are to operate based off the assumption that art is the prism we view the world with — what real value does art have? Martin Eden speaks particularly well to the fear many creatives often have: that art is politically useless, especially when it is divorced from community, and thought of as purely an individual pursuit.
By the film’s epilogue, Martin, (now a vastly successful yet disillusioned writer,) appears to have come to this conclusion. Having strayed from the path of revolutionary and chosen the path of the individualistic artist, Martin loses sight of the collective and the integral role it plays in creating the great, and truly subversive art that he longs to make.
