“The bad poet” is a film directed by Gianluca Jodice and starring actor and director Sergio Castellitto, who plays the poet and poet Gabriele D’Annunzio in the last years of his life, spent at his villa called “Il Vittoriale degli Italians ”: the film was a huge success with the public and at the box office.
The bad poet, plot
The life of Gabriele D’Annunzio, the great poet and poet of Italian poetry, before 1921 was a riot of successes and glories, luxuries and lust, women and poetry. Following the First World War, D’Annunzio led the reconquest of the city of Fiume and managed to keep it in possession for sixteen months, also elaborating an innovative constitution.
The film “The bad poet”, however, speaks of the period following those glories.
In fact, in 1921 the poet, disappointed by the conclusion of the Rijeka experience, retired to live in a villa near Lake Garda, later nicknamed “The Vittoriale of the Italians“. The plot of the film focuses in particular on the events, between historical reality and just a few hints of fiction, which followed the year 1936. In fact, in those years a fascist soldier was sent to “Il Vittoriale”, Giovanni Comini, who will have the crucial mission of controlling Gabriele D’Annunzio, who could seriously jeopardize the alliance between Hitler and Mussolini.
The poet, however, with his fascinating gifts, will succeed in making the young Comini waver.
The bad poet, plot and cast
The absolute protagonist of the film is the director and actor Sergio Castellitto, known for the cinematographic transpositions of the books of his wife Margaret Mazzantini (Coming into the world, Don’t move). Castellitto, with his extreme skill in acting and also thanks to his excellent make-up and costumes, makes the poet of Italian poetry, Gabriele D’Annunzio, masterfully on screen.
At his side, in the cast, there are also the debut actor Francesco Patanè (in his first film role) who plays the federal Giovanni Comini, Tommaso Ragno (1992; Baby) in the role of Giancarlo Maroni, Clotilde Courau who plays the role of Amélie Mazoyer, Fausto Russo Alesi and, in the film, Achille Starace and Massimiliano Rossi plays the role of Commissioner Rizzo.
The bad poet, plot and details about the film
The director of the film, Gianluca Jodice, has recently arrived in the genre of the feature film but has already shown great skills, as can also be understood from the great success of his film on the Vate. The producers of the feature film are Andrea Paris and Matteo Rovere, the latter former director of historical productions such as The first king (2019) and Romulus (2020).
The film was almost all set in the historic home of Gabriele D’Annunzio, the Vittoriale degli Italiani, located on Lake Garda. In this splendid and sumptuous residence, the poet ‘isolated’ himself in the last years of his life, amidst unbridled luxuries and precious objects. Just the president of the Vittoriale degli Italiani Foundation Giordano Bruno Guerri he was of great help during the shooting, judging the film as a useful operation to reveal the true nature of the poet D’Annunzio, often veiled by enormous prejudices. Furthermore, according to Guerri, the film will also be an image operation for the Vittoriale.
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