The transition from the 19th to the 20th century in Neapolitan history is called the Belle Epoque, and it was a time when cultural and social life was at its peak. The greatest star of the Neapolitan theater was Eduardo Scarpetta (the famous Italian actor Toni Servillo, born in the vicinity of Naples, won the prize for the best actor in Venice, where “Qui rido io” or “The King of Laughter” premiered in the main program), a man of humble origin who became famous with comedies and the character of Felice Sciosciammocca, who could also be described as the Neapolitan forerunner of Charlie Chaplin and his Tramp. For Scarpetta, the theater was everything, and his wives, lovers, partners, relatives and numerous legitimate and illegitimate children performed with him in the theater.
Scarpetta was a huge star of his time, a real forerunner of today’s acting and even rock stars, a man who during the film’s duration was already over fifty, but he still “dusts” everything that comes his way and uses his status as much as he can. However, the focus of the film, shot by the Neapolitan Mario Martone, an experienced filmmaker who has set most of his films in and around Naples, is the dispute between Scarpetta and Gabriele D’Annunzio. Those who carefully listened to history lessons may remember D’Annunzio as an ultra-nationalist, the real forerunner and ideological originator of Mussolini’s fascism, who occupied Rijeka with the army of black shirts in 1919. The occupation lasted 16 months and during that time D’Annunzio introduced terror, but before he became the occupier, he was the most popular Italian writer of the late 19th and early 20th century, along with the later Nobel laureate and also a member of the fascist party, Luigi Pirandello.
In 1904, Scarpetta decided to make a parody based on D’Annunzi’s tragedy “La figlia di lorio”, and although the latter gave him verbal approval, a claim of plagiarism soon followed. It was also the first lawsuit for infringement of intellectual rights in Italy, and although it seemed that the court case could mean the end for Scarpetta, he decided to fight the way he knows best – with irony, satire and comedy. As history teaches us, guys with dictatorial, authoritarian tendencies didn’t really have a sense of humor, and Scarpetta was almost a forerunner of Larry Flint, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, and all those who fought for free speech.
Although the story is quite drawn out and at times a bit boring, Martone made a convincing biographical drama in which, in addition to the standard excellent performance by Servillo, the strongest trump card is the excellent presentation of space and time. The Naples of 120 years ago is perfectly depicted here, just as the spirit of the times was correctly captured, and this film also had 12 nominations for the David di Donatello award, i.e. for the Italian film of the year. He won “Qui rido io” at the end of two Davids, and one of them went to – Eduardo Scarpetta. And I was not confused because the son of the famous actor Vincenzo was played by the young Italian actor Eduardo Scarpetta, who is called the same as his great-great-grandfather.